Helping public sector managers get value for money from their budgets
A blog about public financial management: the fine art of managing public money to deliver vital services to the public. It involves budgeting, accounting, controlling, auditing, reporting, policy-making and decision-taking.
Getting the start and finish of your documents right. They are more likely to be remembered than the long bit in the middle.
The introduction and summary contain the key messages of the entire document and the reader’s expectations are set by them.
Let’s face it, this might be the only bit someone reads and you want them to be impressed, don’t you?
Read MoreThere are countless podcasts, articles and blogs about productivity. I’m a listener/reader of some and I don’t think I have ever come across one specifically made or written with accountants in mind.
Allow me to step into that gap with (my first) three productivity tips for accountants.
Navigating documents and spreadsheets is quicker using the arrow keys than using a mouse or trackpad. There are shortcuts for most of the popular actions such as copy (Cmd/Ctrl + C), paste (Cmd/Ctrl + V), save (Cmd/Ctrl + S), and open (Cmd/Ctrl + O). In Word the shift key combined with arrow keys highlights text faster than you can drag a mouse.
You can see the shortcuts next to the items in the menus in apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You could also do a web search for lists of shortcuts
Don’t try to learn every shortcut in one go. Learn one or two and when they become second nature learn another couple.
There are some phrases, sentences and paragraphs you use over and again. This could be contact info like your email address or a standard reply to email requests or standard disclaimer text for a report. Whenever you notice you are writing something you have written before, or find yourself looking for an existing document to copy the text for re-use, there is a candidate for text expansion.
Text expansion is a service where you link a short trigger phrase to a longer piece of text so that when you type the trigger phrase it is replaced by the text. For example, when I type ‘socf’ it is replaced by ‘statement of cash flows’ and ‘xbs’ is replaced by balance sheet. I also use text expansion for auto-correction of words. For example, when I type ‘cipfa’ it will automatically be capitalised to CIPFA.
There are many text expansion apps available and which suits you depends in part on the devices you have and how much you are willing to pay to save time. TextExpander is the one I use. (If you use Apple devices you can do text expansion for free because it is built into the operating systems. Go to the Keyboard section of settings to set it up.)
I am sure you can speak faster than you can type. Smartphones are getting better and better at voice to text translate. Now, we can all dictate our writing without having a personal assistant and the artificial intelligence means the translation improves the more you use it.
I suggest next time you have a document or long email to write that is a few paragraphs long try dictating the first draft on your phone. I think you could save a stack of time and effort. The more you use dictation the
Let me know your productivity tips and perhaps I could include them in a future post.
Mark Twain said “Writing is easy. You just cross out the wrong words.”
Ernest Hemingway said, “The first draft of anything is shit.”
Whilst we may not be the equal of these great storytellers we can learn from them and every other author.
Once you have written your first draft you should not click Save and send it off to the audience. Revise and edit your work. Make it as good as you reasonably can before you declare it finished.
I know sometimes we can be up against a deadline. The report is due at 5pm and you finish it at 4.55. Well, yes that does happen, but if something is important you need to manage your time to get it right. That means leaving enough time to edit your first draft.
And let me be clear — I mean you should edit the draft of the content BEFORE it is formatted for despatch.
I have several tips for you about revising and editing.
If you can, leave the draft for a day or two so you come back to it with a fresh mind.
Fewer words is usually better than more words so try to reduce the document by at least 10 per cent. Sometimes a lot more than 10 per cent can be cut.
Reading your words aloud can really help you with making sure it flows properly.
Grammar checking software, like Grammarly and even an app called Hemingway, can help.
Work hard on getting the opening right. Often I find the first draft includes lots of unnecessary information in the introduction, words written as a sort of warm up, to get the thing going. These can be quickly deleted and the document will be the better for it
Don’t be afraid to “kill your darlings”. Do not keep something in the document just because you spent a long time writing it. If it does not add value to the reader it needs to be cut out.
Last week I wrote that perfection comes from including only the essential. Let me explain one way to apply that thinking to an audit report or similar (as taught to me when I worked at a Big Four firm).
Read MoreA common piece of advice for aspiring creative writers is to read as much as you can. I think we can apply that to accountants who want to improve their writing skills. They should read finance reports and documents written by others, inside and outside their organisation, but I would add a qualification ...
Read More
Allow me to make some suggestions.
First, your boss or mentor or a client tells you so.
I suspect that is quite rare. More subtle is the case where your boss or mentor or client does not tell you outright but asks questions that you thought your document had answered.
Or maybe you receive documents by other finance people and you’re impressed by how well technical material is explained. Or you wonder how they managed to make the text, charts and tables look so good.
If (when?) you identify that there is room for improvement what should you do? Here are some ideas:
Learn some more about grammar, typography and data visualisation
Practice your skills as much as you can
Get a coach to work with you
Hire an editor to refine the documents you write
Hire a ghost writer to write documents for you
I can help you with the last three of these. Contact me by email or go to my page on Calendly and arrange an introductory call with me.
© Gary Bandy 2024
