- Good writing fulfills its purpose
- Think of the work as a whole instead of as isolated pieces
- Try to understand the reader and make sure you cover as much as possible for the audience
- Feedback: reflect on it, accept it gracefully, know when to ignore or reject it
- Separate yourself from your work. Your job is to do the best work possible, not to hold yourself to whatever you did first
- ...which leads to the last point: be willing to make radical changes that serve the work's purpose
I found myself nodding and reflecting on my field (software development): the traits of good professionals (on any track) are very similar, especially with AI in the middle.
- You think through what you want to achieve
- Whatever you are doing must fit into the bigger picture (a technical strategy, the intended software design, a user need, etc.)
- Having empathy for the user is paramount (be it a document for stakeholders or a feature for your users)
- Feedback is ingrained in the profession, and knowing how to handle it creates better work and accelerates careers
- Knowing you are not your work facilitates 4 and 6, and also makes you more open to change (a constant everywhere, our field included)
- The best work comes after brutal revisions. I've rarely seen a document, architecture, or software design that was great on its first iteration. On reflection, everything we do is (or should be) highly iterative.