Too much of anything is bad, just like too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and not enough of a bad thing is a bad thing. Life is all about balance and that rule also applies to a lot of the things we do in life. From writing to doing a presentation to art and work. A good example of this rule is when people do presentations, the temptation is there to cram as much data on each slide as possible in bullet points. You have no idea how bad and common this is. For one, the people listening will have their eyes glaze over and not pay attention (or at the very least not remember very much) but the point of your presentation will be lost and diluted under all those words. This is why it is so important to utilize the ‘less is more’ strategy and only put down a few words (or pictures) and only put down the bare essentials, few words per bullet point (max). You would be surprised how much of a difference and how much more people will actually remember.
Same thing with posters, or CVs. People automatically feel the need to ram in as much as possible, failing to realize people will simply forget or not pay attention. No body has time to read through pages and pages of rubbish, regardless about how you feel about it – to them its just a page of words. If you want to grab their attention use short, sharp, directly to the point sentences with as few words as possible – cutting it down to the bare minimum. The most common place I see people making the mistake of adding to much is in general conversation. Droning on for too long about a specific thing (or even saying the same thing in different ways) not only disengages people listening but also makes you sound boring and will make people lose focus on the point (or story) your trying to make / tell. That isn’t to say you can’t speak a lot or do a long presentation or task. It is saying, however that you need to separate the wheat from chaff, in other words practice cutting down to the bare essentials and resist the urge to put everything down raw.
When designing a poster, cut it down to no more than a few sentences (at max) and use the rest of the room on the page for a picture that captures what your trying to make. If you want to impress your employer with a CV try to keep it to one page (if possible) or two (max) and you’ll find your chances of getting noticed drastically go up. You would think by now that most people would of caught onto the fact that too much information is a bad thing. The problem is we are too polite for our own good and most people will not tell you (at least not directly) that you are boring, go on too long or that your poster, CV or presentation was awful. Because of this most people never learn and continue to make the same mistake over and over costing them time, effort and wasted potential. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself when was the last time you went up to a guy who was boring and told him (or her) to their face, directly — your boring? I suspect most people reading this just nod along politely and move on, as is the socially acceptable thing to do.
So next time your doing something that requires attention from others, bare this rule in mind. Less is more. Too much information will not be processed and likely forgotten, rendering it a waste of time so cut it down and only convey the absolute minimum required to get your point across and (if possible) use pictures. Pictures speak a thousand words and can tell a story much better than a paragraph can.