Eat That Frog !: The Painless Way To Technical Writing

The article “The Painless Way to Technical Writing” has some useful tips about technical writing and among them the tip to write on a part of a project is most useful. The hardest part of writing is the overwhelming feeling the writer gets about the whole process. Looking at the whole project as one assignment makes the tasks seems very difficult. Instead, the approach to break down the writing project into smaller tasks would make the job much easier. Reading this tip in the article reminded me of the similar strategies that I have recently read in two self improvement books. The first book titled Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy. One of the strategies the book talks about

is break down bigger tasks into smaller ones and if needed divide the smaller tasks into subcategories. Another book The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner, in which the author emphasizes on focusing the individual process instead of stressing over the goal. This idea of focusing and enjoying the process is rather unique because usually we hear or read about focusing on the goal, but the author explained that you could still achieve the goal by breaking down into processes and enjoy working on each process. I personally haven't used any specific strategies for writing because besides memos and emails, I haven’t done too much writing at work. But I am looking forward to use the tips that I have learned in this article and other books for a situation where I have to write a technical report at work or write some other occasion.