Appendix: Useful communication templates
Template To Help You Prepare All Communications
Template To Help You Prepare Better Presentations
To help you remember
Create a blank presentation template with the above words on to remind you.
Template To Help You Prepare Better Emails
The 3rd step is to write your interesting, short content.
To help you remember
Change your autosignature to:
Template To Help You Prepare Better Conference Calls And Meetings
As your first step, write the meeting’s purpose on the agenda, and have a standard last agenda item that ensures the meeting triggers action:
2nd, create an engaging title. Use it in your invitation to motivate people to attend.
3rd, create an interesting, short agenda.
To help you remember
Change your standard agenda template to include the “purpose box” and “next steps”.
Template To Help You Prepare Better for Your Conversations
As you’d expect, identify the DO first; then, the AFTER; then, your interesting, short content.
This is harder to embed because you don’t have standard documents/templates for conversations. So . . .
To help you remember
Do some/all of:
- Weekly diary reminders – “Still doing 231?”
- Asking colleagues to pick you up if you forget.
- Adding “improve my communications” to your goals for the year.
- And so on.
Or – and this is more painful but pretty effective – when a communication hasn’t worked, work out what was missing, and remember it next time.
Template To Help You Prepare Better Documents
Firstly, identify what you want the recipient to do with the document. Then, write it in a prominent place. For example, when appropriate:
2nd, an engaging title.
3rd, interesting, short content.
To help you remember
Either add an “Action required box” to your standard template; and/or create a checklist to follow, something like:
