Enough Already!

I’ve been crafting ten-minute instructional and training videos on a variety of topics. I’ve been doing that for a few years now and every time – I run face to face with the question: how much information is enough? I love the challenge of eliminating extraneous information, the challenge of the minimal time frame.

Constraint.

In the context of personal success, how will any of us gauge when we know enough? There’s always more. Fear of inadequacy pushes us to keep acquiring.

Enough, sufficient, adequate, ample. Those are synonyms. But they have slightly different meanings.

I like the idea of “as much as necessary”.

The Internet makes finding information easy. And with a bit of effort, we can filter the information, ensuring a reliable source. And even then – there is too much to be truly useful.

And how we learn has always fascinated me. We know we cannot learn to be a doctor, an accountant or a plumber in a day. But we can learn something today and something tomorrow and over time the accumulation amounts to something useful.

In cognitive psychology chunking is the process by which larger pieces of information are broken down and then grouped together in a meaningful way. It is meant to bypass the limited capacity of working memory. For example, it is easier to remember 4,168,951,637 if we break it down like this 416 895 1637.

While we often do it subconsciously, being aware of the concept of chunking can help us memorize more complex information.

In educational instructional design chunking requires breaking information into bite-sized pieces so the brain can more easily digest the new information. Sort of like chewing.

Go ahead, look it up. Chunking is about improving retention.

What I hope to achieve it a better understanding.

It is all about personal success. Everything is complicated. There is always more to know. But we cannot succeed if we focus on acquiring the most rather than focusing on and embracing the least.