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.
“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.
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