Noise

Preface

Can you stop the flood?

Your best bet is to get out of the way or find a boat to float to safety. We are in an unnerving moment in history: information is becoming more of a threat than a reward.

You can’t get out of its way, so how do you handle all of it and not have it overwhelm you?

When I wrote BRIEF: Make a bigger impact by saying less in 2013, my biggest concern was helping people learn to be clear and concise. Basically, get your point across or get dismissed.

Dedicating myself the past few years to spreading the message that “less is more,” I am alarmed by a growing trend that the need for brevity reveals: information is so readily accessible that it is now burdening us.

It all sounds like senseless noise.

Focus is a huge problem. People’s attention spans are shrinking, and it’s no joke. It’s harder and harder to tune in to the essentials and tune out what drowns us.

There are two sides to the coin.

Certainly, one side of the issue is brevity—cutting through the clutter. Essentially, think of it as an adaptive strategy: get to the point before someone tunes you out.

Yet, the other side is how to avoid tuning into nonstop static in an always-on, connected life. How can we stay mentally focused when faced with such information inundation?

As I start seeing progress on one side of the issue, developing lean communicators and setting a higher communication standard, I feel there’s also a larger battle we are losing.

The point of this book is to set off an alarm: ...