Originally published September 2017. Updated January 8, 2024. To write better and faster, you must minimize distractions and interruptions, and avoid them as much as you can. Obviously, you’re going to react if the smoke alarm starts squealing loudly. If that happens, get out! But I’m not talking about interruptions that matter. I’m talking about interruptions that don’t. And you can take steps to keep those at bay. Interruptions slow us down and make us stupid Did you know it takes 25 minutes to get back on task after an...
How business email best practices can make everything better… I was soooo lucky and I didn’t know it. How? During my 20 years as a freelance copywriter, I worked primarily with smart people who communicated well and made smart use of email. That means I thought the average person was equally good at email. I was wrong. When I closed up We Know Words at the end of 2019 to focus on our farm and Better Faster Writer, I also started doing a lot of volunteer work as part of a marriage ministry that we had to take over. (That’s a...
Originally published July 14, 2017. Updated January 5, 2024. Proofreading! It is guaranteed to improve your writing at work! I’m serious! If you only changed one habit this year to be a better, faster writer, get into the habit of proofreading everything you write, and I mean everything. “But, Sharon,” you’re probably thinking. “That makes no sense because that will slow me down, not make me faster.” OK, yes, but no, because when you catch your mistakes, you avoid confusion which saves time,...
What if I could give you just one tip for the new year that would improve not only your writing at work but your entire life? I can. That tip? Ditch digital. By that, I mean ditch the smart phone as that’s how much of our digital interaction happens. OK, I realize few of us can totally ditch the smart phone. But we can spend a lot less time on it and improve both our writing at work and our quality of life. The writing part might be obvious, and I have outlined the ways your smart phone dumbs down your writing at work here. And...
Sure, as a horse person I like to sneak in horses as much as I can when blogging about writing at work, but it works, as you’ll continue to see… 🙂 I recently volunteered as a horse handler for Leadership with Horses. It took 6½ hours of driving to get there and back to be there for 5½ hours. Why then did I do it? I was intrigued. Horses have much to teach us and I wanted to know how that would play out with leadership training. Because I was a horse handler, I was with the horses, and I missed out on the discussions between Amanda,...
