Concision

Quality work takes an incredible attention to detail. There's a lot of work involved, mainly to add lots of substance to each part.

Most great non-fiction novelists, for example, can draft on average around only 1 to 5 pages per day. That’s because for every sentence, there’s a lot of research and editing and thinking and revising. It takes a lot of work to write just a few paragraphs.

Or consider how long great musicians practice a few bars of notation, hours devoted to things like timing and tonality and ombresure and micro-second motions.

And if you look at the incredible amount of work that goes into creating a half second frame of a Pixar movie, it's easy to see why their work is unparalleled.

Contrast this with the mediocre term paper. It’s likely long in material, but on further inspection, there’s no substance, merely cheap filler.

Or consider the list of mediocre films you’ve likely seen, with their often combobulated throughlines. Clearly, not a lot of thought or effort was given to the story, characters, or narrative, which is why it feels like a mess.

Compromising on concision is what makes something go from a potentially great something, to one that’s mediocre at best.

Concision is a cornerstone of quality, as most quality work is often a byproduct of cutting out the unnessary to maximize the essential.

Short and potent outdoes drawn-out and flimsy any day.