One of the most valuable lessons I learned about meeting the word count is that sometimes it’s better to recraft entire paragraphs rather than to search for easy words that can be deleted here and there.

Sure, it might seem easier (at first) to find all the unnecessary uses of

“that.” But what you end up doing is reducing one word at a time when rewriting an entire paragraph could lead to reducing multiple words at a time.

It’s human nature to go for the easy fix at first. But there are times when we need to accept that looking for the easy fix

doesn’t cut it. That, though difficult it may seem at first, doing the work of rewriting paragraphs will ultimately lead to the better result.

The above is why I grow frustrated with admins (and others) looking for the easy fixes. We already know they won’t cut it.

And every single minute we spend trying to find and remove the “that”, is incredibly valuable time that can and should be used for the rewriting of paragraphs.