Brevity means clarity

Less is more

I wish more people and organizations would embrace concise writing and communication as a standard. It’s beneficial to everyone, regardless of whether you are:

• a content writer or reader,
• a student writing an essay or a teacher evaluating it,
• a programmer documenting your code (thanks if you do it) or a pull request reviewer trying to understand what you built,
• a domain expert writing internal documentation or a new hire trying to use the same document months later during onboarding,
• a leader communicating the company’s strategy and key stakeholders trying to align on that strategy.

People often think longer blog posts, internal documents, or messages indicate more care put into the research and delivery. The opposite is true.

Mark Twain wrote: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

Nietzsche wrote: “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”

Brevity is a skill. Instead of frantically hitting send after each sentence in a Slack conversation, it’s worth figuring out what exactly you want to communicate and sending one concise message.

People will appreciate you for respecting their time and attention.

And it’s not just about saving time — it’s about clarity of your thoughts.