The Importance of Keeping it Brief

Have you noticed your attention span getting shorter? According to research that span stood at 47 seconds in 2025 whereas a mere twenty years before it was a whopping 180 seconds.  Quite how these things are measured is unclear and most likely has contributed to a diminishing lack of focus, however there is definite proof around us every day of the plight of maintaining attention.

The old idiom of ‘don’t give them the recipe when they only asked to see the menu’ is truer today more than ever.  Sometimes, especially with a vast reservoir of subject knowledge, it is easy for us to forget that not everyone is as interested in absolutely everything we have to give on our specialist subject as we are.

A useful exercise, therefore, is to step back and view things through the lens of your own experience; think back to a meeting, panel, or a one-to-one conversation in the company of a specialist who spends far too long spouting details and processes which you have little or no grasp of.

There are several studies which support the value of less, not more information. The work of John Sweller, through his Cognitive Load Theory, demonstrated that overloading the listener with excessive data and minor caveats literally stopped those listeners from processing what they had heard as all the facts and figures created a cognitive bottleneck.

For all its ills regarding knowledge building, AI is great for responding to a prompt to ‘explain to me like I’m five years old’ and helping one to understand topics we know nothing about. In these cases, we don’t need to know everything AI knows, we just need to know what is relevant for us.

In business culture, we are now very used to receiving documents with executive takeaways. This has been an evolution in how we are packaged information and the days of raking through a hefty document to reach a conclusion are long gone. So, follow this lead in verbal presentation.

Give a concise summary that paints a general picture, complete with extra definition on any areas where needed and the option to ask unclear. If you are being consulted, your expertise is a given.

So how do you achieve this? As with any adjustment to habits and behaviour it does require some rewiring. A good starting point is to be aware of the issue. If you are unaware of whether you have an issue or not, please start taking a genuine interest in how people are reacting when you’re explaining things, as there will be plenty of clues.

As for addressing the issue, a good recommendation is to conduct the conversation with an ongoing series of checks on your content. It’s important to keep asking yourself “what’s the point?” of what you are saying.

If there is a point i.e. it’s pertinent to the other person’s understanding, then proceed. If there is little or no point i.e. you are rambling to explain your work process or satisfy a desire to illustrate your competence, then park it. Hearing a clear and concise summary (with the option to ask for more detail) is far better than a 20-minute ramble stuffed with all manner of information we have no interest in.

If you’re still with me, there are times when less is definitely more.