The average American types 38-40 words per minute. The average English sentence length is about 14 words.
Do the math: you’ve got time to make an impact.
This is great news for you and your team members! It’s really, really easy to write things, and you have all the tools to do so:
- Your brain. You’re already using this to understand your organization’s priorities and consider the communications opportunities and impacts.
- Miscellaneous. You’ll almost always have a computer, but I like drafting lines in a notebook, sitting in front of our fish tank. Even in “the field” as a Brigade Combat Team PAO, I had a chair, table, laptop and cup of coffee available in the TOC whenever I needed to write a statement or PA estimate.
Of course, one sentence is rarely enough. Whether it’s a whole article or statement, or a series of one- or two-sentence lines like cutlines or Q&As, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I used to waste time searching for something to copy and paste, only to end up with language that didn’t quite suit that day’s situation or product. It saves time and improves quality when you go ahead and start with an originally written sentence, crafted by your brain and informed by your close familiarity with your organization.
Leave for your next meeting one minute later than usual, and use that time to put something into writing that nobody else is in a position to do. That’s a valuable thing.
You’ll only burn less than one additional calorie for that one sentence of writing. Eat your peeled, raw cucumber slice and get back to work.
