The Easiest Ways to Write to Stand Out in Your Career

"How the hell do I do this?"

I've asked myself this question many times throughout my career.

Someone moves to a different team, gets laid-off, or leaves the company, but one thing remains. The work.

If that person didn't write anything down, it feels impossible to recreate the work.

Most people think about the technical part of their craft. The industry specific knowledge, skills, and tools they need to be successful. They neglect the common thread that exists in all careers:

Writing.

It's the easiest way stand-out in your career.

Here's how to do the bare minimum writing that will serve you in your career no matter your level, experience, or industry.

Write down the steps to a process

Process documentation is critically underrated.

We all follow processes and procedures for our work, but are they documented? Can someone pick up the work and know exactly what to do, without asking anyone how to do it?

Probably not.

Any time you follow a process (your own or one you inherited), write down every single step. Write in a way that someone can open the document, not talk to anyone, and know exactly what to do.

Over time you will build an operating system for you and your team.

Write down a project plan

What's your plan to complete this project?

What work items needs to be done? What other teams are involved? What is the current status?

You should have a document that covers all of these questions.

When someone asks you how the project is going, just send them the doc.

Write down insights and recommendations

Anytime you have an insight about the business or a recommendation to make, write it down.

Create an "insights repository" that stores everything you've learned about the business. It can serve as a running list of your work and can be a good input to an AI to summarize your insights.

Insights that only live in your head are just thoughts.

Write down how you completed a project

We refer back to more projects than we think.

You will pick up someone else's work or redo something you've done in the past. The worst feeling is having to reinvent the wheel when you were the one who invented it.

Prevent this by writing down how you completed a project. Link to other important documents and work items. Write down your methodology and approach. Write down the impact and the decisions that were made. Outline the next steps.

Now everyone has the context they need if the project is revisited (it probably will be).

It sounds like extra work, but it's easy work. Just write down the things you already do.

Over time you'll reap the benefits and see how silly it is to not write.

Word of mouth is good for marketing, not for knowledge transfer.

Start writing more today.