Simple Proofreading Process with a Big Name Ratiocination - The Writers For Hire

SIMPLE PROOFREADING PROCESS WITH A BIG NAME: RATIOCINATION Thanks to Alise Isbell for contributing this wonderful post on a very interesting proofreading method. Youre bound to catch more errors if you do this! Ratiocination is a miracle that changed the way I write and edit. While not a professional writer, my company trains people how to write more effectively, and ratiocination helps. Webster’s Dictionary defines ratiocination as â€Å"the process of exact thinking† or â€Å"a reasoned train of thought.† Language is a vehicle, like a car. It has parts like suffixes, prefixes, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs etc†¦ People can rearrange the parts to function differently. For example, we slow down the reader with longer words or more complicated verb tenses. We can also speed up the reader by doing the opposite. The key to effective writing is tinkering with the right parts of language to get the desired results. Why does ratiocination get results? When proofreading, the process isolates grammar concepts and allows the writer to assess the parts instead of the whole piece. Writers use basic grammar concepts with this process to improve the effectiveness and impact of their message. How it works: The simple version†¦ 1. Select any piece of writing. 2. Choose a set of grammar concepts and a symbol or color for each concept to highlight these in the writing. Ideally, the grammar concepts should be common errors. (Examples include: their, there and they’re or it’s and its). 3. Code the writing for each grammar concept. For example, mark all the â€Å"that† words with red. The word â€Å"that† is used as a pronoun, but often overused as a conjunction (which lengthens sentences unnecessarily.) Analysis: 1. Too many prepositions 2. Unnecessary â€Å"that† 3. Sentence too long 4. Passive voice 5. Too many big words Revision: Because of the client’s proposal instructions, we will start documenting when engineers examine problems. This documentation will help us establish if new employees need more training. Change the grammar concepts to fit the purpose, weaknesses or bad habits you want to fix. Your writing will look like a paint-by-numbers, but the dissection leads to clear, concise and streamlined prose. Once you have highlighted each of the grammar concepts, it sets them apart from the writing, making language easier to evaluate. Alise Isbell, Owner Write Wise Communications, LLC We drive achievement with effective communication! 488 W. 19th St., #359 Houston, TX 77008 www.writewisecommunications.com (713) 863-9140 direct/fax (713) 557-6112 cellular Follow me on Twitter: amisbell

Marketing Workflow Process How to Reduce Work By 30% to 50%

Marketing Workflow Process How to Reduce Work By 30% to 50% Have you ever hit a snag as you manage projects? Maybe some details got missed. You had to work on something at the last minute. You have way too much on your plate. It felt like a fire drill. And it felt disorganized. But what if you never had to feel that way again? Workflow process mapping for your marketing projects can help you: Reduce the amount of work within a project by 30-50%. (!!!) Start projects at the right times to help you nail every deadline. Collaborate + delegate more efficiently than ever before. Ready to get started? How To Boost A Marketing Workflow Process That Will Reduce Work By 30-50%Team Management Dashboard: Manage Your Team's Workload More Effectively  Than Ever Gain powerful insight into your team’s daily and weeks tasks in one dashboard. The Team Management Dashboard gives managers ultimate visibility into team member's priorities. You can pinpoint bottlenecks in workload, see project status, and set realistic goals for your entire team (without the endless status meetings.) With the  Team Management Dashboard from , you'll: Gain ultimate visibility into each team member's daily priorities, so you can focus on driving productivity and meeting your deadlines NOT scouring the calendar for project updates. Easily identify who has too much on their plate and who can take on more work, so you can get more done and keep team members happy. Know who’s falling behind (and who’s rockin’ it).  Get a snapshot of every team member’s progress with completed, overdue, and incomplete tasks, so you can set realistic goals for your team and address concerns faster. 1. Map Out Everything That Needs To Be Done Andrew S. Grove, former chairman and CEO at Intel, writes about the concept of removing unnecessary tasks from processes in his book, High Output Management. He calls this work simplification. And, to be honest, it's a very easy idea to grasp + implement. Andrew suggests: ...you first need to create a flow chart of the production process as it exists. Every single step must be shown on it; no step should be omitted in order to pretty things up on paper. To implement this advice, you could: Open Evernote and type every step in your process in a bulleted list. Grab a stack of Post-It notes + a Sharpie and wrote one step per sticky note. Find a notepad + a pencil and get everything on paper. At this point, you are looking for a raw list of every single step in a process. For example, here is a workflow process sample of all of the steps we consider as we write a blog post at : Note: This is a simple checklist in Evernote. It's not overcomplicated. Action item: Write down every step in your workflow  in chronological order. 2. Reduce The Number of Steps in Your Workflow In High Output Management, Andrew shares: Second, count the number of steps in the flow chart so that you know how many you started with.  Third, set a rough target for reduction of the number of steps. In the first round of simplification, our experience shows that you can reasonably expect a 30 to 50 percent reduction. To implement the actual simplification, you must question why each step is performed. Typically, you will find that many steps exist in your workflow for no good reason. Often they are there because of tradition or because formal procedure necessitates it, not for a practical reason. Putting this advice into practice for our blog post workflow example, I  targeted removing at least 5 of the 28 steps (highlighted in yellow): As you do this process for your own workflow, look for steps that: Fall into other processes and will happen regardless of including this as an actual task in your workflow. Examples for the blog post included emailing audience and responding to blog comments. Simply don't need to happen. For example, our social media graphics are the same as the graphics we design for blog content (our graphic designer, Ashton, just sizes them appropriately for each social media network). No one needs to review her work if we nail the initial review correctly, so this is a step that doesn't need to exist. Used to be helpful, but are now outdated.  We used to  define angles and peer review outlines at a time when we changed our standards of performance for blog content. These steps were helpful to  instill a culture change for every piece, but now the team knows the expectations. In this example, we can remove those two steps because we trust the team to complete their work effectively. Exist for  office bureaucracy. When you completely trust your team, there is no need for approvals. More eyeballs = slower, inefficient process. If you don't trust your team to ship quality work, improving your workflow is not the problem (and it won't be the solution). Action item: Remove unnecessary steps from your workflow. 3. Combine Steps Into Tasks In addition to removing steps from your workflow entirely, there is likely an opportunity to consolidate similar steps  together. This practice will help you remove some  clutter from your workflow,  simplify your process, and make delegating + communicating tasks a lot easier. For example, with the blog post workflow, I consolidated 23 steps into 13: Note that at this point, you'll want to clearly begin every task with a verb. As you delegate, this makes it clear what you expect the assignee to do before she marks the task as complete. Action item: Consolidate the steps into tasks  beginning with clear action verbs. 4. Give Each Task a Clear Definition of Done And since you'll be delegating, you may need to literally write out your expectations for each task. What does done look like before the assignee checks it off her to-do list? This simple process gives you the chance to clearly communicate expectations before you assign work. And as you share the definitions with your team, it gives your assignees a framework to reference as they execute so they can self-serve and answer the questions themselves (further improving their productivity  and autonomy). Action item: Write the definition of done for each task.  Clearly lay out your expectations. 5. Choose Who Will Complete Each Task You likely already know the folks who serve specific marketing roles within your business. Now, it's time to determine who among your team is best suited for each of the tasks. For our blog post workflow example, defining who does what  could look like this: Action item: Choose who will complete each specific task within your workflow. 6. Determine How Long it Will Take to Complete Each Task Now that you know who is doing what, you can have a simple conversation with each team member involved in the process. During this chat, show your assignee the workflow as a whole  and explain the definitions of done. Then, ask a simple question: How long will it take to complete this task? You will use this information to help you understand when to begin working on  the project so you can nail your deadlines. For example, this is what it may look like for the blog post workflow: This process helps you see where there are opportunities for multiple different team members to be working on different parts of the project at the same time (so you can ship faster). For example,  Ben can proofread and optimize as Ashton starts her designs. It also gives you some perspective into how much work a specific team member can realistically take on. And it will help you  understand how far in advance you should assign  the tasks to be due. Action item: Determine how long it will take to complete each task within your workflow. 7. Plan When Each Task Needs To Be Complete At this point,  review every task and think about the due date as: # days before publish I've found it helpful to start your review with the last task in your workflow. Why? Because you can realistically work backward  to understand when to start the project, taking into consideration every task, team member, and their time commitment. Ask yourself: How many days before publish (or launch) does the last task in my  workflow need to be complete? Is it one day? One week? From there,  determine how many days before publish the other tasks need to be complete. Keep in mind, there may be opportunity for different team members to complete tasks simultaneously (which will help you ship faster). This is an extremely  subjective part of the framework and will require a lot of good + realistic judgment on your part. So, here is an example of what this would look like for our blog post workflow example: In this example, I started my review with the last task in our workflow: Schedule blog post to publish. I like to see blog posts 100% complete two weeks before they publish. This gives us a bank of content and a framework of when we should realistically start working on content to keep that bank of completed content a reality. After I nailed down when the  last task needs to be complete, I worked my way "up" the task list and assigned X days before publish due dates to all of the tasks. Now I know in order to write a blog post up to our standards, we should start working on it 22 days before publish. Agile Sprint Planning Can Make This Even Easier Agile is a project management technique that is growing in popularity amongst marketing teams. It is particularly popular for its ability to accurately breakdown large projects into smaller chunks that are more likely to be accomplished on time. Part of the Agile process is collaboratively determining team velocity and the break down of tasks. Doing so collaboratively means the project is more likely to be completed on time as the individual who will be doing the work can give their estimations of how long it will actually take them to accomplish the tasks. Here's how it works:   Your team velocity is their overall capacity to accomplish work. This is typically calculated based team input and historical performance. It can be calculated using some basic math. Every task your team completes a holds a certain point value. Once every task of your project is broken down, team members will assign the task a point value on a scale of 1 to 3... 1 is the easiest to complete and takes the lest amount of time; 3 is the most difficult and takes the most amount of time. Task A: 1 point Task B: 2 points Task C: 2 points Task D: 3 points Project Velocity Total: 8   Let's say that previous projects that were an 8 point velocity  were delivered in a total of 3 days. Now you know exactly how many days to allocate for the work to be completed. Action item: Determine how many days before publish each task must be completed. I'm not gonna lie: My Evernote example is starting to look like a mess. That's where comes into play. 8. Delegate The Tasks: Notify + Remind + Collaborate At this point, your team knows the tasks they are responsible for completing + the definition of done for those tasks. So your next step is to clearly: Notify the assignee when you delegate  a task so she knows what to execute. Communicate the due date for that task (transitioning your plan of # days before publish into  clearly defined calendar dates). Remind the assignee again the day before a task is due to make certain the task gets complete. You can do this via email or instant message tools like Slack or HipChat. Or you can build the workflow you created into to automatically share this information without the manual busywork. ;) Recommended Reading: How to Make the Best Process With 11 Content Marketing Workflow Tips In your marketing calendar, open a new blog post. From here, select the task template icon and + New Template. Now you can add  all of the  process you just created into a reusable marketing workflow. Simply name your task template and hit Next. Then add each of your tasks, assign it to the team member, and add your # days before publish. Now you can apply + reuse that task template with a couple simple clicks, which works extremely well for recurring projects like the blog post example we've been using as a teaching aid throughout this  article. The moment you apply the task template, everyone who is assigned a task is notified by email and in their personal dashboard (which serves nicely as a daily to-do list). The day before a task is due, automatically emails the assignee to make sure the work gets done. Action item: Assign the tasks for your project, notify  each team member on the task due date, and remind each team member the day before  her task is due. (When you use , you just need to build your task template once and apply it to automatically do this without the manual busywork). 10. Track Team Progress Now you can follow the same process you learned from this article to create workflows for any project you choose to take on! Afterward, you'll likely want to know what's working  (and what's not) so you can improve your process. Lucky you- also has a feature called  the Team Performance Report. ^^^ This report helps you know your team's completion rate for all marketing tasks on your calendar. That includes: Tasks completed on time  (so you know your workflows are really working). Tasks completed past due (so maybe you need to tweak  minor # days before publish  somewhere because the work is getting done, just not when you expected). Tasks overdue (so you can see exactly what is NOT getting done and address snags with your team  quickly). You can also use burn charts to understand the amount of tasks you are assigning to your team and how many are overdue. This helps you spot trends + address snags before you miss any deadlines. With Team Reports, you can also see who is falling behind (and who's rockin' it). You'll click through to see even more information about each team member's performance with completed, overdue, and incomplete task reports. And that will help you tweak your workflows + set realistic goals + address concerns faster. Action item: Find the tool that helps you understand when tasks are completed on time, completed past due, and  overdue. How Will You Organize Your Marketing Workflow Process? The framework you  just learned has helped  the marketing team at get organized, work smarter, and boost our productivity. And hey, if you want to make it even easier on yourself... let us know! You can set up a demo below...