3 Digital Writing Secrets Every Developer Should Know

As a developer I have to write a lot besides code.

In the past, I used to complain about people not getting what I had to say.

Ignored slack messages or emails, PR comments made me sad.

When talking to people, I could somehow steer the conversation, get some real time feedback and adjust.

But with emails it is 1000 times harder. The process is linear and goes only in one direction:

I write → You read.

If I failed to make my point, I lost you.

Over the years, I found that I can improve my writing by paing attention to 3 key principles.

Here are they:

1. Fast typing
2. Structure
3. Writing less

Learn to Type Fast

A very common advice on writing is to separate writing from editing.

This is very hard to do and needs a lot of practice.

I mostly disregard this advice.

If you are able to write, erase, and rewrite very very very fast, you don’t need to change your editing habits. You will still be faster than everyone else.

Thankfully I learned it 10 years ago and it has been serving me ever since.

My first job after the university was at a very young and chaotic start up.

Days went by without assignments and nobody cared (I was just an intern with almost zero pay).

So I needed to find my own projects and I did quickly.

I saw the developers there were typing really fast.

I wanted to be like them, so I started to learn fast typing.

I am not the fastest or most accurate typer today, but I'm apparently in the top 25%.

What to do:

• Go to 10Fastfingers and test your speed
• Spend the next 30 days practicing SLOWLY for 10 minutes (there are tons of free websites to practice)
• Retake the test after 30 days (remember to only compete against yourself, ignore the rest)

Bonus: Shortcuts

If you want to take it up another level, ditch your mouse and learn shortcuts for everything you can possibly do:

• Navigating windows
• Starting and closing applications
• Starting a google search

Add structure

There are several things you can tweak to improve your writing 10x.

Adding structure helps you organize & present your thoughts in a more clear way.

It make it much easier for your reader to understand you.

Thought structure

There are multiple frameworks that help organize thoughts.

You only need one: The Pyramid Principle.

The Pyramid Principle in short:

1. Start with the bottom line.
2. Add supporting arguments.
3. Then add sub points for each argument.

Visual structure

Help the reader glide through your texts.

I realy on this heavily in all my writing and love this.

Make use of:

1. Subheadings
2. Lists and bullets
3. Short paragraphs

This is so much easier to read than the same text in one blob:

Help the reader glide through your texts. I realy on this heavily in all my writing and love this. Make use of subheadings, lists and bullets, and short paragraphs.

Isn't it?

Less Is More

I can’t remember where I heard this advice from, but it is gold.

Somewhat connected to the Pyramid Principle, it has to do with the amount of text you're writing.

For everything you write, write it in once short sentence first.

Instead of writing the whole email, write this:

• "The project is delayed"
• "We need to meet"
• "The bug is fixed"
• "I quit"

Now start adding some text to help make your point.

• Give some context
• Add greetings
• etc

Only add if absolutely necessary.

Then stop, you're done.

Recap

1. Improve your typing speed
2. Add thought and visual structure
3. Say less

P.S. If you're really serious about improving your writing as a developer, take this free Technical Writing Course by Google.

That's it for today.