“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” Enstein

When was the last time you read through a blog post and really enjoyed it? I mean, actually read it through and got to the final call to action?

For me, it was a post somewhere between Joshua Becker's Why We Work and a Will Richardson riff on the problems with the Common Core initiative that is raging through our schools. I'm drawn to both of their subject areas (simplicity and education reform, respectively) but more than that, I was delighted to be reading through something rather than scanning it.

In both cases, Becker and Richardson kept things brief and to the point. I learned something and was challenged just enough to reflect on the subject.

There's an awful lot of noise out there and, if we're honest, "in here". Our minds can be just as noisy as an open cube workspace. Maybe it's time to cut down on your words and turn on the active listening that most people crave.

When was the last time that you considered brevity as an important part of your writing? How about in your conversations with others?

Photo courtesy of FDP