What writing skills do you wish you had learned sooner for documentation, blogging, official correspondence, etc?

I wont't lie, I hate writing, I hate it with a passion. It seems like that thoughts that I have in my head, never hit the paper the same way. I wrote my first memo and I swear it took me forever and it still was sent back for corrections. And reading Ar 25-20 is like reading a transmission rebuild manual. Thank goodness, I have a pretty cool NCO to give me a hand.

I was told my military essay writing skills needed improvement. I did not sweat it, there are other things to do as an Officer.

Punctuation, punctuation, punctuation! This was the greatest skill I could even have asked for. Not necessarily for official documentation, but for pretty much everything else. The Oxford comma vs. the traditional comma usage made a huge difference (I wont lie, I REALLY like the Oxford coma) in the way I write and my descriptive style.