The approach
Wide becomes narrow.
Every job is the same shape. A brief comes in wide. A single line goes out. The method that gets it there is the same three passes, every time, whatever the document.
The three passes
Three passes. One truth left standing.
Distillation is not deletion. Anyone can make a document shorter. The work is keeping the one true thing while everything around it falls away.
Read
Find the one idea before touching a word. Most documents are one idea wearing forty sentences.
Cut
Keep only the words the meaning would collapse without. Everything else is scaffolding, and scaffolding comes down.
Test
If the single line still says the whole thing, it is done. If it lost something true, one word goes back. No more.
A pass, in miniature
Watch a wall of words fall away.
A different brief, the same gesture. Each line keeps the meaning and sheds the rest, until one word carries everything the page was trying to say.
Going forward, our intention is to proactively foster a culture of continuous improvement whereby every team member feels genuinely empowered to surface ideas, raise concerns, and contribute meaningfully to the ongoing evolution of how we collectively work.
We want everyone to feel able to raise ideas and change how we work.
Anyone here can change things.
Speak.
If a qualifier is doing the work, the sentence is not finished.
Cut the hedging. Keep the claim.
Inside each pass
The same three steps, in detail.
No two briefs read the same, but the method underneath does not move. Here is what each pass is actually doing while the words come down.
- 01
Read for the one idea
Before a single word is cut, I read for what the document is really for. The one idea is almost never the first sentence, and it is almost never on the title slide. I find it first.
- 02
Cut to the load-bearing words
With the idea fixed, the cutting is quick. Keep the words the meaning would collapse without. Strike the qualifiers, the warm-up, the throat-clearing, the words that helped you write it but the reader does not need.
- 03
Pressure-test the line
The last pass is the honest one. Read the line cold, as a stranger would. If it still says the whole thing, it is done. If it lost something true, one word goes back, and only one.