Picture the green on each hole as a dart board, because, in fact, all golf is is a giant dart game. As in darts, you want to be able to accurately place your ball next to the hole, leaving yourself the shortest putt possible.
I explain to my students that the short irons (7-SW) are what I like to refer to as scoring clubs. With those scoring clubs, I like my students to play three-quarter length swings at 75% speed capacity. This helps their ball flight patterns get much tighter. Even if this means scaling your distances down one club. Irons are accuracy clubs long before they are distance clubs.