(Originally published in Harvard Business Review, September 6, 2021)
Whether you like it or not, you are a writer. Every day, your success at work is in part determined by how well you can communicate your thoughts through email, reports, instant message, and perhaps even blog posts, articles, or books.
Unfortunately, most people don’t tend to their writing abilities after waving goodbye to their English teacher on the last day of school. We forget that our ability to communicate through the written word can have an enormous impact on our career trajectory. Mastering the art of writing can help us persuade people more impactfully and be perceived by others as smarter and more insightful. It can open new doors.
Having interviewed some of the world’s most successful writers on my podcast How I Work, I’ve picked up several tips that have dramatically improved the impact of my words.
Read your work out loud.
For bestselling author Dan Pink, reading his writing out loud helps him craft better work. “Nearly everything I write of significance, so books or articles, I will read out loud because to me, it’s a test of: ‘Does it sound right?’” Pink told me.
“Are there words in there that are clunkers? Is it as clear and gleaming as it could possibly be? For me, reading out loud and hearing the work read out loud is a significant part of my editing process. It’s very time consuming. It’s very laborious. But that’s how I do things.”
For each critical pieces of writing you produce, whether it is an all-staff email or a big report, take time to read it out loud during the editing process. As you read, you’ll begin to realize which sentences can be edited for brevity or clarity, or where you’ve said too much when one sentence is good enough to explain a concept. While it can feel tedious, your writing will become clearer, more concise, and ultimately more effective.
Edit other people’s work.
Tim Herrera, a journalist and the former editor of Smarter Living at The New York Times, told me that editing is key to becoming a better writer. “The biggest thing that writers can do to improve their own writing is to do a lot of editing.”
Herrera used to be a copy editor and he found that going through the process of looking critically and methodically at someone else’s work helped him be more intentional in his writing, especially when it comes to word choice and sentence structure: “You are trying to think through what works here and what doesn’t. Why was this done this way? Why do we use this word? Why is it organized this way?” Asking these questions about other people’s work has helped Herrera get into the habit of asking it of his own.
Given his role, Herrera’s friends often ask him to edit their writing. He always jumps at the opportunity because he sees it as important to his growth and development. In your own world, consider making this offer to friends who are keen to improve their writing. You might offer to edit a short blog post, their resumes or cover letters, or an important email they need to send at work. And perhaps they will even return the favor.
Ask yourself whether you are adding value or saying something new.
If you work in content and are responsible for writing blog posts, articles, or social media copy, making the decision of what warrants publishing is an important one. Sarah Green Carmichael, a former executive editor at Harvard Business Review and current editor at Bloomberg, told me she once received advice from a fellow editor who recommended she ask five smart people for advice on a topic before attempting to write about it.
“If I collected all that advice and put it into a piece … that’s not enough for an article because it’s probably just common sense,” Carmichael said. “I use that rule of thumb to judge if something’s even worth working on or even worth writing in the first place.”
Her point was: If you are simply repeating advice or ideas that already exist in the world, and writing about them in the same way they have already been written about, you might want to think more deeply to ensure the work you publish is adding new value.
The next time you are deciding what topics to cover, first do a Google search on what other people are saying about them.
Clear your metaphorical throat.
Having spent many years working as an editor, Carmichael started to observe a pattern in the way many writers begin their articles. “Most of us spend a good bit of time throat clearing as we’re getting into a draft. Almost all the time in my own writing, and when I’m editing other peoples’ writing, the first two paragraphs probably can be deleted.”
While the first couple of paragraphs of a piece can serve the purpose of helping you think about the point you are trying to make, Carmichael says that the third or fourth paragraph is where your piece probably starts.
When you are editing your own writing, try this trick: Delete the first couple of paragraphs and see if that makes your piece sharper.
Retype your work to get into a flow.
Guardian columnist and bestselling author Oliver Burkeman describes himself as a recovering perfectionist. Burkeman told me his perfectionism has resulted in big struggles with writer’s block, as he worries what he puts to paper won’t ever be good enough.
He was once given the advice to just write and let his inner editor go to sleep for a while. But for him, it didn’t work. His inner editor appears to be an insomniac.
It wasn’t until Burkeman heard about a strategy used by other writers who had shared his struggle that he found a solution. He will now type out a rough draft of what he is working on, print it out, and then type it back onto his computer.
This process tricks Burkeman into getting into a flow state, which he says is much easier for him to do in editing mode. “What’s happening when I’m typing it in again is that I’m making all sorts of changes. But I’m making them almost unconsciously in the same way that on a good writing day, you’re almost unconscious of the words flowing out.
“Obviously a book has to have that phase of editing as well when you’re very consciously just sort of inspecting every word. But I find that it’s a wonderful compromise because when you’re typing it in again, you don’t have to start from a blank page. So you’re not worried about dredging it out of your soul in some sort of terribly melodramatic and stressful fashion.”
Regardless of whether the word “writer” is in your job title, investing time in improving your writing is a great way to stand out from the crowd, and ultimately communicate your ideas more clearly and impactfully to the world.
