The Point
You should be creating less - but more meaningful - content instead of spewing out meandering, long-form filler just to hit arbitrary goals.
Why Fewer Words Matter
To be blunt: attention spans are shit.
- Phones full of apps, notifications, ads everywhere, digital billboards, streaming, YouTube, TikTok - a person can only divide their attention so many ways.
As we enter an era where generative AI will solve all our content needs, it's important to remember that creating more content is counterintuitive to the modern, short attention span.
- Your content (or service... or product...) competes with hundreds of other distractions during a person's day - cut the crap and say what needs to be said
- Don't join the noise; it's tempting to push your content out as alerts/notifications/etc. to be top-of-mind, but you'll just be part of the problem
- Focus on quality (value) rather than quantity (noise)
- Remote meetings are the hardest: you don't know what distractions are stealing attention from your participants; be bold, be brief, and get your messaging to stick
Another perspective: tell your audience exactly what they should hear and remember - nothing more.
Use AI wisely: don't ask gen AI to write your content - ask it to summarize, shorten, and extract the meaningful bits from your original work.
- In my experience, AI is actually good at turning six paragraphs into two sentences; although the wording can be stiff sometimes, so please tweak it so a human can enjoy it!
The Inspiration
If this format seems familiar to you, then you've probably read an article or two over at Axios.
- They call this writing style Smart Brevity.
- Quite simply, it defines this format:
- start with a strong attention-grabbing title
- write a one-sentence memorable introduction
- succinctly summarize important points
- offer more detail, but make it optional
I'm a huge believer in simplification in my life, work, and how I communicate. My motto as a software guy makes it clear: Simplicity is the root of quality. So once again: write fewer words and make them count.