Harvard Business Review Guides Ultimate Boxed Set (16 Books)

Chapter 5

Write in full—rapidly

Once you’ve written your three main points so that you know where you’re going, you’re in Carpenter mode— ready to put together the ideas you’ve generated and organized. Write as quickly as possible. Your sentences will be shorter than they otherwise would be, your idioms will be more natural, and your draft should start taking shape before you know it. If there’s a painful part of writing, it’s doing the first draft. When you shorten the duration, it’s not as painful.

Time yourself

To prevent premature fussing, write against the clock. (Creative writers call this speed writing. They often use it as an exercise to get juices flowing.) Allow yourself 5 or 10 minutes to draft each section—the opener, the body, and ...