The secret to producing proposals, posts, publications or papers that pull people in, punch home your points, persuade most powerfully and are pleasant to peruse is extremely simple:

Treat structuring and writing your document as two separate tasks. 

Use the potent SCQA format to set up your introduction:

Situation - “Many people use NPS.”
Complication - “People are concerned it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”
Question - “What are the strengths and weaknesses of NPS?”
Answer - “Here are the key points about NPS you need to know.”

Then when it comes to the answer section - the bulk of your document - write all the points you want to make on individual post it notes and group them logically into pyramids of related ideas, exactly as I’ve done in the photo which shows the outline of our NPS report. 

E.g.:

NPS does not measure loyalty
- Reason 1
- Reason 2
- Reason 3

Add a simple conclusion and you’re done. This structural task may seem like a lot of upfront work but it actually saves a tremendous amount of time and the results are always better. 

Check out Barbara Minto’s book The Pyramid Principle if you have a particular penchant for penning polished, powerful prose. Happy writing!

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