Hitting “Send” Too Soon

My text feed:

Thabks for the food.

thanks*

Over and over and over agaan. again* It’s just too easy to quickly type and hit send. Proofread a text: catch 80% of the problems. Eighty percent is good enough most of the time. But, when I’m writing something more important, like an email to the entire management team, how can I catch the other 20%? How can I make my writing more clear and concise? I’ve found two practices that help me the most. The first is to have a fresh set of eyes look at it. That could be as formal as a writing workshop or as relaxed as asking my co-worker to read it once. Asking “how would you improve this?” encourages feedback. When someone else isn’t available I can be my own “set of fresh eyes.” If I go do something else, or even sleep on it, I return with a different mindset and can often see mistakes right in front of me that I couldn’t see before. A little bit of thyme makes all the difference.

time* :)