How writing has improved my thinking
Much ink has already been spilled about the power of writing. Today, I thought I’d spill some more.
With information coming at us fast and furious all day long, it’s easy to have endless thoughts, not-fully formed. I often have a kernel of an insight about myself or an idea for a new app, service, blog post, etc. Usually that leads to taking a note and not coming back to it, until the kernel resurfaces one day and I think to myself “oh yeah, I’ve thought about this before!”
Lately, I’ve been doing a much better job of putting pen to paper in order to stress test these thoughts. Sometimes I focus a daily handwritten journal on one. Other times I fire up the ol’ keyboard and start dumping my stream of consciousness.
I cannot emphasize enough how much this has helped my ability to think clearly. I’m working through some concepts I’ve had for a long time, but never taken the time to fully flesh out. This has led to discarding some of them entirely, because through writing I have found fundamental flaws. Others have been solidified, because I am able to reason through an argument. I appreciate my philosophy minor for this reason more and more everyday.
Now I believe that the quality of my thoughts is constrained by my ability to write them out. My speed of thought has not and likely won’t stop anytime soon, and I’m okay with that. I like the ability to generate a lot of ideas and insights, even if most of them are inevitably bad or untrue.
The key for me is to pick them apart through writing in order to determine which ones are worth holding onto. An added bonus is that I can share that writing with smart people for feedback or counterarguments.
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