Async-First Doesn’t Mean Async-Only

Key Takeaways Asynchronous discussions can lose momentum because participants are focused on different tasks. For complex or important topics, it’s often better to switch to synchronous communication. At least in my experience working in a Japanese-speaking organization, AI-generated messages are often still too verbose to send as-is. As writing becomes cheaper, it’s even more important to reduce the cognitive load on readers. Async-first does not mean async-only. Keeping written records while introducing short meetings when necessary can reduce the overall cost of communication. Context I currently work from Vancouver, Canada, for a fully remote and fully flexible organization based in Japan. Since everyone works on their own schedule, much of our day-to-day communication, decision-making, and discussion happens asynchronously. There are many benefits to this way of working. People can think at their own pace, and discussions naturally leave a written record. As someone who is fairly introverted, I also appreciate having time to think through my ideas before sharing them. Recently, however, I’ve started to realize that keeping every discussion asynchronous is not always the most efficient approach. Complex discussions are expensive to read When discussing multiple options, I usually start by sharing my recommendation, then document the reasoning behind it and the pros and cons of alternative approaches. The more complicated the topic becomes, the longer the document becomes. Writing requires effort, but so does reading. Someone has to understand the background, process the trade-offs, form an opinion, and respond. Lately, I’ve become more aware of the reader’s cost than the writer’s. In our company, Japanese is the shared language, and much of our written communication is now assisted by AI. While AI makes it easier to produce long documents, the resulting text can still be unnecessarily verbose or difficult to follow. AI makes writing cheaper. It does not necessar