My writing… Lacks focus and structure.
Not too long ago I wrote a post about the struggle to blog concisely. Honestly, I had a hard time conceptualizing why it felt like such a struggle in the first place. Writing concisely should be easy, right? Is it not just “less is more”? Get to the point in fewer words?
(The irony is not lost on me – this is the best I’m willing to do right now!)
As it happens, I recently received some insightful coaching from my boss and mentor at work. In a huge lightbulb moment, he was able to simultaneously summarize one of my biggest communication struggles at work and he unknowingly uncovered what is perhaps the most pervasive issue that I face with my blogging as well!
I couldn’t wait to come on here and share what I learned. It’s a golden real-life example of how your career can support your creative practice. It also might be really helpful to anyone else struggling to focus their writing out there!
First, I want to offer a little window into what I was struggling with at work.
What I learned at work
Accounting and tax are complicated. Yes, they both come with rulebooks, but within the confines of those rulebooks there are complications such as exceptions to the rules, caveats, grey areas, phrasing open to interpretation, interconnected rules, new legislation, court rulings, and so-on. It’s true what they say: the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.
One of the things I like about accounting is the challenge of condensing these complicated technical matters into simple, digestible information. (Sounds familiar, right bloggers?)
I thought I knew how to do this: you choose the right words, not too many, and put them in a logical order. Use subheadings, use white space, and avoid jargon. Easy. Except the words I was choosing and the order I was putting them were all designed convey or otherwise account for all this underlying complexity, all at once.
Tell me that doesn’t sound overwhelming!
The worst part, I discovered, was that in trying to cover all this at once, I wasn’t really answering the question.
My mentor pointed out to me that in true accountant’s tradition, when addressing a question, my tendency was to immediately try to come up with the most complete, technically correct answer that I could. Kind-of like answering a case question on a CPA exam (you must demonstrate maximum breadth and depth in a restrictive period of time to pass).
Except the person asking the question is not an examiner. The querent probably asked a simple question, and they are looking for a practical answer. Not a mind-map in written form, not a scenario analysis, and not a technical paper (sans jargon). They are expecting an answer that they can do something with.
So how do we get better at answering the question?
The solution is essentially to take a step back and consider two things before you deep-dive:
- What question is really being asked? It might help to consider why they’re asking, or what they will do with your answer. They might need to know how to do something. They might need to decide on a course of action. They might be evaluating whether something is worth pursuing further.
- What do they need to know now to take the next step? There’s going to be a sweet spot of information provided that is “not too much”. It should be enough where the querent can either take a small action, ask for clarification, or make a decision. In complex matters, it’s likely this will lead to further discussion, but it’s better to save the details for when the querant has processed the first bit, and is ready to absorb that next bit, rather than throwing everything on the table all at once. We want a logical, practical approach.
Now that I’m writing it out, it sounds kind-of obvious. Is it? It certainly wasn’t to me, but now that I’ve been turned onto this perspective, I feel a huge sense of relief in the simplicity.
Applying this lesson to blogging
I tried to stop overcomplicating my blog writing by taking an approach that was very familiar to me: I tried treating it as a business writing exercise (because you know, business writing is supposed to be concise and effective). Business writing is something that makes up a good chunk of my day job, so I could not figure out why this approach wasn’t working for me!
Until that impromptu coaching session.
My “business writing approach” to blog writing was to start a post by coming up with a question or a specific problem and then addressing it the way I would address a question at work.
…Ah, I see the problem now.
That’s okay – I’m going to pivot! Just like at work, I’ll be trying to take a high-level, step-by-step approach. In doing this I’m aiming to focus my writing, to create shorter blog posts that stay on-topic, and to write faster drafts since I will have a framework that keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by my topic of choice.
If you are like me and struggle to focus your writing or find it’s meandering all over the place, I invite you to try this with me:
- Come up with your theoretical “question” to answer on your topic of choice.
- Take a step back from the theoretical “question”, and think about the theoretical person asking it. What are they really asking? What do they really want to know?
- Answer the question with the right words, not too many, in a logical order.
- If you start to feel you are floundering, re-focus by considering what your theoretical person needs to know now in order to get to their “next step”, which could be:
- Applying something they’ve just learned
- Making a decision
- Choosing to get more detail (by asking another question, in which case the cycle repeats – you’ve got another theoretical “question” to answer in your next blog post!)
As I’m looking at this step-by-step, I realize that I love to brainstorm. That last point about re-focusing is going to be key. It’s the ability to compartmentalize the mind-map, rather than trying to express the whole thing at once, that will keep the writing focused.
Finally, a shift from complexity to clarity
This post is the first time that I’ve tried this technique (oh, the re-writing). Whether or not this post actually reads clearer and more focused than my previous ones, it feels that way to me! The immediate improvement lies in focused drafting, by not trying to cover too much too quickly, and avoiding adding too much detail. Already, I sense a reduction in overwhelm that came from the shift from complexity to clarity.
Still, I can immediately tell you – it’s going to take practice to truly bear fruit.
Who out there has similar struggles in writing, and what has worked for you? Will you try this approach with me?
