Nobody wants to read anything you write at work. It's not personal though. We just happen to live in a world where there is so much information asking for our attention.
We can take action and make it easy for our colleagues to read our emails, messages, texts, and memos.
Write for the way your coworkers actually read with these 11 data-backed best practices: Frontload what's important, chunk information for retention, make it skimmable, and more...
Our coworkers are often not able to read or understand our messages due to the sheer barrage of information already trying to get their attention. There are text messages, emails, ...
The interface designers at Amazon are experts in providing an intuitive, often exciting digital experience. They start with the end goal in mind and ask the following questions:
What is the problem that we are trying to solve?
Who are our users and what are they trying to do?
What assumptions are being made?
How can this thing be simpler?
We can apply these techniques by asking the same questions towards ourselves and our readers.
If we aren’t talking about the important stuff from the word go, people stop paying attention, usually in about 10 seconds.
Newspaper headline stories follow the ‘inverted pyramid’ technique where the most critical information is on the first paragraph. One can organize an article or product interface in such a way that if the reader only reads the first few sentences, the crucial information is still communicated.
When you work remotely, a few misplaced words can become an occupational hazard. Without the context of face-to-face cues and body language, every message, sentence, word, and punctuation mark becomes loaded with meaning. Opting for a period over an exclamation mark can be the difference between coming across as helpful or passive aggressive.
Use of caps lock, emojis, italics and tildes (~) to make your language flowery, fun and human is a great idea for remote working. You can also use memes and gif images, provided they are not offensive to anyone.
Robot speak is not a good way to freely collaborate with your remote peers. Use simple words, and keep it on the casual side, skipping the inaccessible and stilted language. You can also opt for contractions like writing isn’t instead of is not.
Do not obscure your message by words that are there to decorate the sentence and make it sound wordy while camouflaging what you mean.
Make good use of qualifiers ("I think, In my opinion") while not coming across as a perpetually confused person. Don’t use qualifiers while making a strong point.
While writing documentation, it is prudent to avoid jargon and acronyms.
Use complete words and sentences. Shortcuts and acronyms block any actual communication, acting as roadblocks. On the same lines, avoid cliches, idioms and any idiotic sounding phrase that catches the ear well but doesn’t really do any good to anyone.
Remote working is often on a global scale, and certain expressions will not be understood by some participants, or worse, will be misunderstood.
Your words and tone should be tailored according to your audience. The words are different when you are writing to a client, and when you are in a small group chat with your peers. More people in chat also means adopting a polished, professional tone.
Stop being so busy, and just do nothing. Trust us. Keeping busy? Running from place to place and laboring over long to-do lists have increasingly become ways to communicate status: I'm so busy because I'm just so important, the thinking goes. Perhaps it's time to stop all this busyness.
If you have any doubts in what the multiple benefits that idleness can provide you with, just note down the fact that being lazy from time to time leads to increased creativity, productivity as well as developing problem-solving skills, as it allows you to take time to see the things more clearly.
In order to keep your effectiveness high while doing nothing, you might want to consider the following tips:
Find the good moments to take breaks throughout your day, in order to later be more productive.
Own the very fact of doing nothing.
Take your time getting used to doing nothing.
Adjust your environment so that it favors Niksen.
Get bored in original ways. All in all, figure out what works for you and make sure you do nothing once in a while, as it is so beneficial for your health.
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