You need to edit it
I get it. You're busy, so you bang out the draft and think "close enough is good enough".
It won't be as concise as it could have been.
That is not a world-ending issue. But it does make someone else's day a bit more of a grind. And if you're writing to a large audience, that grind can really add up.
I blame the movies
The 1950s journalist with the big scoop runs into the office minutes before the paper's due to go to print.
The fingers fly and the keys ping. With a flourish, they rip the paper from the typewriter and run it down the hall yelling 'Stop the press!'
The story makes it into the paper. It's breaking news bigger than Ben Hur, and the movie comes to a satisfying end.
But that's made up
They do it like that in the movies because they're creating a sense of excitement and urgency. If movie journalists were to do what real journalists do and look over their work carefully ... you'd have the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry.
I hate to break it to you but ...
Nothing excellent is ever written on the first go
In real life, you have to look at your writing again and weed out the excess.
There's no way round it. You just have to.
Be a good human. Take some friction out of your readers' day by recommitting to the edit before you hit send.
✨ Sign up for regular writing tips – get new tips direct to your inbox every 2 weeks
Check out my Business Writing Course, where I help anyone who writes at work to do it better, faster, and more effectively.
✨ Look into the School of unProfessional Writing to learn about plain language at your own pace