Minimise fat from your writing and increase your scarcity

Increase your scarcity - improve your writing

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”

— Plato

One of the most important themes that comes up again and again for reforming people pleaser introverts is the need to increase the perception of our scarcity. As people pleasers, we're often too available, responding to every email, every request, and finding it almost impossible to say "No". The sad reality of the world is that the more available you are (or perceived to be), the less you are valued by other people. 

We've discussed how to say "No" in multiple blogs. But there is another channel with which we communicate often that we should also focus on: emails. We often don't spend enough time reviewing what we've written and our emails (at least in my own experience) often contain spelling and grammatical errors. Worse still, we don't often think about how the email is perceived. 

So other than read your emails twice before hitting the send button, there is one additional action you can take to increase the value you project. It's simple. Trim the fat from your emails and get directly to the point. I'm guilty of using a lot of "fatty" words that's just unnecessary. So here are a few common combination of words that I've identified, which we should all remove in our next email.

1. Give consideration to, given consideration to, etc.

Consider is already a verb. It is already an action word. There is no point adding additional words to the sentence like "I have given consideration to..." or "After much consideration..." You are just adding extra words that make you feel like you're smarter or more formal (again, my opinion) but without impacting the actual message received. Let's be honest here, you are writing an email in a business context. You are not writing a thesis and these extra words add zero value.

How about just saying "I considered the following..." or the other version is "I accounted for the following..." By eliminating the unnecessary words, you have maintained the integrity of the message but made it more concise.

2. Undertake to develop or undertake an action, etc.

Again, the word undertake is an action. When you follow the word "undertake" with another verb, you are just filling up space. You will either do the action or not. From personal experience, whenever I've said "I will undertake an action...", it was simply my way of trying to sound modest while simultaneously trying to increase the perception of how much effort the action will take. I've learnt the hard way, it's better to just say the following:

• "I will action item 2. It will require x amount of time and I will require input from team 2 and team 7 over that period..."

Or how about just saying...

• "I will develop a program of work and solicit input from xyz..." Doesn't this sound so much less wanky than "I will undertake to develop a program of work..."

3. Perform an analysis of, perform an assessment of, etc.

This one is perhaps one of the most obvious forms of redundant verb combinations that we should all remove. I'm not even going to explain the redundancy here because it's so obvious. Just use the verbs as they are intended:

"I am going to analyse..." or "I am going to assess..."

4. Literally... 

This one applies to both emails, formal reports, and even verbal communication. In fact, I believe it is one of the most over used redundant words today, second only to the word "actually".

In the business environment, stop using the word "literally", particularly in relation to an action. For example: "I am literally going to explode with anger..." Firstly, the sentence is inaccurate. You can't physically explode with anger. Secondly, what you are actually trying to say is a metaphor (or whatever other more formal way of describing an emotion in a physical sense). You are not going to "literally" explode. 

So how about just saying "I am going to explode with anger..." or more simply, "I am angry because of..."

5. During the course of...

During has the same meaning as "in the course of". For example, the following sentences mean exactly the same thing:

• "During the transition..."
• "In the course of transitioning..."

You don't need to combine two words that mean the same. Eliminating one word by itself doesn't feel like a big change. But imagine eliminating similar redundant use of words throughout the length of a normal email and you will notice a massive difference. 

In fact, in my last sentence, I should've just said "...throughout a normal email...", the word "length" was unnecessary.

6. End result, final outcome, ultimate decision, end conclusion, etc.

I didn't realise this until I did some research for this blog post. The words "result", "outcome", "decision", and especially "conclusion" all convey the meaning of something that is final. So there is not point adding adjectives that describe finality to words that already convey such a scenario. How about just saying: "the result is..." or "the outcome is...", "the decision is..." and "the conclusion is...".

7. Revert back

OK, I am very guilty of this. In fact, in the last email I sent for the week at work, I told the recipient that I will review and revert back with any queries. Just thinking about make me shudder at how redundant that entire sentence was. 

Firstly, revert already means to return. So the word back was completely unnecessary.

Secondly, of course I will revert with queries. What else am I going to do with the queries? Keep them to myself? 

I should've just said, I will review and be in touch on Monday. See how clean the new sentence is and yet still very professional. 

So there you have it. Seven of the most common redundant use of words in emails that we should eliminate today. But there are countless other examples. We should all familiarise ourselves with the redundancies that can be removed. To help you, below are two articles that I've noted in my research that helps the most:

• 50 redundant phrases to avoid.
• 17 redundant verbs to cut.

Blog Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash