It’s Time We Change How We Write

Streamlining Our Words to Effectively Communicate in Today’s Distracted World

You’ll probably scan this article. And that’s OK—we wrote it with that in mind.

The authors of Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less put it well: “Never in the history of humanity have we vomited more words in more places with more velocity.”

The Challenge We live in a distracted era with a deluge of words coming at us at a breakneck pace. Emails, newsletters, text messages, social posts, news articles, physical mail, ads—the list goes on. Information overload is our reality. If you want a fighting chance at reaching your audiences, you have to make real adjustments to avoid getting lost in the noise.

The Data Studies show 60-80% of us will scan—not read—what we consume in writing each day. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for longer-form writing; we believe in the power of great fiction, poetry, love letters and thoroughly researched articles. But the way we communicate routine, professional information needs to change.

The Need We understand the uphill battle nonprofit organizations, ministries, churches and schools face in trying to reach their stakeholders, competing for attention among a glut of information. Thenext time you sit down to write anything to your key audiences, whether it’s an annual report or simply a group text to your team, ask yourself these questions.

7 Essentials for Breakthrough Writing

• Pause and Think What am I hoping to communicate? What is my end goal?
• Imagine a Real Person Who is my ideal audience? What is most relevant to them today?
• Capture Attention How can my first few words cut through the clutter?
• Prioritize What Matters What’s the one thing I want them to remember?
• Be Conversational How can I sound more human in everything I say?
• Consider Format Can I make the text more digestible with simple bolding, bullets or spacing?
• Edit, Edit, Edit Is there anything unnecessary I can cut?

Restructuring Content Along with brevity, it’s also worth restructuring our content so our communication is more to the point, better labeled and delivered in bite-sized chunks. Our Support Helping organizations like yours communicate effectively isn’t just something we do at Guardian—it’s our passion and at the core of our mission. We thrive when we can help support you in reaching those who matter to you most.