We all live fairly busy lives…juggling the constant pushes and pulls of living…family, work, research, teaching, mentoring, and leadership roles.
In these busy times, brevity may sometimes the need of the hour. On the one hand, brevity forces us to distill a message to its very core. But, the tradeoff with brevity is that it can make things overly simplistic and reductionist and in doing so sacrifice much. For research, we have long papers, short papers, paper abstracts and paper titles. Then we have hour-long talks, short talks and the cocktail party or elevator versions of talks.
In his Lettres Provinciales, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal famously wrote:
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Similarly, the German theologian Martin Luther, the guiding light of the Reformation movement in Europe attributed said:
If I had my time to go over again, I would make my sermons much shorter, for I am conscious they have been too wordy.
According to an anecdote published in 1918 Woodrow Wilson was asked about the amount of time he spent preparing speeches, and his response was illuminating:
“That depends on the length of the speech,” answered the President. “If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.”
The ascendancy of Twitter is a true testament to this longing and urgent need among people for brevity.
Here are some exercises in brevity to convey powerful thoughts
If you want extraordinary results, you need to narrow your focus.Opportunities multiply as they are seized— Sun TzuThe first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily — Charlie MungerLife is trying things to see if they work— Ray BradburyLess is betterThe best time to start is nowNot only is example the best way to teach, it is the only way— Albert SchweitzerWhen making plans, think big. When making progress, think small- James ClearDay by day, what you do is who you become — HeraclitusAskIt is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it— SenecaReduce options. Increase focus. Multiply resultskeep goingSame event different perspectivesAlways remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else— Margaret MeadI was the sum total of the obstacles I’d overcome— David GogginsThe reward for good work is more work — Tom SachsNormal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly — Charles AddamsThe shortcut is to stop taking shortcuts.There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self — Aldous HuxleyPracticeThe correct lesson to learn from surprises: the world is surprising— Daniel KahnemanShootFailure is success in progression- Einstein“Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” — Abraham Lincoln“Never mistake motion for action.” — Ernest HemingwaySuccess, failure, experience“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”“We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.” — Virginia SatirHow everything works.“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.” — Daniel KahnemanTrial and ErrorProgress is deciding what to stop doing.“All skills attenuate with disuse.” — Tren Griffin“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” — Edmund Hillary“Don’t tell people your plans. Show them your results.” — UnknownTrue color of tea is only when it is in hot water- “Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.” — HoracePatience“Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.” — SocratesScience is progress, not a resultWhat is behind you, does not matter- EnzoNo one owns you anything, figure it out Ekalo chalo- Rabindernath Tagore“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.” — Alan Watts“The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it.” — Frank Herbert
