Keep it short and simple

Have you ever met those kinds of persons who talk for hours on end? How they always have something to say, and they enjoy monologues. They could talk for hours and hours without even catching their breath, while desperately trying to pass a point across to an already bored crowd which has lost all interest in what they have to say. I’ve already met a couple of persons like that and quite frankly, I can’t remember anything they said, all I remember is the impression they left on me which was one of frustration to be forced to listen to all they had to say in the name of politeness. I understand that we try to be understood by saying a lot, but sometimes, saying too much produces the reverse effect. Whenever you speak, I’ll advise you take your time to reflect not just on what you have to say but also on how to use less words to pass your ideas.

The advantages of saying less

Humans have a short attention span, we can only focus on something for a very short time until it becomes boring or irrelevant. This is also a survival instinct which protects us from being unaware of our surroundings, if the brain focused too much on anything for too long, it might lose track of its surrounding. Studies have shown that, It's good to learn in chunks of 30 mins with a 5 mins break in between, that's to help the brain kind of refresh itself. Sometimes when I’m focused on a task, I could even forget myself in it to the point that I won’t even remember what I was doing for an instant. This is to show you that you don’t have to keep the attention of people for too long, else everything you have been saying from the beginning will be meaningless, people will only retain what was out of the ordinary.

When speaking, you should be either stating a point and expatiating on that or building up to a final point that people can retain, each word should be geared towards that goal, while constantly trying to avoid going off topic. It can be tempting to use analogies and stories which can better drive your point, but that is a slippery slope, making up reflections on the spot could easily backfire, and you’d find yourself trying to force logic on something which clearly isn’t. What you want to do is to get your ideas as fast as possible to your audience, we all love the build up to a story but if it isn’t done right, then you’ll ruin it all together.

The shorter, the better

It's easier to retain 1–5 words than to retain a whole sentence, and every message carries an idea behind it. In your speech, you should try as much to reduce the number of words you are trying to pass on to your crowd, instead focus on reiterating the central message, that's why every article has a title and every lesson has a theme, this showcases the central idea behind every piece of information. Coming up with a title isn’t always easy especially because a lot of information is lost, this article for example could cut through many more topics than just what the title says and there is really no way of getting all these ideas in just one sentence, so a deep reflection is needed to really help capture the essence in every piece of work. I’m not saying you should reduce all your messages to one sentence but just keep in mind that the less you say, the more is understood.

The disadvantages of saying less

The main disadvantage of saying less is that it opens the window to misunderstandings, the scope of just a few words could be very wide. When you use few words, people could understand something totally different from what you intended to send across, especially with the tone and inflections in your speech. Finding the right quantity of words is a skill which is perfected through time, and a good number of public speakers have learned the skill.

Also, you have to take into consideration your audience, some people understand with a few words while others might need a little more explanation, so early on you want to decide if you are going or retention or comprehension. Do you want your audience to understand what you are saying or are you more interested in them remembering what you said?

Getting your point across

The most important thing is getting your point across, an abundance of words won’t really get all your point across and very few words might send the wrong message, so depending on the crowd in front of you, seek to find the right quantity of words to pass on the emotions you are trying to convey, or the information you are trying to get across. Different situations come with different requirements, you have to gauge the crowd and see how well they are responding to what you are saying. Don’t just go off on a monologue when nobody has any interest in listening to what you have to say, forcing your message into the ears of uninterested persons isn’t going to work any better than you staying silent.

Thanks for reading!

Check out my blog for more articles, realjema.com