Ep 7: Search and Destroy

I was at a speech and debate tournament that my kids were involved in. During a break, I struck up a conversation with a community judge. She happened to be a Toastmasters-trained speaker, so I was picking her brain to get ideas for how my kids could improve.

She said that all kids and adults could improve their speaking by eliminating filler words. These are words we use when we’re unsure of ourselves, when we’re insecure, or we’re just trying to fill that space in a conversation or in a message. These are words like, and of course. But also like, you know, and so.

Examples of filler words that show up in our speaking:

• um and uh
• like
• you know
• so…

If we can get rid of those words—words we might be saying out of nervousness or even out of habit—and get comfortable with the silence instead, the point of our message, the meat of it, willcome across with greater power and confidence.

Since that discussion, I’ve noticed how often I use filler words in conversation. They’re like verbal gnats or mosquitoes. They flit around and distract from the conversation and need to be swatted away.

To eliminate the filler words, we need to develop self-awareness to notice them. Once we notice these extraneous verbal distractions, we can eliminate them from our formal speaking and our everyday interactions.

We need to search and destroy them.

In our writing, it’s the same thing.

Each writer seems to fall back on filler words that show up on the screen or on paper. But become aware of them and we can head out on a search and destroy mission and edit them out of our work.

Examples of filler words in our writing:

• but
• and
• so
• and so
• very
• really
• that

Take that list alone and went on our search and destroy mission and when I say search and destroy, I mean literally search.

Use the search feature in Word or Google Docs. Search for the word using the “Find” feature and the system will begin to highlight them throughout your document. Click through to look at each one of them and then strike it out. Delete it. Or revise the sentence to eliminate it and find a stronger phrasing.

When I discover my pet filler words and I eliminate them from my writing, my work reads clearer. It will do the same for your work, as well.

Sometimes it’s hard to be objective, so hand over your work to somebody else. Ask them to highlight the filler words that keep showing up in your work in order to clean up what you have to say.

Search and destroy…because you don’t want those distracting from your message. Get rid of them and let your ideas carry more power.

Resource:

• Learn more about how the Find feature works in Word and Google docs.

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