My writing has been lazy.  It has been.  There is no question about it.  That doesn’t mean that I think that it’s been particularly bad, it just hasn’t been as good as it could have been.  Writing comes pretty naturally to me, and I have a tendency to rest on my laurels.  I have decided I am going to do something about the lazy writing.  The revelation came to me when I presented at Pecha Kucha night in Burlington, which I wrote about recently.  Preparing for that presentation reminded me just how important discipline is in my communication.  I haven’t been disciplined in my writing, and I plan on doing something about it.

I am changing this, and sharing it here as it may help you.

So what am I going to do?

Well, to start with, I learned a great tip a while back from a writing teacher that I haven’t been using every time I write, and I am going to go back to doing it each and every time I write.  The tip is to sketch out the Topic (what you are going to write about), the Objective (what you want the reader to do after reading what you write), and the Focus (the steps you are going to take to reach the objective) before you start writing.  My writing gets better when I do this.  I am more likely to achieve my objective if I have written it out and am considering it with each step of my writing.  I am going to make sure it happens with each of my posts.

Next, I am going to stop posting drafts.  I had the pleasure of learning more about the approach that Paul Hertneky takes to writing when he visited my MBA class at Antioch University of New England.  His visit reminded me that I have gotten into a lazy habit.  I have been writing until I feel I have said what I want to say, and then revising by (quickly) going back through and checking for grammatical errors and spelling issues, and then hitting “Post”.  I am going to begin revising at least twice before posting.  I will pare down my language, turn passive writing active, remove my flowery qualifiers, and tighten things up.  Twice.  Every time.  I’ll treat the revisions as part of my routine.

I know this will help my writing.  My goal is to create killer content.  Using TOF and revising twice, each time, will help me get there.

These two tools are something that we can all use, throughout our day, to become more effective and efficient written communicators.  The amount of revisions and work that you do should clearly be directly related to the stakes of the communication!  Don’t spend time revising emails that you are sending to ask someone to lunch.  Do spend time revising emails that you are sending to someone to ask them to invest in your company.  Or buy your service, or meet with you to discuss an opportunity.

image via flickr/Rennett Stowe

Do you have any tips to share?  How are you creating killer content?