Ways to distinguish yourself – #61 Package information for easy consumption

I have talked about the topic of simplicity before and the need for simplifying things in general. This is an extension to that topic.

Let me start with an example. Last week I was supposed to pick up two
folks from San Francisco Airport and both of these people sent me their
travel details. Both were coming from India so the itinerary was very
(very) long. One of them had forwarded his itinerary and I had to
search through the whole thing just to find out the flight number and
the arrival time in San Francisco. The other person though had a
different approach. He had forwarded the itinerary but had added a note
in the beginning with the following information

a) Flight Number (Singapore Airlines SQ2)
b) Time of arrival
c) Link to a site where you can track the flight arrival online
d) Telephone number of local Singapore Airlines airport office

What a difference it made. I just had to print this and keep it with me
for the day of his arrival. I am sure it took a while for this person
to compile all the information but it saved a ton of time for me. The
rest of the travel information was almost irrelevant for me so I didn’t
have to look at that. Time saved again.

Because we are so busy, we take shortcuts and send data and expect the other person to figure it out the real information from within this data. This may work well but imagine if one of your peers is always “Packaging information for easy consumption“, he or she will instantly differentiate and stand-out from the crowd.

How could you design any information that you send out is packaged brilliantly and in a manner that is easy to consume?

Something to think about.