Brevity is usually the right call. The harder skill is knowing when to go long.
Thomas Jefferson praised “the most valuable of all talents, that of never using two words where one will do.” Succinctness seems more valuable than ever, when we’re bombarded by words in spoken and written forms. But knowing how to be brief is no less critical than knowing when to be brief.
Assume your audience lacks time and attention. Some rules of thumb for being brief:
- Use the elevator pitch approach when presenting to executives
- Describe pros and cons of a situation using a SWOT matrix
- Strive to avoid email messages longer than a paragraph
- Finesse your brevity skills by writing where space is scarce, such as short-form public posts
- Keep security policies short and to the point
- When in doubt, include fewer topics in a presentation
Other moments call for more depth:
- Provide details when responding to a person who explicitly asked for more information
- Include the necessary supporting figures and data in an appendix to a report
- Keep the public apprised of the situation when handling an incident, such as a data breach
- Offer detailed feedback when seeking to change the behavior of colleagues or other people around you
- Include lots of superfluous, unnecessary, or otherwise redundant words when trying to reach a minimum length requirement
Presentations longer than an hour are the most common offenders. A short talk is harder to prepare than a long one, and Pecha Kucha is a format built around that tension.
