How to write a sequence of steps without constantly using phrases like "then" and "after which"?

Question

I am given a task that required explanation of a procedure. The procedure (just an example) for making a banana shake would be as follows:

  Get 1 dozen bananas
  Get 1/2 a liter of milk
  Get 2 tbsp. of Sugar

  Put all the ingredients in a Blender

  Let the blender run for 1 minute

  Add ice cubes to the produce inside the blender

Now, If I were to write the explanation of the aforementioned procedure, It would be as follows (relevant words are highlighted)-

Firstly, we got 1 dozen bananas, 1/2 a liter of milk and 2 tablespoon of Sugar. Then we put the ingredients inside the Blender. After which we let the blender run for a minute. In the end we added ice cube to the milkshake.

Problem:- The words which I have highlighted in the bold are my concern. I just can't begin sentences properly, and hide my inability behind words like

• In the beginning
• Then
• After which
• Following
• In the end

This problem is concealed if the explanation is short, as sentences sound natural then. But if the explanation becomes bigger (which is usually the case), I end up repeating the aforementioned set of phrases over and over at the beginning of a sentence. This makes the text unprofessional, as the beginning of the sentence is dependent on its position within the text.

So, is there any way to improve this style of procedural writing?

Answer 1

As @kate-bunting has mentioned in a comment, you can avoid using the first/next/then kind of sentence starters by combining sentences, and especially by using subclauses (that contain actual information) instead.

To stick with your example:

We put 1 dozen bananas, 1/2 a liter of milk and 2 tablespoon of sugar into a blender. After running the blender for a minute, we added ice cubes to the milkshake.

An alternative solution suggested by several commenters is to skip the introductory phrases entirely and rely on the reader expecting the description to happen in chronological order. However, without any kind of transition that might read weird (or maybe it just doesn't work in this simplified example), so you might still want to combine statements into longer sentences.

Our ingredients were 1 dozen bananas, 1/2 a liter of milk and 2 tablespoon of sugar into a blender. We put them into a blender, ran it for a minute, and added ice cubes to the milkshake.