Our colleagues at Web Worker Daily have a very worthy post today called “Sound and Fury: Slow Down and Focus on the Message, Not Messaging, about the merits of communicating more, by communicating less. In it author Leo Babauta suggests that just because we have prolific and instant means of communication, it doesn’t mean we should use them.
We’d be better off spending more time thinking about the importance of what we’re doing, and the value-add in the communiques we send to each other about it all.
In the words of Shakespeare’s MacBeth, quoth Leo, too much of our communication is little more than “…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Leo offers 5 Rules for How To Communicate More, With Less:
Read Leo’s full post here, and then take the GigaOM ‘Sound & Fury Slow Down’ Challenge:
“Sure, being a part of a network of constant flowing information can be a thrill… [but] most of it means nothing.”
We’d be better off spending more time thinking about the importance of what we’re doing, and the value-add in the communiques we send to each other about it all.
Is it so urgent to send off and respond to dozens of emails? Is it worth our time to participate in instant messaging, when we don’t have much to say? Will the world end if we don’t stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the blogging world, or on Digg, or on Twitter? And do we really want [or need] to know what people are doing, all the time?
In the words of Shakespeare’s MacBeth, quoth Leo, too much of our communication is little more than “…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Leo offers 5 Rules for How To Communicate More, With Less:
1. Step back.
2. Cut back.
3. Communicate only the essential.
4. Learn to let go of the noise.
5. Find new ways to communicate the essential, not the noise.
Read Leo’s full post here, and then take the GigaOM ‘Sound & Fury Slow Down’ Challenge:
* First, ask yourself 3 times “is this email really necessary?” before you send it.
* Then, see if you can go an entire day without a Twitter, a text message or a Digg.
Let us know how you do. We think you’ll be happier, and more productive.
This is silly.
Aside from the fact it is incredibly pretentious and self-aggrandizing, Babauta’s post is projecting his own failings/insecurities/frustrations upon the rest of us without any justification or, indeed, logic.
I applaud him for evaluating his communication for relevance and wish him well in taking a ‘step back’ in his own life. Macbeth notwithstanding, I think the rest of us can make our own, less insulting, assessment.
“Find new ways to communicate the essential, not the noise.”
What the …? Written without a hint of irony, this piece of rhetorical nonsense is exactly the kind of piffle I would expect Babauta to redact before hitting the publish button. Blech.
David, lighten up! Pretentious? That could be the “pot calling kettle black”! Come on, It just isn’t possible that every message you send is important. (We’re glad, however, that you thought this one was worthwhile — and we’re happy to have it.) But Leo’s not judging anyone, he’s just making a point. Do you work at Twitter?
After reading this post and perusing Leo’s perspective I must offer a hearty “AMEN BROTHER!” … Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you should and I think all too often today’s digitally enabled individuals fail to remember a simple concept – less is more.
Shakespeare must have been a big proponent of this idea. It was in Hamlet that Lord Polonius noted that “brevity is the soul of wit”.
I have to smile when I read the quote in context, and read the quibbling above:
“This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.”