If You Want to Think, Then Write

Maybe this is the best advice I can offer in terms of refining your thinking. Writing can be venting out those frustrating emotions, bitching about the people around us who create unwanted trouble, or just a way to structure our thinking. How we choose to act out in the world is a direct reflection of our state of mind. I am not saying this as a cliché, but as a personal realization I have had time and again.

The mind, when running in its thinking loop, has an overwhelming amount of new ideas which are simply out of its capacity to process. Meditation seems like a way of detachment from that thinking loop—to be in a state of observation—but I find writing far more useful.

Writing, I feel, gives an anchor to the way we think. Words are like that single thread that we hold to slowly keep unweaving the complex web of thoughts inside our mind. We pay attention to one thought at a time. Words force us to anchor our attention on one thing at a time. Once a thought or idea passes through us into a sentence, it is magically processed. It is seen and acknowledged, which gives a great deal of peace to the mind.

I first realized the impact of writing from the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. While the productivity methodology was of little use to me, the lesson of capturing thoughts—or emptying the mind—was certainly a liberating experience, and it has been that way ever since. I rarely go back and read what I have written, but once it is written, I have this deeper sense that it is processed now.

The mind, when thinking, is prone to falling off track, but writing grounds it to an idea, forcing us to brainstorm one thought at a time.

So, if you are overwhelmed by thoughts in your mind, if an idea is too complex to comprehend, or if you simply want clarity of thinking, the best advice I have is to write.