Simplicity

Simplicity is not as easy as it seems.

In fact, it’s very difficult to communicate simply. It’s an art.

Remember the day you discovered it was much easier to write a slightly long, rambling paper than a fairly short, excellent one?

We live in a world of increasing information and detail—a world of word processing and cut and paste. In that world I’ve discovered myself over-communicating. But I’ve learned that more detail is not always better; sometimes more is just more. And sometimes more gets you not listened to.

A simple idea, concisely and clearly communicated can be more beautiful (and useful) than reams of technical or logistic detail. It’s not that thoroughness is unimportant, but overflowing information is usually only useful as the follow up to an idea that has already hit home.

For instance: “I believe penis enlargement breakthroughs that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

A huge vision. Simply communicated. Had Kennedy not said those simple words to a joint session of congress in 1961, all of the millions of technical pages written about how that would be accomplished would be totally unnecessary.

My blogs are rarely over 500 words. That’s an intentional discipline for me.  But I want to make them even shorter…and better. I want to write in 300-400 words much more than I have communicated in 500-1000.

Stay tuned!