8 Mistakes to Avoid on Your Return from Vacation

What follows a fantastic vacation? For many, it’s the post-vacation blues. What you might not realize is that small, correctable mistakes may be the cause of your slump. Let’s learn the eight most avoidable of these errors so you can return from your next vacation on a high note.

1 Staying Gone Too Long

How can you guarantee yourself a horrifically stressful Monday? Arrive home from vacation late Sunday night! Resist the urge to spend all of your vacation days out of town. Instead, include a recuperation day or two at the end of your trip. Running a few errands is okay, but try to spend most of the evening relaxing at home. Unpack, check your email, and get a good night’s rest. Come Monday morning, you’ll be ready to face the day.

2 Apologizing

If you’re apologizing for going on vacation or not being completely caught up, stop it! Every hard worker deserves a break from time to time. And it’s only natural to need a few days to get back on track. On the other hand, feel free let people know that you are on vacation or have just returned by setting up an email autoreply.

3 Broadcasting Your Return

Of course, let your boss know you’re back. Beyond that, be selective. Flying under the radar will give you a chance to catch up on what you missed without being bombarded with questions and more work. Even going incognito for a half day will buy you some much needed quiet time.

4 Returning Emails in Chronological Order

You open your inbox and see about a hundred messages waiting for your attention. The only solution is to set aside a couple of hours and plug through them in order, right? Wrong! The email you received inviting you to connect with a vague acquaintance on LinkedIn is not as significant as the one from your boss about the project due at the end of the week. Here’s a strategy: Read the most recent emails first, but skip (or delete) anything that you can see from the subject line is of low priority. This method saves time because senders may have resolved many questions and issues in your absence. If not, they probably sent a follow-up email that will appear in your recent messages.

5 Failing to Delegate

“If you want something done right, do it yourself.” This adage is old and incorrect. Pick the most qualified members of your company and delegate tasks that are relevant to the ones they already do. If you are in management, inform your team who the go-to people are for certain projects, questions, and problems. Some employees fear delegating because they don’t want to seem replaceable. However, if you do it right, delegation will show your value. Organizational Behavior professor Jeffrey Pfeffer explains: “Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think. . .so that the world doesn’t go to hell if you take a day off,” Prepare everyone before your vacation, and your wisdom and managerial qualities will shine.”

6 Working Your Fingers to the Bone

Remember what they say about “all work and no play”? Don’t turn yourself into a dull boy! Just because your trip is over doesn’t mean your life is. According to medical professionals, negative emotions are normal after a happy event. Why not make some fun plans for your first weekend home? Even something small, such as visiting a new cafe with a couple of friends or renting a flick you want to see, will give you something to look forward to while you dig yourself out of a pile of paperwork.

7 Bringing in Souvenirs.

How many clients and colleagues pass through your working space in a typical day? Unless you want to take the time to explain the significance of your handmade Central American rain stick to each passerby, you ought to leave it at home. Besides, seeing photos of the delicious food you sampled and the adventures you had might deepen your post-vacation nostalgia. If you can’t resist showing off some memento of your trip, try sharing something that everyone can enjoy. Leaving a box of exotic candy in the breakroom would be just the trick.

8 Saying Yes to Unessential Work

Optional or voluntary duties are a great way to support your company—when you have spare time. Saying no, although it may feel uncomfortable, ensures you will have time to complete everything on your to-do list. Be firm, but kind: “I’d love to help you, but my schedule won’t allow it.”

Which of these mistakes have you made? You can’t change the past, but you can apply these tips to your next holiday. The next time you book a trip, refer to this article so you can plan a seamless return.

5 Tips for Avoiding Work on Your Vacation

Like many of us, I’ve been a victim of working whilst being on holiday. As someone who works for a handful of startups and for myself, the pressure of not being connected or involved was always front of mind as I headed off to the sun.

Our modern society keeps us connected to the world of social media, apps, email, and cloud services. On average, we commence 150 mobile sessions on our smartphones every single day. Another study highlights that this can consist of over 2,500 touches. Staying in the loop has become a natural human habit, and we weave it into our vacation routines. Many people jump on emails, written work, calls, and even meetings when they’re supposed to be soaking up the sun on vacation. For many of us, work takes up one-third to one-half of every day.

Sounds obvious, but vacations boost our mood. Everything from daily stress to our risk for developing heart problems decreases. The American Medical Association’s research showed that, for men, taking a yearly vacation decreased the likelihood of heart disease by 32 percent.

The same resonates for productivity. Seventy-seven percent of HR professionals believe that your productivity and results improve after a vacation.

We’ve put together a few suggestions for avoiding work on vacation, but also addressing the planned vacation, so your calendar is totally free in advance:

1Work like a machine

Working on holiday isn’t ideal. Making sure you are prepared is important if you hope to avoid even a glimpse of work during the vacation.

Making sure you plan ahead will save you a lot of efforts when you are on holiday. Doing an extra hour or two of work each night the week before your vacation will pay off. Putting in extra hours now will allow you to zone out of work by leaving all of your work energy at the office.

2Create an Out-of-Office Reply

A well-constructed out-of-office email can be a very effective way to reduce any incoming workload while you’re on vacation. Out of office replies alert your colleagues and contacts that there will be a delay in response.

To reduce the chance of any annoying messages, meeting requests, or even calls while you’re on vacation, you’ll need to make sure your OOO message points people in the right direction.

Before you jet off, spend some time creating a draft OOO message.

Here are a few things to consider as you begin to craft your auto responses:

• Inform them with websites, links, statistics.
• Re-direct them with contacts, email addresses, or phone numbers.
• Educate them with attachments, websites, and articles.
• Entertain then with a snappy bit of comedy about where you are.

Pass the draft over to one of your colleagues or even your manager to double check that you are directing people to the best resources. It’s easy to do, and it can free you from having to check email on your vacation.

3Prepare Your Internal Team

For your co-workers, you heading off for a few days (or even weeks) could present a logistical nightmare. All of the knowledge you hold travels with you. Capturing that knowledge where your teammates can access it makes life easier for everyone.

Using services like Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Drive to store essential information in clear, well-outlined folders will help pass the baton to those still in the office.

Evernote is a great example of a service for capturing notes, images, and documents. You can create a free account here. Start creating a mega note with all of the useful information and data that your internal team will need while you’re gone. Send them the note before you leave and ensure they know what’s inside.

The same can be done using a Dropbox account to help keep all of the cogs turning.

4Clear Your Mind

Zenning out on holiday is one of the biggest challenges for many people. According to data provided travel company Expedia, only 53 percent of workers come back feeling rested after their holiday. This is a huge problem for the world of work.

If employees aren’t getting the rest they need, company productivity and, more importantly, employees’ mental health, will suffer.

Meditation is growing in popularity thanks to its cognitive benefits. Meditation boosts memory and reduces stress and anxiety. A 2012 study found that, over an eight-week period, meditation reduced stress in candidates who meditated after they worked on tests or exercises.

Many people try to avoid personal development activities while on vacation because practicing them can feel like work in itself. However, meditation is something you should consider. A five to ten minute daily meditation during your vacation can help to clear your mind of stress, negative feelings, and even anxiety about work issues.

Spending time on yourself is so important. If you are still skeptical, try the following for a full week and see how you get on.

How to get started:

• Download a meditation app like Headspace, Calm, or Mindfulness
• Try a five-minute meditation for a full week, in a quiet environment
• Find a meditation buddy to work with

The benefits of meditation are continuing to grow. This evidence-based resource provides a strong list of cognitive, stress-associated, and health benefits to meditating.

5No Wi-Fi zones

Exploring rural areas on your vacation can be a little unnerving. Your knowledge of the area is often limited, and you’re likely to face language barriers. To make matters worse, you may encounter Wi-Fi dead zones.

Scary, right?! Not necessarily. Getting out of the reach of technology can also be very effective at helping you to escape work. If you want to zen out fully, there’s no better excuse than being in an area with no access to Wi-Fi. Rather than trying to figure out phone contracts and ways to stay connected, why not just disconnect? If it’s free to call emergency services wherever you’re headed, then there may be no need for Wi-Fi.

Whether or not you successfully avoid work on vacation is totally up to you. If you can remove digital temptations and mentally remove yourself from the work zone, you’re more likely to return to work refreshed and ready to tackle any challenge.

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About the author:Francesco D’Alessio runs a YouTube channel with over 8,000 subscribers that features weekly videos about productivity apps and tools. He works remotely in the South West of the UK for a handful of technology startups.

13 Kinds of Grammar Trolls We Love to Hate

How many different rules of grammar and punctuation exist? For every rule, there exists a person eager to publicly expose any rulebreakers. These vigilante defenders of grammatical order are grammar trolls. Here are thirteen types to watch out for.

The Fish Throwers

In the world of writing, a red herring doesn’t refer to a fish. Instead, it’s misleading or distracting information. Fish Throwers are grammar trolls who don’t add anything essential to a conversation. Rather than focusing on the objective of the writing, they distract everyone by criticizing grammar. Who do they think they are? You might ask these trolls, “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

The Drowning Fish Throwers

Closely related to Fish Throwers are the Drowning Fish Throwers. These trolls begin as regular interlocutors on social media. However, sooner or later they get into a debate and begin to lose the argument. Rather than admit defeat, they try to win points by insulting their opponents’ grammar. Unfortunately, they don’t fool anyone.

The Late Bloomers

The discussion is over. Everyone has had their say. But someone out there thinks that it’s still necessary to comment on a post. Who is it? None other than the Late Bloomer, a troll who wants to point out errors from years past. This troll doesn’t realize that everyone else has moved on to new topics. The good news is, no one really reads late arrivals anyway.

The Breeders

How many tweets does the average person publish each day? Breeder trolls multiply tweets by the hour! In their opinion, it’s their sacred duty to point out each and every spelling error with an asterisk and the correct spelling. Confused words prompt them to question the writer: “Did you mean. . .?” Comma splices practically make steam pour from their ears. These highly educated grammar trolls have too much time on their hands. Wouldn’t it be best if they found a more productive hobby?

The Franks

No, Frank isn’t the real first name of this troll. However, it does describe his personality. To be frank is to be honest and straightforward in your speech. Frank trolls tell it like it is. They aren’t trying to hurt you. Actually, they want to help you by pointing out the obvious. The trouble is, sometimes people don’t like the truth and certainly not when it comes in the form of public censure. Frank, might you start a private chat next time?

The Derps

Maybe this troll isn’t dumb, but his comments are. Enough said!

The Jumpy Jurors

Have you ever been wrongly accused of committing a grammar faux pas? Jumpy Jurors base all their judgments on circumstantial evidence. They don’t read the piece carefully. They don’t research to make sure their understanding is correct before making an accusation. Forget innocent until proven guilty. In their eyes, you’re wrong! Don’t bother trying to present evidence because jumpy jurors never listen to reason. And the only opinion that matters to them is their own.

The Broken Mirror Trolls

Broken Mirror Trolls are so busy looking at your grammar that they forget to examine their own. It’s as if they don’t have a spelling checker installed in their word processing program. How dare they critique anyone else with so many mistakes in their own writing? These trolls need to take a good look in a non-broken mirror!

The Bandwagon Riders

Bandwagon Riders don’t know a lot about grammar. However, they have mastered the difference between possessive pronouns, such as your and their, and contractions, such as you’re and they’re. Empowered with a little knowledge that they learned from other trolls, they vocally and viciously identify typos they find online. These trolls are practically unstoppable because each correction they make feeds their egos.

The Passive-Aggressive Trolls

The Passive Aggressive Trolls would never directly correct you. Oh, no! They simply post comments that are suspiciously similar to yours, only with certain changes to punctuation and syntax. These trolls hate Frank, by the way.

The Stalker Trolls

Stalker Trolls are the creepiest of all the grammar trolls. These trolls didn’t stumble upon an error by accident; they searched all your posts methodically and commented on every one. Why are they targeting you? Is it for attention? Are they jealous? Their motives are highly suspect, so your best course of action is to avoid these bad guys.

The Internet Arsonists

These trolls start trouble for one reason and for one reason only. They find it amusing to start trouble and then read the resulting comments. Usually, they don’t even participate after they have made their scorching attacks. For them, the fun lies in watching you burn in anger or shame.

The Fire Squads

It’s perhaps unfair to accuse members of the troll Fire Squad of being trolls themselves; the phrase “anti-troll” might be more apt. These folks look for fires started by Internet Arsonists and douse the flames by posting quotes from reputable sources to resolve the dispute. These are the people you will want to call if you need someone to protect and defend your writing.

Why learn about grammar trolls? According to The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” If you really want to take a stand against grammar trolls, use this list to identify their motives. Then, you can decide whether you want to thank your troll, ignore him, or retaliate with a scathing comment of your own.

Celebrate Social Media Day with These 5 Tips

Happy World Social Media Day!

It’s no secret that we love social media. And as Grammarly’s Social Media Manager, I’ve devoted most of my professional life to figuring out what the cool kids are doing online. And today, I’m here to help you do the same. Let’s dive into all the things you should (and shouldn’t) be doing on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.

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1Write, Reread, Ponder, Then Post

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I’d wager that 99 percent of social media “fails” could have been avoided if the poster had taken thirty seconds to reconsider that tweet, comment, or post before hitting publish. Before you post, ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Do I mean what I said in this post? Am I comfortable with how it will be shared?

2. Will I be proud of this post one, three, five years from now?

3. Does this post hurt someone else? Could it hurt someone if they found it?

Those extra few seconds you spend avoiding a grammar mistake or embarrassing photo are worth the wait. Remember what your mom told you: Facebook photos are forever.

2Don’t Join a Social Channel Just Because It’s Hot or New

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If you’re the trend-obsessed, meme-creating maven of your social circles, skip this tip and move on to the next. But if you’re a mere mortal, you probably don’t need to be on every social network in existence. Find a community that resonates with you, and spend your social media hours there. (A personal note: for me, that channel is Instagram, but not everyone loves the ‘gram as much as I do! Follow your arrow.)

3If You Don’t Know What It Means, Don’t Use It

Say what?

One of the most beautiful facets of the Internet is its effect on language. From “spam” to “geeks” to “phubbing,” the ways online culture has influenced English are legion. And brand new online slang is as inevitable as it is ubiquitous. But what do you do when you see a new hashtag, word, emoji, or reaction gif?

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If your answer is “use it immediately and without question,” it might be time to reconsider your approach. Many brands have gotten into trouble by jumping on inappropriate “trending” hashtags, and we all should learn from their mistakes. You don’t want a milkshake duck situation on your hands.

4Don’t Feed the Trolls

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As Grammarly’s Social Media Manager, I’m no stranger to trolls. We receive dozens of messages telling us to “shut it down” or “go home” each month. But instead of the ever-popular clapback, we’ve chosen to leave the trolls alone to shout into the endless Twitter void.

Here’s a tip: Having problems with grammar trolls? Here are a few steps to stop them.

Of course, avoiding antagonizers is much harder when they’re attacking you personally. The first step is to remember that you aren’t alone: 51 percent of women and 50 percent of men experience online harassment. After that, make sure you know your rights, and follow steps like these to ensure your safety without feeding one of those pesky trolls.

5Remember, People Online Are Just People

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Despite evidence to the contrary, I think sincerity is not yet dead on the Internet. Whenever I look at the wonderfully supportive comments on Grammarly’s Facebook, I remember that there are individual humans behind each avatar online (except bots, but let’s not go there). At the end of the day, you can’t choose how you’re treated online, but you can choose how you respond. And for me, the “social” part of social media is the most important: we have to want to engage with one another as real human people. And of course, I think Grammarly’s follower-people are the best humans.

So on this Social Media Day, I want to say thank you to all of the communication enthusiasts who read, share, and respond to Grammarly’s various musings. We love each and every one of you.

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Do you think there should be “rules” to social media? Let me know in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you.

The 5 Best Ways to Stay Motivated During a Job Search

Are you disappointed with the progress of your job search? Unemployment can make your spirits plummet. You’ve heard the comparisons: Resumes are a way to market yourself. Successful resumes reveal why you are the ideal candidate. Andrew Reiffenberger, a recruiting director, stated, “Your resume is you. It’s you on a page.” No wonder you feel down when you don’t get responses to your inquiries. It’s hard not to feel personally rejected.

How can you maintain high spirits? Here are the five best ways to keep your motivation during a job search.

1Control Your Goals

Writing your goals improves your chances of accomplishing them, according to research conducted at Dominican University. Getting a job offer this week sounds great; however, it is not a motivating goal. Why doesn’t it qualify? You have no control over whether a company will offer you a position. Even if you perform well on an interview during the week, you can’t control whether the hiring manager decides to hire you or not.

Motivating goals are measurable goals that depend on you—and no one but you. For example, here are three goals that you can control: Attend one networking event per month. Create a list of ten target companies by the end of the day. Identify and contact at least one reference from each previous job listed on your resume. Setting goals like these, and achieving them, will give you the sense of forward movement that is essential to stay motivated during a job hunt.

2Maintain a Reasonable Schedule

Lazing about the house all day in your pajamas probably won’t help you land a new job, and neither will scouring job postings for hours on end. In fact, both radical courses of action will do more harm than good. In other words, you’ll be in no state to shine when you do get a promising interview if you fall to either extreme. Balance is needed. Set your alarm so you don’t snooze away the day. (However, it’s okay to enjoy an extra hour or two of sleep during your first week off work. Your body may be catching up on some lost shut-eye.) Schedule a couple of days, or an hour each day, to concentrate on your search. Give thought to how you will structure your activities. For instance, you might update your CV and contact your references before you spend time searching for jobs online. That way, when you find an intriguing prospect, you’ll be ready to apply right away.

3Take Care of the Product

If a resume is to sell you, you have to make sure that you keep the product (i.e., you) in prime condition. Isn’t it true that you avoid wilted greens and dented containers when you go grocery shopping? In the same way, you need to make sure that you remain marketable to potential employers. Renew certifications and licenses as necessary. Stay on top of industry news and innovations. Remember to care for your physical health too. Get some sun every day. Eat a healthy diet. Follow an exercise regimen and get sufficient rest. If you do, you can be confident that you’re presenting your best self to the world.

4Explore Your Options

Do you have more free time now that you are not working? Is there something that you’ve always dreamed of doing? Gloria Steinem once said, ” Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” Once you have an idea of what you want to do, pursue it! Explore different career paths by reading about them and talking to people who work in the field. Leisure activities and interests also qualify as worthy pursuits. Why not find a club that centers on your hobby? Consider taking a class. With a little investigation, you might find plenty of options to study for little or no cost.

5Surround Yourself with Positivity

Negativity is contagious. If you associate with negative people, their bad vibes will rub off on your attitude. Think about the people who surround you. Who is the most encouraging? Maximize your time with the ones who make you feel the best. And don’t forget, your friends don’t all have to be the flesh-and-blood variety. By joining an online forum like Unemploymentville, you can network, get advice, or simply find a listening ear among people who are sharing the same experience. You might also find encouragement, along with helpful hints, in motivational blogs and podcasts.

Don’t let the progress of your job search run you into the ground. Your ideal job could be just around the corner. While you continue to look for a suitable job opening, maintain high spirits by implementing these five tips. If you do, you’ll remember your period of unemployment with more fondness than you thought possible.

10 Jargon Phrases to Avoid in Business Writing

Business-speak. The fact that the jargon of the business world is often annoying is the least of its problems. If there’s one trait business writing needs to have, it’s clarity—which is the trait most business jargon phrases completely lack. They’re neither precise nor informative. They’re not even professional. They’re just vague, even though some of them sound awesome and trendy. But we writers should know better than to use the following phrases in business writing.

Paradigm Shift

Paradigms are widely accepted models of how certain things are. Flat Earth was a paradigm. When paradigms shift, the consequences are substantial—on the scale of humans accepting that the heavens do not revolve around us. The introduction of quantum mechanics was a paradigm shift. So unless a business produces changes on par with these, we should avoid using the phrase “paradigm shift,” and use “major change” or “significant change” instead.

Moving Forward

“Moving forward” is a phrase used when we want to end one part of a conversation and go to the next one. It might also be used when we want to say that the business needs to begin the next phase of a development plan. But in that case, it’s better to skip this empty phrase and just say what “moving forward” actually entails. If we want to use it to advance the conversation or to move to the next point in a business letter, there are much better ways of doing it. “On a related matter” is a phrase that is sometimes used, although it has to be followed by a matter that’s actually related to the previous subject. “Regarding” might be used, and it should also be followed by an explanation. Or you might forgo the use of advancing phrases altogether.

Rock Star

To some people, rock stars are individuals who stand on stages, towering over masses of people who soak up every word they sing or note they play. To others, they are people from the past who have lived a wild lifestyle and sadly left us too early. Is it a sound long-term business strategy to hire the latter? It’s not, so it’s more likely that people who write things like “Looking for a ROCKSTAR content writer” in their job posts are actually looking for a person with a good reputation, relevant experience, and exceptional skills. So why not just say so?

Next Level

Oh, the mysterious next level. The prospect of reaching the next level is what keeps us glued to video games. In business, however, mysteries aren’t so fun. What exactly is the next level? What are the requirements for getting there? And why should we bother? These things are usually known only by the person uttering the phrase. So it should be avoided in business writing. Instead, when talking about change, try to describe the goal, the methods and means of achieving it, and the reasons it’s needed.

Results-Oriented

This phrase is often used in a very specific kind of business writing—job applications. Resumes and CVs alike often list “results-oriented” as a personal trait, and that’s not good. It means that either you are prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve specific results, or you expect to perform actions which cause results. If the former is true, you should think long and hard about whether you really want to say that or not. If so, you’d better understand what “whatever it takes” means. If the latter is true, you should know that the whole point of performing actions is for them to cause results, and they usually do because that’s one of the fundamental laws of physics. It might be better to say that you’re hardworking and dedicated to achieving great results.

Give 110 Percent

The only way you could give 110 percent of yourself on a project is if there were two of you, and you could borrow the 10 percent from the other you. Or the other you could borrow it from you—it works both ways because you’re both you. This is a phrase that was borrowed from sports, which happens a lot in American business-speak. But even in sports, it didn’t make much sense in the first place. Instead of using it, you can say “do your best” or “invest significant effort.”

Pre-plan or Pre-prepare

Planning and preparation should happen before we take a course of action, so saying that something needs to be pre-planned or pre-prepared is redundant and silly. When you need to emphasize the need for careful and timely planning, it might be better to simply state that timeliness and care are needed.

Think Outside the Box

“Thinking outside the box” is one of the best-known jargon phrases, and also one of the vaguest. We know what the goal of thinking outside the box is—to come up with unorthodox and original ideas or solutions. But when you’re in a meeting and someone says “we need to think outside the box on this one,” and you sit in the room and feel all the brainpower being used, it’s not being used for thinking outside the box. It’s actually being used to try to figure out what the person who said you need to think outside the box actually wants. It’s as imprecise a phrase as they come, and it should be replaced with more detailed explanations about the goal of the thinking process.

Synergize

The popularity of the verb “to synergize” in business circles is probably due to its use in Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” a very influential book among the business-minded. Synergize sounds exotic and powerful, and it’s a great practice to adopt at the workplace because it involves cooperation. But in business writing, using the verb “to cooperate” instead of “to synergize” will make the writing much clearer.

A Perfect Storm

“A perfect storm,” when used in business-speak, denotes the simultaneous occurrence of many unusual and unfavorable circumstances, usually with an undesirable effect. It should be followed by an explanation of those circumstances, and in that case, the phrase becomes redundant. Plus, the phrase is dramatic and there’s rarely a need for that in business writing, so it might be best to steer clear of it.

Cannot vs. Can Not vs. Can’t—What’s the Difference?

Can’t? Cannot? Can not? Find out the right way to use all three.

Can’t is a contraction of cannot, and as such it’s sometimes unsuitable for formal writing. In everyday writing and in speaking, it’s ubiquitous:

I can’t go out until I proofread my paper.

Peter can’t believe what’s happening in front of his eyes.

Cannot is better for formal writing:

I cannot wait until Friday to get the report.

We cannot allow these obstacles to slow us down.

Don’t use can not when you mean cannot. The only time you’re likely to see can not written as separate words is when the word “can” happens to precede some other phrase that happens to start with “not”:

We can not only break even, but also turn a profit.

The company’s new product can not only reduce emissions, but also trap some of the existing greenhouse gasses.

Here is a quick summary:

• Can’t is a contraction of cannot, and it’s best suited for informal writing.
• In formal writing and where contractions are frowned upon, use cannot.
• It is possible to write can not, but you generally find it only as part of some other construction, such as “not only . . . but also.”

Examples

The 30-year-old now says she’s recovering, but there are still days when she can’t drag herself out of bed for her part-time job at a university.

Bloomberg

Jose Mourinho has warned Anthony Martial he cannot keep wasting opportunities given the intense competition in his position after the struggling Manchester United forward was dropped from the squad against Feyenoord.

The Daily Telegraph

Even commit to change publicly to encourage accountability. In this way, apologizing can not only repair a relationship, but it can also become a powerful catalyst for your own personal growth.

Harvard Business Review

Cannot and its related forms aren’t the only words in the English language that give you a choice of spelling. Axe is another one of them, as are minuscule and flyer.