When it comes to being an editor, Jason Fried of 37signals has it figured out. Check out this simple post from a couple weeks ago:
Another thing we learned was that…
Another thing we learned was…
We also learned that…
We also learned…
We learned…
It’s so simple it’s criminal. Throughout the editing process depicted above, the meaning never changes. In fact, the meaning becomes clearer as the extraneous words fall away.
Last week, Fried tweeted a link to a site that demonstrates this same idea: www.telescopictext.com. Click the link and play with the text to experience it for yourself. If you completely expand all the text, you can transform a concise, three-word statement into a sprawling, 194-word yarn. And yet the meaning doesn’t grow along with the word count. If anything, the meaning becomes a needle buried in the hay.
These examples have challenged me, and if you’re a communicator, I hope they challenge you too.
Be an editor. Trim that email newsletter from 800 words to 400. Streamline those announcements from seven bullet points to three vital takeaways. Tighten that sermon from 45 minutes to 35 minutes. Reduce that blog post from 600 words to 350. Cut that video until it’s under three minutes. Do it. Edit. Fear, pride, frustration, and laziness will try to stop you, but don’t let them.
When you communicate, pretend you’re playing golf (lowest score wins) instead of basketball (highest score wins).
Fewer words, fewer frames, fewer slides, clearer meaning.