autojanet/skills/stop-slop/references/phrases.md

Phrases to Remove

Throat-Clearing Openers

Remove these announcement phrases. State the content directly.

• "Here's the thing:"
• "Here's what [X]"
• "Here's this [X]"
• "Here's that [X]"
• "Here's why [X]"
• "The uncomfortable truth is"
• "It turns out"
• "The real [X] is"
• "Let me be clear"
• "The truth is,"
• "I'll say it again:"
• "I'm going to be honest"
• "Can we talk about"
• "Here's what I find interesting"
• "Here's the problem though"

Any "here's what/this/that" construction is throat-clearing before the point. Cut it and state the point.

Emphasis Crutches

These add no meaning. Delete them.

• "Full stop." / "Period."
• "Let that sink in."
• "This matters because"
• "Make no mistake"
• "Here's why that matters"

Business Jargon

Replace with plain language.

Avoid	Use instead
Navigate (challenges)	Handle, address
Unpack (analysis)	Explain, examine
Lean into	Accept, embrace
Landscape (context)	Situation, field
Game-changer	Significant, important
Double down	Commit, increase
Deep dive	Analysis, examination
Take a step back	Reconsider
Moving forward	Next, from now
Circle back	Return to, revisit
On the same page	Aligned, agreed

Adverbs

Kill all adverbs. No -ly words. No softeners, no intensifiers, no hedges.

Specific offenders:

• "really"
• "just"
• "literally"
• "genuinely"
• "honestly"
• "simply"
• "actually"
• "deeply"
• "truly"
• "fundamentally"
• "inherently"
• "inevitably"
• "interestingly"
• "importantly"
• "crucially"

Also cut these filler phrases:

• "At its core"
• "In today's [X]"
• "It's worth noting"
• "At the end of the day"
• "When it comes to"
• "In a world where"
• "The reality is"

Meta-Commentary

Remove self-referential asides. The essay should move, not announce its own structure.

• "Hint:"
• "Plot twist:" / "Spoiler:"
• "You already know this, but"
• "But that's another post"
• "X is a feature, not a bug"
• "Dressed up as"
• "The rest of this essay explains..."
• "Let me walk you through..."
• "In this section, we'll..."
• "As we'll see..."
• "I want to explore..."

Performative Emphasis

False intimacy or manufactured sincerity:

• "creeps in"
• "I promise"
• "They exist, I promise"

Telling Instead of Showing

Announcing difficulty or significance rather than demonstrating it:

• "This is genuinely hard"
• "This is what leadership actually looks like"
• "This is what X actually looks like"
• "actually matters"

Vague Declaratives

Sentences that announce importance without naming the specific thing. Kill these.

• "The reasons are structural"
• "The implications are significant"
• "This is the deepest problem"
• "The stakes are high"
• "The consequences are real"

If a sentence says something is important/deep/structural without showing the specific thing, cut it or replace it with the specific thing.