How often do you send an email, write a quick report or briefing for someone, or write to a client or customer to explain, apologise, or persuade them?
Do you ever find yourself staring at a blank page wondering, how to start? Or find you’ve written dozens of pages but aren’t sure what needs to be edited out?
Before you start to write anything, the first question to ask yourself is, ‘what is the purpose of my writing?’
You are highly unlikely to have the luxury of spending all day uninterrupted when you have a lengthy document to write. It’s more likely that you will face frequent interruptions and distractions. When you have a clear purpose written down, it’s much easier to return to your document, refocus your thoughts and continue writing.
So is your purpose in writing your document to inform, persuade, enquire, explain, confirm, instruct or build relationships? What other purposes do you have?