Be Concise

Concision. (Sounds like I made up another word.) It's the idea of being concise in our ongoing communication with others, both written and oral.

Many take forever to say so little. These are the same people who spend a lot of time in meetings. Some who may have little to say use lots of words to say what could be said in a few words. It is boring. It wastes time. It reduces productivity. Theirs and yours.

I do not suggest that all of our communications ought to be reduced to one or two words. There ought to be time in the workplace for idle chat. It leads to relationship building and a better quality of life. However, it is sometimes more productive to simply say "blah" rather than "blah, blah, blah".

As a practical matter, it is becoming more and more important to be concise as we drown in this era of information overload. We get more information impressions in one day than our great-grandparents 100 years ago got in a lifetime. Think about it. 100 years ago, you may have looked a seed catalog, a shared newspaper, and an occasional book, if you owned one. Today, we have information coming at us from all directions.

The average working businessperson receives, on average, 150 new communications each day via telephone, voicemail, mail, fax, and email. When email became available a few years ago, it was supposed to take the place of a lot of other communications, including first class mail. The truth is, all other forms of communication have held their volume (or even increased) and we now have email to deal with on top of it all.

Want to be more concise in your communications and save time? Here are two suggestions.

Think before you communicate. Before you make that call or meet with someone, think out what you how hope to accomplish. A lot of extended, unnecessary communication is in search of a purpose of the communication in the first place. When you know what you are trying to accomplish, when you achieve, it is over and you can move on.

Practice. When you write an email to someone, look it over before you send it. See if you can say what you need to say in fewer words. I use this technique in a communications class I teach for MBA students. I ask them to write a five-page paper. They submit it, I return it, and ask they re-write the paper in four pages, but cover all the essential points from the five page paper. They later re-write the same paper as a three, two, and one page paper. Each must contain all that was covered in the original five-page work. It's a tough assignment but with practice, they get better at saying more with fewer words. You can too. If you write something, re-write it several times, each time making it shorter than the previous attempt. The more you practice, the better you'll get.

About The Author

Dr. Donald E. Wetmore
Professional Speaker
Productivity Institute
Time Management Seminars
60 Huntington St., P.O. Box 2126
Shelton, CT 06484
(800) 969-3773 (203) 929-9902 Fax: (203) 929-8151
Email: ctsem@msn.com
Visit Our Time Management Supersite: http://www.balancetime.com

Professional Member-National Speakers Association

MORE RESOURCES:

Course shows companies what NOT to put in writing - Reuters

Coens nominated for writing prize - BBC News

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Gonzales writing book on years in Bush administration - Austin American-Statesman

Children#39;s creative writing class is Saturday at Writers#39; Gallery - Yucaipa/Calimesa News Mirror

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The Flat Stanley Project gets kids reading, writing, and learning ... - Examiner.com

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Russia says will restore gas when monitors in place - guardian.co.uk

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Ex-broker guilty of writing bad check - Billings Gazette

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/6-0fd=Rurl=http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/08/news/state/55-badcheck.txtcid=1287866693ei=Wn5mSeK9IJGQmAe0tty6BAusg=AFQjCNHdQlcBE0sWLWhNS73ts-WqRxRrNgEx-broker guilty of bwriting/b bad check/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fBillings Gazette,nbsp; USAnbsp;-/font nobr13 hours ago/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1By LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA Jeanne Rizzotto, a former Red Lodge real estate broker, pled guilty Wednesday in District Court in Red Lodge to bwriting/b a bad b.../b/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/6-1fd=Rurl=http://www.kxmb.com/News/317363.aspcid=1287866693ei=Wn5mSeK9IJGQmAe0tty6BAusg=AFQjCNGPb--cNXVH9f7rU8JARmy3Y8BHDARed Lodge woman pleads guilty in bad check case | KXNet.com North b.../b/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrReiten Television KXMB Bismarck/nobr/font/fontbrfont class=p size=-1a class=p href=http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclientie=ISO-8859-1rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-22,GGLG:enncl=1287866693hl=ennobrall 6 news articles/nobr/a/font/div/font/td/tr/table

The business press: The horror of writing your own obit - BloggingStocks

How about if Steve Jobs smoked a pipe? - guardian.co.uk

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Manhattan Public Library holding art and writing contest for MLK ... - KTKA.com

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Writing - Google News

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Writing is a personal and introspective process. To share with another what we wrote is to risk.

Character Motivation - Always Ask WHY
For many years, I've been a tutor for students undertaking courses in writing romance, crime or children's stories. In that time, I've marked thousands of assignments.

Message to Online Writers: Dont Give Up On A Good Idea
The writing community is a strong one, with many new "members" joining daily. All theser writers are finding or looking for their particular niches.

Time to Write
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?Many people have entertained the idea of being a writer. They feel the passion to write.

Written Communications - 6 Tips on Language & Tone
In most aspects of business, we will be expected to write a message to a client or customer, in the form of a letter, memo or e-mail. Language and tone in these communications is vital to the relationship with the recipient, and can mean the difference between a sale and a lost prospect.

Writing With Power: 5 Snappy Rules For Success
Almost everyone could profit from enhancing their writing skills. From writing more crisp meta-tags - which search engine bots find quite sexy - to turbo-charging your blog readership by writing with punch, a skilled pen can propel any online effort in the right direction.

How To Stay Fit While Writing
Day after day, writers tend to sit for hours writing that novel or story, and over time, this can become a potential problem. Their metabolism may slow down and the pounds can inch up.

8 Tell-Tale Signs That Forecast Writing Success!
'Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Why Manners Maketh the Freelance Writer
Lately I've been noticing an odd trend amongst the freelance writers who contact us every week: rudeness.First there was the writer who accepted a job found on our boards and forwarded the completed assignment to the employer with the words, "Project attached.

The Blank Mind
Many writers stare at the blank page or clean computer screen and wait for inspiration with a feeling of hopelessness. That white page or screen is always a struggle to fill, and it probably will always be for most writers.

Writing Styles for Fiction: Which Voice to Use
I recently set up a website to promote a new suspense novel. Once it started receiving hits I began getting questions about why I chose to write in third person.

First Priority
No matter what you are writing, the first priority is write the first draft.Most writers procrastinate.

5 Ways to Break the Story Spell
You sink back into your favourite chair with a new book in your hand. With a barely perceptible sigh of anticipation, you turn to the first page.

Top Ten Tips (Part 2)
Golden Rules For New Writers - Things you need to know before you begin.Rules govern everything we do in life; even if those rules are of theunwritten kind we abide by them and expect other people to do the same.