Writing for Skimmers: Structure Beats Style
Readers scan for the part that concerns them, then leave. Treating that as a failure of attention is a losing position. It is simply the condition your writing operates in.
Front-load every unit
Put the conclusion first — in the message, in each section, in each paragraph. A skimmer reading only opening lines should still get the argument.
Detail goes after the claim, where the interested reader will find it and everyone else can skip it.
Headings are navigation, not decoration
A heading that says "Background" tells the reader nothing about whether to stop. One that says "Why we moved the deadline" does.
Write headings that carry the point. Someone reading only those should come away with the summary.
One idea per paragraph
Two ideas in a paragraph means the second one gets skipped, because the reader decided at the first line whether this block was relevant.
Splitting costs nothing and roughly doubles what survives a skim.
Make the action impossible to miss
If there is something to do, it should be visually distinct — its own line, at the top or the end, never buried mid-paragraph.
Structure is what makes it findable. No amount of good sentence-writing compensates for an ask hidden in the middle of a block of text.