How to avoid “today” and other forbidden time-bound words in books

People who write articles and research reports like to use time-bound language. “Today, you can replace your thesaurus with an LLM,” for example, or “In the next two years, there will be fewer and fewer coding jobs available.”

There is a hidden assumption in this type of writing: that the reader is reading it in the same approximate timeframe that the writer is writing it. If a writer says “now,” the reader thinks “that refers to the present moment.” It’s suggests ways to take advantage of current conditions and rapid change.

In books, time-bound language is a problem

The problem in books is simple to describe. The “now” when you are writing may be six or twelve months in the past when the book is published. The reader may be reading your book five years after you wrote it.

This problem is most severe if you are writing about rapidly changing technology. I’ve got lots of advice on this, which basically comes down to, “write about strategy, not about features and tactics.” For example, anything you put in a book about ChatGPT could easily be obsolete five months from now, let alone five years from the date of this blog post, in 2031.

I just edited a book on AI. It is a visionary book, and I feel the strategic insights in it will remain relevant for years. But it was full of time-bound language that had to be changed.

Here’s a rough list of time-bound terms you need to look out for and how to change them.

• “Now,” or “today.” Just delete. For example, “Today, publishers expect you to do most of the marketing for your book” could easily just be replaced with “Publishers expect you to do most of the marketing for your book.” If your statement is pinned to a specific moment, you can just say “As I write this.” For example, “Gold is worth 5,000 an ounce” becomes “As I write this, gold is selling for $5,000 an ounce.” But be aware that statements about volatile situations could easily be not just false, but laughable once the book is published.
• “In the past few years.” Change to “In the past.” No matter when the reader reads this, it will still be the past. For example, “In the past, agile development methodology was the leading choice in software development.”
• Specific past years or dates. Use years only, not months. A sentence like “In October 2025, AI tokens cost . . .” will seem pretty odd to a person reading it in 2027. “Token costs were already as low as xxx in 2025” would be better.
• Current dates or near future dates. Avoid if possible. You might write “Writers in 2026 are embracing new technology.” That will read as dated in 2027, when your book is about to be published, and as ancient in 2028. It’s even worse if you make near-future predictions “By 2027, only three major AI companies will remain.” When the reader reads that in 2027, if you’re right, you sound like you’re just reporting the news, and if you’re wrong, you undermine your own credibility. So avoid including current and near-future dates. If absolutely necessary, you can fall back on “As I write this, . . . “
• Predictions for the next few years. Reposition with vaguer time frames. If you expect things to change in two to five years, avoid saying “In the next two to five years.” The meaning of that phrase varies based on when the reader reads it; to the reader in 2028, what you’re predicting for 2028 will seem like a prediction for 2030, even if it has already happened. Instead, use broader time frames. “By the end of the 2020s, it’s likely that . . .” That gives you some wiggle room, although it will still appear obsolete in 2030.

It’s hard to search on terms like this. A good developmental editor can help (which is what I did for that AI book). I wonder how good AI would be at catching such terminology; it might identify most of it, but will likely miss some, and I doubt it could suggest the best possible rewrites.

Timely books can still succeed — you just need to change the language

Sometimes the present moment demands a book.

Writing strategically extends the life of your book, even if it’s designed to be timely.

That is, so long as you purge all the time-bound language from it.