Читать книгу Write Better and Get Ahead At Work - Michael Dolan - Страница 3

Being the author’s description of how the basic ideas and exercises of the book fit together, punctuated with snappy remarks and colorful metaphors, opening with a scene from a typical day at work

Terry Johnson comes to work in the morning with a pretty good idea of what she has to do. She has an electronic calendar to keep her schedule. She knows what to do next on her main project. And she is working on a new idea to pitch to her boss.

One reason she has progressed this far in her career is that she plans it, thinking about what has to happen and why. Instead of simply rushing forward with no idea of where she is going, she sets goals. She does not always get exactly what she wants, but she knows how to adjust her goals to changing situations.

When Terry sits down to the keyboard, however, she waits. She waits for the ideas to come, for the words to “flow.” After a while she writes down a few sentences. Even though they do not seem right, she finds nothing wrong with the grammar or punctuation. She continues writing, still waiting for that certain click to indicate the writing is “good.” At the end of the third run through on her draft, she decides to stop writing, more because she has to get on with it than because she thinks the message is clear.

Terry is uncomfortable because she doesn’t know if her memo will have any impact. She wonders if a reader will finish it. She does not want her memo, so important for the completion of her current project, to be treated the way she treats most of the memos sent to her: set them aside for later.