0049: How To Simplify Your Writing The Amazon Way

Raw transcript:

when we write anything whether it’s
something as quick as a text message or
something a little bit more elaborate
like a longer email message
or even something as long as a book an
article uh something that that has some
length to it
we often tend to get a little verbose in
the choice of words that we use
and i came across a nice little concise
list of things that can make our writing
more efficient and i’d like to share
that with you in this episode of the vo
heroes podcast
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we communicate with our peers with our
team members and our colleagues with our
customers with our clients
with our family and friends all the time
and
we all have different levels of approach
to the complexity of that writing
sometimes we dash something off in a
text message or sometimes we spend a
little bit more time with it in
something a little bit longer or
something a little bit more involved
and we’re often writing for publication
or we’re writing for dissemination among
a group
like a team at work or
a
group of customers if we sell things
and
we often have this notion that if we
aren’t
showing off how smart we are with our
writing that no one will take us
seriously
and
i think that the opposite is true and i
actually saw an article and i’m going to
butcher his name i’m sure because it’s
got an umlaut over the you but i’m going
to say cinema
or cinema
goonell
cinema wrote an article
on
a memo that was
released by somebody at amazon about how
they write reports
and how they write
proposals for things that happen within
the organization
amazon is a whole different kettle of
fish when it comes to communications
their size
their reputation
the
different worlds that they live in from
retail to servers to
uh to blue origin to like it’s just it’s
it’s it’s just a different level
of efficiency when it comes to writing
and
they have a number of rules that they
have about how they want things
structured and how it’s very different
from most
powerpoint presentations or or
written proposals
but there was one very cogent part of
his article
that i thought would be really helpful
because it kind of shatters the myth of
you have to sound educated you have to
and i’m not saying you shouldn’t sound
that you should somehow sound stupid i’m
just saying you don’t have to do what
i’m about to share with you you can do
something else instead
so as you’re writing how many times have
you used these phrases due to the fact
that
or
during the course of
or
came in contact with
right so instead of due to the fact how
about because
instead of during the course of how
about
during
instead of came in contact with how
about met
uh during the time that
how about
while
uh we’re in the process of learning how
about we’re learning yes if you’re
learning you’re in the process of
learning
um and then there’s a bunch of words
that you could possibly
check yourself
before you wreck yourself
check the wording of a sentence and see
if these words are really necessary
words like basically
or
essentially
or just
or simply
or pretty much
right
there’s a
there’s there’s any number of examples
like this but those kind of stuck out to
me in the article and i’m going to link
to the article in uh in the show notes
for this episode
but it’s amazing
when you are more efficient with your
writing without losing potency
and you’re not gilding the lily
by
trying to sound more official than you
need to sound
people
find it easier to read they find it
easier to digest
and they also find it easier to respond
to you
so if you want to increase engagement
with what you’re writing just
consider
being simple
direct
to the point
what have you found
that are examples that you either decry
when people use them
or that you’ve used yourself but you
found a substitute that works better
right how have you shortened up and made
your
communication more efficient
without being less potent
let me know in the comments below
if you’re watching this anywhere but on
voheros.com i’d love to have you go over
there that’s where the conversation is
nice and sane and if you know of an
actor or a voice-over artist who would
benefit from this forward than the link
to this uh this article this this
podcast episode just go to the top of
the page copy it from the
from the uh the address bar in your
browser and go for it
i really appreciate you watching and
listening out but helps
i’m david h lawrence the 17th and i will
see you in the next episode of the vo
heroes podcast
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