In his 1985 essay “How to Write with Style,” Kurt Vonnegut writes about seven simple steps for better writing. In his essay, he’s talking about creative writing, but his tips can be easily applied to professional writing, like many writing tips.

1. Find a subject you care about.

This is sometimes hard in professional writing when often we’re supposed to write about an assigned topic for a job or project, but the first step is to find work that you like to do in professional writing and do that. If you get really attached to a cause, consider lending your skills to different foundations to write grants for them. In getting closer to those subjects, you’ll be able to write meaningful grants. Perhaps you’re deeply interested in medicine or the environment; look for a job writing or editing for a medical journal or an environmental group. There are so many ways to apply writing that you should never feel stuck in a certain position or type of writing.

2. Do not ramble.

This is essential in creative writing. Nobody wants to hear a narrator ramble on and on about a setting or insignificant information. The same goes for professional writing. Keep the information essential, and keep it tight. Be concise in whatever you’re writing—whether it’s a technical project, a grant, or some type of digital media work. Say only what you need to say. No more.

3. Keep it simple.

It’s essential for a reader to understand what they’re reading in professional writing. For a technical document, it’s important to understand a process or a technical item. If the language is complex and full of jargon, then the usability of that object drops. Think about the reader—who will be using this and what do they need to know? Then, think about the best way to get that information across in the most simplistic way.

4. Have the guts to cut.

It’s hard to write a long draft and then realize in revision that you only need half or even a tenth of the information. Yes, that’s incredibly difficult to accept, but it’s important to cut the excess information. It’s important to cut information that doesn’t make sense in order to rewrite it so that it does. Remember, keep it simple.

5. Sound like yourself.

This one doesn’t really apply to technical writing, but for grant writing and digital media writing, it’s okay to have a bit of a voice. Sharing a story in grant writing is essential. Connecting with the reader through your own personality can make the difference between getting a grant and not. For digital media writing, if you’re writing a blog, an interesting voice brings readers back to the site again and again.

6. Say what you mean to say.

Vonnegut says, “Readers what our pages to look very much like pages they have seen before. Why? This is because they themselves have a tough job to do, and they need all the help they can get from us.” Write accurately. Pick the write words in order to way what you want to most effectively. Make it easier on your reader to understand.

7. Pity the readers.

This is a phrase I always have in the back of my head while writing. Pity the reader. To me, it sums all the above up quickly and concisely. Vonnegut could have just stuck with this one phrase for the whole list. No matter what you’re writing, think about the reader. How can you make their job easier?

Have you ever been scrolling through a website only to see a word misspelled? Have you ever read an ad on Facebook that uses the wrong there/their/they’re? Have you ever been sent a memo that was completely unorganized and just poorly written? Have you ever received an email from a coworker with a comma splice or without any punctuation?

Think back and remember how you felt when you caught those errors or got lost in a professional document because of poor writing. Were you accepting of it? Did your eyes just float over the error? Or did you become hypercritical? Did you search for more errors or think about how you could write it better?

Good grammar and writing  is credibility.

It doesn’t matter what you do for a living; you’re more credible if you can write well. From the moment you send an application in to a job, your writing needs to be impeciable because your cover letter and resume are how you’re presenting your skills to that hiring manager and company. If you’re already working, your writing shows your boss a lot about who you are as a worker.

Writing isn’t just for the writers. There are many ways having good writing skills can benefit you in any job.

It demonstrates work ethic.

Maybe you weren’t paying attention in that 10th grade English class when grammar was being taught, or perhaps you just never learned it properly. Either way, at a certain point, that excuse is no longer valid. If you’re ten years out of high school, and you still can’t distinguish the difference between to and too, then it’s probably a lack of interest issue than a lack of trying.

Proper grammar shows a certain level of work ethic in a person. Are you willing to look up and teach yourself the difference to improve your own communiation skills? Are you willing to work at this skill you’re poor at in order to improve?

It shows attention to detail.

Good writing, especially good grammar, show a person’s attention to detail. Nobody writes every single sentence grammatically correct every single time, so it’s important to have good editing skills. Going back over your writing and checking for those comma errors and misplaced modifiers shows that you are detail-oriented, and details are everything in any business.

It helps you organize your ideas better.

Good writing skills helps your brain to naturally organize information better in your head. When writing a proposal for a job or a memo for the office, you’ll be able to quickly draft the document in your head in a way that would make sense for the reader. This allows your reader to easily process the information you give them.

It helps you communicate more effectively. 

Unless you work by yourself, communication is key in any job, and even if you do work alone, you probably need to communicate with a customer or corporation at some point. Honing your writing skills will allow you to communicate more easily with any customer, coworker, or higher-up both in-writing and in-person. You’ll be able to accurately get your ideas across in writing and present those ideas well in clean prose. It will make you more credible.

My undergraduate professor often told her students that there was no such thing as writer’s block. Of course we never believed her. Instead, we’d complain about writer’s block in dramatic and amusing ways. She never empathized. She would say, “Just sit down at your computer, stare at the screen, and type ‘I have nothing to write. I have nothing to write. I have nothing to write…’ again and again.” She guaranteed that we would find something to write after typing it over and over again.

Since graduating a few years ago, I’ve tried this trick about a dozen times when I’ve become stuck in either my creative or professional writing. It works; you really do get sick of typing it over and over again. Still, there are many ways to find a way to the page.

Ways around writer’s block

• Exercise or go for a walk. If you’re sitting at your desk with nothing to write, walking away for a bit is always helpful. Go get your blood moving a bit and pump some extra oxygen up to your brain. Coming back to the desk will be refreshing.
• Brew some coffee. Or cocoa. Or whatever it is you most enjoy. The familiar process of making something and then holding that warm cup of whatever will appease the brain.
• Brainstorm ideas. Make a list of things you could write about or outline what you need to write about. This way, you’ll have a place to begin.
• Eliminate distractions. Put your phone on silent and out of sight. Use an app to block the internet for an hour or two. Hide anything else that usually distracts you. Without everything begging for your attention, you’ll be able to find some serious time with just the page in front of you.
• Create a routine. Entering into a routine will help your body and mind get ready to write. Just like a morning routine or a bedtime routine, your body will prepare itself and you’ll become an efficient writing-machine.
• Find the time you write best. If you’re a freelancer, you have more of a window to write than a writer in an office. Find what time you write well. Are you a rise-and-shine writer or a stay-up-all-night writer? If you have a 9-5 job, consider how you can break up your day. Maybe use the mornings to send emails, and then the afternoons could provide some solid writing time to get the work done.
• Just write. If all else fails, just write something. Whether it’s ‘I have nothing to say’ over and over again or just free writing for a little while, eventually you’ll find a way into what you need to write.

Don’t enable your writer’s block

• Don’t procrastinate. It’s easy to find ten other things to do before doing what you need to do. It’s easy to spend a whole day procrastinating. Don’t push it off. Sit down and find a way to the page.
• Don’t wait until you feel like it. If you wait until you are inspired, until you have the words in your head, you’ll never find the words. So sit down, and tell yourself it’s time.
• Don’t read articles about overcoming writer’s block. Maybe this article helped you, or maybe you’re mad you spent a few moments of your valuable time reading it. Either way, quit procrastinating. Go write.