I think consultants pioneered this cheat: one of the most powerful tools in my editor's arsenal is to ask writers, "so tell me what you're trying to say with X", and when they answer "well, Y..." I tell them "discard X, and use Y instead"
and they're like "wow thats so smart"
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funnily and kinda-ironically, while I am well aware of the utility of this cheat, I am terrible at doing it solo, and often need other people to ask me the same question
there's something here about my subconscious respecting other people's time more than my own 🤔
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Yeah, and something about the way we parse our own words vs. those of others.
I am relentless at catching small errors when I proofread for work, or more complex problems when I edit, but they slip into my own texts all the time.