Leslie Forman
December 15, 2014 — By Leslie Forman

How I’m Making Sense of the Mess That is My Book-in-Progress

This book helped. It’s concise. It teaches you how to organize messy information of all kinds, without using jargon like “information architecture” or “user experience” or “wireframe” or any of the other tricky-to-explain phrases I’ve learned over the past few months.

making sense of my mess

Today I read Abby Covert’s book How to Make Sense of Any Mess: Information Architecture for Everybody.

It makes me feel more confident about tackling my current challenge: writing a guide to international career opportunities. I’ve got illustrations (Gracias Nacho!) I’ve got 8+ years of anecdotes and 5 years of blog posts and several years of presentations and conversations about this topic. I’m not starting from scratch. I have a deadline. (Thank you Erin.)

But it feels like a mess! So many documents! So many stories! So many aspects to cover!

This book helped. It’s concise. It teaches you how to organize messy information of all kinds, without using jargon like “information architecture” or “user experience” or “wireframe” or any of the other tricky-to-explain phrases I’ve learned over the past few months. 

Each page has a sentence-long headline that makes a decisive point, followed by tight paragraphs explaining it in more detail. 

My favorite page is 46. It reads:

Language is the material of intent. 

The words we choose change the things we make and how we think about them.

Our words also change how other people make sense of our work.

In writing this book, my intent was to make it:

  • Accessible
  • Beginner-friendly
  • Useful in a broad range of situations

As a result, I had to be comfortable with it not being these other things:

  • Academic
  • Expert-friendly
  • Useful in specific situations

How can I relate this to what I’m writing?

My intent is to make it:

  • Visual
  • Open-Ended
  • Inspiring for the well-traveled, ambitious and bored 

As a result, I need to be comfortable with it not being:

  • Authoritative
  • Managerial
  • Inspiring for employees seeking international transfers within large companies

I also loved Abby’s post about her process of making sense of her own mess, through teaching, writing, iterating, editing, and more.

A good book. Highly recommended.

This post is part of Small Planet Studio’s #MyGlobalLife Link Up!