You know the feeling: the blank page, the blinking cursor, the faint pressure building behind your eyes. You have an idea, a really good one, you think, but the words in your head are a jumbled mess. You start to type, delete and rephrase. The sentence that comes out is clunky, formal and sounds absolutely nothing like you.
It’s frustrating, right? We’re communications students. We’re supposed to be good at this stuff!
So, here’s a simple hack I’ve learned that has completely changed how I write: I talk to myself.
Seriously. The next time you’re stuck on a sentence, just stop typing. Lean back, take a breath and say what you’re trying to write out loud. Just talk to the empty room. Articulate the idea as if you were explaining it to a friend over coffee.
Something almost magical happens when you do this. Your brain, which was so tied up in the formality of “writing,” suddenly relaxes. You’ll find that the jumbled idea in your head comes out as a clear, concise and natural-sounding sentence.
Your spoken words can be your best first draft.
A lot of professional writing can sound robotic. We get bogged down in corporate jargon and buzzwords because we think it makes us sound smarter, but in reality, the most effective communication is simple and easy to digest.
Think about a difficult email you have to send. Your brain might draft something like: “To optimize our initial strategy, it is imperative that we facilitate a synergistic approach to our upcoming campaign initiative.”
Ok, maybe that was a bit of an exaggerated example… but do you get my point? Sometimes we can make things needlessly complicated, even examples for a blog.
Now, try saying that idea out loud. You might say something like: “Okay, what do I actually mean? I mean, ‘Hey team, for this campaign to work, we all need to be on the same page and work together.’”
Now write that down: “For our upcoming campaign to be successful, it’s crucial that we’re all aligned and working together.” See? Clear, concise and human.
This trick is a game-changer for strategic communications. A press release, a social media caption or a client memo can all benefit from sounding like they were written by a person, for a person. Speaking your ideas first is my ultimate filter for cutting through the fluff and finding the authentic message at the core.
So next time you’re facing that blinking cursor, just start a conversation with yourself. Trust your voice, let it out and then write it down. You’ll be surprised at how powerful you sound when you just sound like yourself.
