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The Truths Nobody Tells You About “Easy Step” Articles
Notice anything about how-to articles lately? You know, the listicle kind?
It doesn’t matter what the topic is. At least by my perception, the number of titles that include “Easy Steps” is growing — fast.
And that’s a problem to me.
Some topics really are relatively simple. But in a lot of cases — arguably, even in most of them — the process that someone wants to learn about isn’t simple.
As an example, let’s say you want to bring more automation into your business. A real-life piece from trueNorth breaks this process down into the following steps:
- Choose which tasks you’re going to automate
- Choose your automation tools
- Set your automation targets
- Track results and refine your process
- Create an automotive culture in your workplace
The author does a decent job of providing conceptual overviews for each step. Nothing that’s said is “wrong”. But every step prompts additional questions. Who’s involved in that decision process? How long does it take? Is it based on formal analysis, what people want, or both? What hurdles could there be and how do you jump them?
