10 Ways I Speed Up Async Projects

A significant amount of our content work involves us wastefully waiting for the client to respond. I think about this a lot … often while awaiting those responses.

I’ve written about this before—like the time a client project dragged on 10 months though our part only took 26 days. (I wrote those 15,000 words in just one week.) This happens repeatedly in workplaces around the world: Many projects are mostly wasted time. And it’s fine if you like that. But if you too are irked by inefficiency, you may find this Longview issue cathartic and useful. 

Here, I present a variety of methods this team has adopted to eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth. You can use them to advance projects. I’ll explain through an example. 

Let’s say your boss or client emails and says, “Let’s write an interview series.” Here are 10 accelerants.

1. Think on your meet

It’s fine to schedule a call to discuss. But before it occurs, do as much pre-call thinking as you can. Share the questions you plan to ask and prompt your boss to do the same. Maybe, you’ll both realize a third person should be present, and now you’ve just avoided a second call and extra waiting. Or maybe your boss says, “Good point, let’s write a brief first.” (Huzzah!)

This is one reason I avoid recurring meetings. If the meeting is fixed, most people wait to do anything until 30 minutes before. Whereas, without that standing crutch, they’ll complete the work earlier.

Example response to your boss: “Do you already have interviewees in mind?”

Result: +5 days

2. Answer your own questions with hypotheticals

Notice how in the prior example response, you asked your boss a question? You can do better. Text exchanges introduce long delays; why not pre-answer your own questions using hypotheticals? If you anticipate their response and then your response, you can compact six exchanges into one.

Example response: “Do we already have interviewees in mind? If you already have those connections and they are warm, this timeline sounds reasonable. I have two people in mind provided the criteria is that they are C-level marketers.”

Result: +90 minutes

3. Offer options

Busy people often defer their review because they can’t spare the brainpower. Slash the response cost with options. (You’ll notice salespeople do this.) 

Example response: “Just to make things easy, which is best? A. I run with it B. You run with it C. Let’s actually huddle for 10 right now.”

Result: + 1 day

4. Signal how little effort it is to review

Always contextualize how much effort a review will take. Respondents won’t know what’s in the document and will wait to click the link, fearing the worst. Counteract this by telling them precisely how long it’ll take so they simply knock it out.

Example response: “This’ll only take 10 minutes.”

Result: +2 days

5. Send a video

Clarify your thinking with a video so they don’t spend long hours trying to guess your intent. Bonus points for signaling how long it takes to watch the video. (Vidyard or Loom are great.)

Example response: “Here’s a walkthrough video (3:00)”

Result: + 60 minutes

6. Set “strong defaults” 

Rather than wait for people to respond, tell them what you’ll do if you don’t hear back by a certain time. At Fenwick, we call this a “strong default”—you’re saying, “This project is on rails. It’s moving forward with or without you, to hit the timeline you set. Please provide input by X date, after which I will proceed with or without input based on my best judgment.”

Strong defaults are powerful because often, people are unrealistic about their capacity to review. And often, their review isn’t vital.

Example response: “If I don’t hear back from you by 12pm tomorrow (not to worry—I know how much you have on your plate), I’m going to proceed with my interviewees.”

Result: +4 days

7. Pre-address future roadblocks

Some disasters are avoidable and eat up precious time. Explore yours with the phrase, “My biggest fear.” As in, “My biggest fear is you say you’ll want to review but won’t have time.” (Making it your own fear softens the message.)

Example response: “My biggest fear is X and Y interviewees will be unresponsive; this happened once before. Can we agree that if they don’t respond by Z date, we’ll backfill with N and R?”

Result: +9 days

8. Pre-elect the final approver

Lots of things get stuck in committee. Grease the review by trimming the review team (never more than 1-3 credible people) and by being very specific about what they should review for. We call this setting a container for feedback: Tell them the context for this asset, its goal, the audience, the feedback you want at this stage, the feedback you don’t, and a deadline.

Result: +2 days

9. Always set a deadline

This is part of the feedback container, but it’s worth its own heading. You may fear you’re being overly demanding but to busy people, deadlines are a gift. It helps them prioritize. They can always negotiate.

Example response: “Are you able to review by X date? If not, please let me know when.”

Result: +2 days

10. Teach others to give helpful feedback

Commenting on someone’s work to say, “I don’t like this” is lazy and cruel. How could they possibly know what you mean? Same with, “Show me more options.” You could go in circles forever on feedback like that. It's a total abnegation of responsibility. Be clearer. Ask for specifics, offer specifics, and teach others to do the same.

Teach all involved to give feedback that is: 

• Specific—has few possible interpretations.
• Justified—why does it matter?
• Weighted—is it crucial or trivial?
• Nonviolent—always omit judgment.

Example response: “I like it. But given we sell to executives who likely won’t care about tactics, this feels like a digression. Can we reduce this to just what they need to know? To me, that would make it more relevant. (Crucial).”

Result: +60 minutes

How much time did we just save?

Nearly a month. You can cut many projects in half just by thinking ahead, considering hypotheticals, and not always waiting for a call to figure out that you didn’t actually need the call.

This level of project management isn’t for everybody. But among clients we’re a fit for, it’s welcome and celebrated.

 How to apply today’s story

Pick one of the above and implement it for all of July and August. Schedule a calendar reminder for the end to evaluate. Did it make a difference? If so, adopt a second.

In the next issue

How we brought our client’s murder mystery campaign to life. 

Inside Fenwick

Join me on July 11 at 8am PT for a talk with Ryan Paul Gibson, founder of Uplift Content, about how his broadcast journalism background helps him pack all his customer research into just eight interviews.

Join and learn his strategy.

Learning insights

If you haven't given one of our tiny courses a try, hundreds of writers and marketers say they're a 9.6 out of 10.

Worth reading

How do we not lose the humanity? At a recent dinner with heads of creative at companies you’ve heard of, we discussed the role of AI. Everyone agrees: Human-made stuff remains supreme. We must preserve it. (Hosted by Capsule; no affiliation, but I use their app for my videos and recommend it.)

60% of content is wasted? (Video; my own.)

No more "make it pop." (Throwback; my own.)

Examples of brand manifestos.

A good story about investigating your stats.

Underlord. I loved this product name by the video software Descript.

On managing a thriving group chat. Long, but absent any unnecessary parts.

Best printer. The Verge’s poignant counterpoint to the idea that SEO keyword stuffing doesn’t work. This has long been a top-ranked article for printers. 

Taste. An interview with Daniel Pink.

Superpower. Nice journey of a website.

Enjoying Longview? Share with someone you love.