A message—whether an email, voice-mail, sticky note, or blog post—is just a mini presentation. It’s a way of conveying information to an audience. To effectively do so, I try to adhere to the following 3 principles.

1. Be brief. Say what you need to say and nothing more. Keeping it simple will allow your audience to understand and remember what you want them to.
2. Be detailed. In what you do choose to say, tell the audience specifically what they need to know, including quantities, hard deadlines, and delivery.
3. Have structure. Write, record, annotate, say, or outline your message in an organized manner, so there is no confusion.

If you are brief, detailed, and structured when conveying information to an audience, your message will be loud and clear. Just be sure you have something important to say…