As they say, old habits die hard. If you have been doing something long enough, whether it’s smoking, biting your nails or putting double spaces after periods in your content, the task of quitting seems super daunting. Why stop now? Well, if you are plagued with the habit of hitting the space bar twice after you type a period, this blog post is for you.

You have no choice, you must stop now. There are no excuses. You cannot continue to double space after periods in your writing any longer and here’s why:

Your Content Looks Unprofessional

Let me give it to you straight, your content looks unprofessional when you have gaping spaces between a period and text. You might think it’s difficult to notice double spaces in web copy or in your email newsletter, but it’s not. If your blog content is littered with double spaces it looks as if you lack the proper editing skills to be considered a thought leader in your business, let alone someone from whom  I should take advice.

It might be a “generational thing,” but if other people from the “two-space” generation can adapt, so can you. Still don’t think two spaces after a period are against the rules? Click here or here.

You Have to Think About Social Media

On most social media sites you are limited to a certain number of characters. When you start composing tweets with double spaces you will run out of space very quickly. Those double spaces take up two characters in your 140 character count.

When you start adding links or pictures to your tweets every character is precious. Don’t let silly, unnecessary spaces limit you from posting good content on your social media channels.

Get a Second Set of Eyes

Change is difficult, using double spaces was probably drilled into your brain for so many years. But the times and rules have changed and so must you. Switching to single spaces isn’t going to come easy so here’s a trick to help get you to knock the habit. After you write a blog post or email newsletter, go back through and look for all of your double spaces. Keep a tally of how many you find and try to lower that number every time you write a new piece of content.

If you don’t have time to go back and edit your work, send it to a friend. Have someone else take a look at your copy and edit any double spaces they find. Either way, the more you practice catching yourself making the mistake, the better you will become at fixing it and the less likely you will be to continue the practice.

Double spaces in your content isn’t the absolute worst thing, but it is an easy mistake to fix. Break the habit now and thank me later.

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