format. “It was sort of chronological in that I used my calendar to help
me remember what I did, but it was a mishmash. On the third of the
month, for example, I might have reviewed the closing financials of the
month before. That would tickle my memory that I worked on next year’s
capital budget during the last week of the month, and so I’d digress about
that. The activity report was disorganized and hard to follow.
“Once I started using the category organizational structure, the entire
process became more manageable. As a financial analyst, my work is
pretty routine. So I was able to set categories and then simply update the
report each month. It saved me hours of work. And the report was easier
to read and more focused.”
Announcements
Simple announcements (of, say, a new product introduction or a promotion)
often use a category organizational structure to highlight certain
elements.
Thomas explained, “In the announcement of Dawn’s promotion, I
wanted to focus on her ability to bring people together. I structured the
memo—which I sent as an E-mail attachment to all employees, the press,
and key customers—using phrases that stressed her diplomatic skills as
subheadings. Rather than simply list disciplines like supervisory and
financial, for instance, I stressed the different aspects of her ability as a
diplomat. The categories I included, and used as subheadings, were
‘bridging differences,’ ‘forging alliances,’ and ‘building relationships.’
Once I identified the categories, the announcement wrote itself.”
E-mails
Given that E-mails are usually shorter than other forms of communication,
they usually feature only one category of content. Longer E-mails,
however, can be divided into content categories.
Julie Ann explained that as a purchasing agent for an industrial belting
company, she communicates with vendors via E-mail all the time.
“What I’ve found most effective is listing my questions and asking that
they respond to them one by one. In other words, I set the categories
for their responses.”