This year’s focus is simple green changes. Ones that are easy to implement and drastically reduce our carbon footprint. Consumption includes information and time too – less is more.

Today, I am pleased to announce my first guest post from Vlad Dolezal of Fun Life Development to shed some light on why (and how) less is more.

Last summer, I was at a meet-up of esperanto speakers. One evening, a folk singer decided to throw a concert for us. So he played his guitar, and sang, and gave us little bits to sing along to, and everybody had a great time!

After about 10 songs, he finished, and we all clapped and cheered, asking for an encore. We really loved the concert, so we thought we’d have one more song as the encore, and then be off with a great feeling about the concert.

Anyway, he played a song as his encore. And then he played a second one. Then he played a third one, and by this point I started wondering when he was going to be done – I kind of wanted to get out of there. I saw other people in the audience shifting uncomfortably, so I know I wasn’t the only one.

By the fourth encore song, people started leaving. When he finished the fifth encore song and went into the sixth one, I just got up and left. Over half the audience had gone by this point.

Very quickly, we went from having a great time to wondering when the hell he will be done. He simply dragged on just a bit too long, and lost the audience.

And the same applies to your blogging!

You might think that throwing in another statistic, and one more anecdote, and a few more quotes will only make your point more persuasive. But if you lose your audience’s attention, you lose your argument.

Instead, state your point, offer one or two bits of evidence, and then get the hell out, before your audience can start wondering when you will be done.

Like this.

Vlad Dolezal of Fun Life Development has a way of making complicated things simple. His ideas are meant to be fun with fresh anecdotes to drive them home -  passion and purpose is evident. My world improves with Vlad on the sidelines. Check out his blog for more great ideas for improving your life!