cultivated notes

Editorial Space vs Attention Space: Why Less Communication Can Be More Effective

Most organisations have unlimited space to communicate — but people have limited attention. This essay explores why less communication can be more effective and how to design messages for human attention, not organisational capacity.

We have far less attention space than we do editorial space

Editorial Space vs Attention Space

Modern organisations live in an age of almost infinite editorial space.
We can write endless documents, record countless videos, publish giant playbooks, create infinite dashboards, and flood internal channels with updates.

The problem is not capacity to publish.
The problem is capacity to pay attention.

Humans — leaders, teams, customers — have finite attention.
Time, energy, and attention are constrained.
Editorial space is abundant; attention space is scarce.

This mismatch creates a common failure in organisations:
over-communication that reduces clarity.

Cultivated Notes are short visual companions to the work.
Some are reflective, others are practical.
You can watch the note below, or read on to explore this idea.

Why Constraints Improve Communication

Constraints force clarity.
When space is limited, we are compelled to prioritise, synthesise, and design for impact.

Unlimited space encourages accumulation: more slides, more documentation, more messaging, more words, more detail.
But accumulation, and scale, does not always equal understanding.

Effective communication is not efficient in volume or complexity.
It is effective in purpose.

Designing Communication for Humans

In the Cultivated view, all communication has:

Purpose — what this is trying to achieve
Audience — who it is for
Context — where and when and how it is received
Value — why it matters to them

When communication aligns to these constraints, people will read, watch, and engage — regardless of length or medium.

The failure is not that people do not care.
The failure is that communication is designed for organisational efficiency, not human attention.

Attention as the Scarce Resource

Organisations that get communication right, treat attention as a strategic constraint.

Communication messages are designed within human cognitive limits, not within the limits of content platforms or storage systems.

Clarity emerges when communication is focused, purposeful, empathetic, and valuable. Noise emerges when communication is unlimited, undirected, and overwhelming.