Michael E. Gruen

Write it in 10 minutes. Rewrite it in 10. If it’s successful, publish.

French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery once noted: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” If you want to reduce cruft in your prose, limit your writing time. You’ll get to the point much more quickly when you don’t have time to do much else.

While haste yields wordiness, it’s easily corrected. You’re no longer reigning in ill-born concepts that have threaded themselves deep within your thesis: when you write quickly, those tangents don’t have time to stifle your point for very long. Eradicate them, ruthlessly! Take away anything that doesn’t directly contribute to your point. Rewrite if confusing.

Give yourself too much time to write and you’ll get cute—you’ll be more concerned with style rather than with clarity. But, pressure fosters creativity: force yourself to get to the point and your brain will wordsmith a clever way to express whatever it is you want to say. You might surprise yourself how artful you can be.

This post was rewritten from the former in 10 minutes. How’d I do?

Don’t think too hard—just write it. And publish it. In 10 minutes.

The most difficult part of writing is knowing when you’re done. There’s a famous quote (which this exercise prohibits my diligence in looking up the speaker and the exact quote) that says: “Perfection is achieved not when there’s nothing to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away.” If you want to reduce the cruft in your writing, limit the time in which you have to write it.

The result? Clarity increases. Your points, articulated cleanly, strengthen themselves.

While wordiness may increase due to your haste in expressing yourself, your thought process is not littered with tangents and ill-born concepts that get in the way of your message. Editing then becomes simple: take away anything that doesn’t directly contribute to your point. Rewrite if confusing.

When you give yourself too much time, you get cute. You write sloppily. You think: “oh, there must be a better, more colorful way of saying it.” There might be, but 9 times out of 10 you were better off with the first thing you wrote. Your brain is special like that: the magic comes from forcing yourself to express it quickly and thoroughly, and you will surprise yourself in how artful you can be when you limit the time in which you have to think about the language to use.

This post was written in 9 minutes. How did I do?

A roll of toilet paper has taken residency on my desk– in its tenure, I’ve discovered wondrous new uses.

For many of us, toilet paper is a singular in purpose, tasked to clean up modest unpleasantries. Though, over the past few months, I have since discovered some interesting—if not unorthodox—uses for this oft-neglected paper product. Turns out it’s more versatile and inexpensive than many its alternatives. To wit:

1. Whiteboard eraser 

Toilet paper is far superior to whiteboard erasers:

1. Toilet paper is a joy to hold. Erasers are not. The soft, round form-factor of a roll trumps its plastic counterparts in feel hands down: it’s soft and plushy, accommodates the shape of your hand, and no matter how hard you press it against the whiteboard to rub out stubborn dry-erase marks, it never makes that scratching sound that plagues traditional plastic erasers when pushed to the limit. In addition, ANY surface of the toilet paper is a working edge, whereas the plastic competitor can only erase effectively in one orientation.
2. Toilet paper is typically taller, and thus requires fewer strokes. When you’re working in the fast-paced world of whiteboard-enhanced office environments, seconds count. With TP, you’re cleaner… faster.
3. Toilet paper is far more precise. For small erasures, squares of toilet paper can be manipulated into arbitrarily-small pieces. With plastic erasers, you’re forced to use a corner—and, since companies manufacture them cheaply as possible, they often skimp on the often mission-critical corner erasing material.
4. Toilet paper cleans with consistent quality. When you’re done erasing with toilet paper, you can remove the dirty layer, instantly yielding a clean eraser—every time. Over time, plastic erasers build up stores of dry-erase material and lose their effectiveness.
5. Toilet paper is easily replaceable and accessible, available at any local bathroom or water closet. Plastic erasers need be scrounged for, often lurking in the bowels of office supply closets, or purchased from shelves at the rear of local office supply stores. (To boot, in rural environments, the cost of procurement can be costly due to transportation expenses.)
6. Toilet paper is affordable. High-quality, recyclable toilet paper runs $1.14 a roll when purchased in bulk. Mediocre  whiteboard erasers cost $2.04 in bulk, nearly twice as expensive. Further, my preliminary tests demonstrate that a roll of toilet paper will last longer than one plastic eraser. So, in costs per whiteboards (CPW), toilet paper is far greater than the 2:1 unit cost ratio suggests; In reality, I it’s closer to 3:1.
7. Toilet paper is environmentally friendly and dissolves in water and are recyclable. Plastic erasers, particularly those made from PVC, are more difficult and costly to recycle.

Lastly, by using TP as whiteboard erasers in an office environment, you’re showing your commitment to a cleaner, healthier environment, and publicly displaying your operational pragmatism in employing a cheaper solution than the norm. 

2. Vibration silencer

Office machines, particularly those with fans, tend to develop rattles over time. 

For example, in the NOM offices, we have a standing-unit air conditioner than is dead silent; though, from time-to-time, one of the plastic exterior panels comes a tad loose, creating a rattling sound that is nothing short of infuriating. Though easily rectified with a sharp tap to the side of the unit, many times I’d rather not leave my desk. In these cases, I throw a roll of toilet paper at the problem and the issue is immediately resolved.

To my chagrin, I can think of no other instance where I can utter those words mean them completely, wholly and literally.

3. Coffee/Tea Coasters

Despite the best efforts of our favorite baristas and container designers, sometimes coffee cups and tea cups cannot contain the sweet, sweet warmth of our favorite beverage. If a coaster is unavailable, a square of toilet paper suffices just fine. I recommend 2-ply as it tends to be more absorbent than its single-sheet counterparts.

4. Mini-spills

In the same vein, office spills tend to be small misplaced splashes, and not floods of biblical proportion. Toilet paper is much more environmentally friendly than paper towels given that each tear uses a smaller piece of paper and that the sheets are smaller to begin with. In the case of larger spills, an entire roll can be used if need be, whereas a full roll of paper towels would be more costly and take up more room on a desk.

 
5. Pencil and Sharp-Object Holder

While pencil cups are preferred, a roll of unused TP can be used as a paper cup: just place the pens and pencils inside of the spindle with the flat side perpendicular to the table. If you run out of room, you can easily shove the sharp ends directly in-between the unused, rolled-up sheets. This is particularly useful for exacto blades missing their plastic caps.

As you might have guessed, toilet paper is quickly becoming my new favorite desk accessory. This list is merely the beginning of the uses I have discovered—I will undoubtably find more.