I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m in first draft mode, which I am right now, I frequently end up using the same word over and over, and over again. And that’s bad, very very very bad.

I’m a visual person. So this method works for me, and it’s really easy if you’re using MS Word. Basically, I go to the Search (and Replace) function and use the advance features. This allows me to replace a word (or all the same words in the document) with a formatted word.

If you want to try it out, bring up the Find/Replace function, type the over-used word in the “Find what:” field. Type the same word in the “Replace with:” field.

Select More>> in the lower left corner of the default Replace window. In the picture I’ve provided, I’ve already selected More>> so it shows up as <<Less. Then go to Format and Font.

When you do the formatting part, make sure you’ve clicked in the “Replace with:” field so it’s selected, or this won’t work very well.

A picture is always worth a thousand words, at least for a visual person like me.

So voilà: