Writing Helps Clarify Your Thinking
I started this blog in 2010. It was without any specific agenda or strategy. (Yeah, I used to do that :-) In my first post you can read about my humbling experience at the Ironman Spain in Lanzarote. I still like that article because that specific experience has forever changed the way I compete. If I would not have written that article, I might never have realized in all clarity why I love to compete. According to the statistics it has some hundred views. Judging merely by the lack of public interest one might suggest I should never have written that article. I am convinced that is a wrong conclusion. Clarity of mind is invaluable.
Up until a few weeks ago I was not seriously committed to blogging. It was a sporadic pastime I used to engage in whenever I felt like sharing something important or even trivial. It has been almost one year since I started writing on a daily basis. For the longest time I only wrote for myself in order to clear my thoughts. As a management technique writing has always been a thing for me professionaly - mostly to document results of workshops or to take meeting minutes. Occasionally I have been writing journals, like the months when the twins were born. It all helped me to compartmentalize the chaos in my head. Looking back my writing habits always surged when there was a big change in my life and I had to cope with severe transformation. In times of routine the habit of private writing suffered and I often stopped writing over longer periods - this fact is also represented in the overall frequency of posts over the past years in this blog.
I write at work on a daily basis, but that is different from my private writing in at least two ways: First, at work I write for a specific interest or a goal rather than for a general purpose. Second, usually the topics are defined by requirement, so my chains of thoughts have to focus on the task at hand. I write in order to create papers, concepts, proposals, tons of emails - always with the caveat to create an immediate or at least some indirect impact.
The purpose of this blog however is entirely different. I have all the freedom on earth to write about whatever I feel like. Thus this blog is not only a channel to the public but also a mirror for the things that concern me most. I use this mirror to create order and discover patterns in my thoughts. When I have an idea for a post I usually start with a rough sketch of an article. I don't put much effort into scheming and preparation, but start the writing process right away - very agile, right?
Become a Gold Digger
My experience with writing is that it helps you to get rid of the clutter in your brain and filter out the nuggets. Some thoughts might keep your mind occupied and return again and again - like in Groundhog Day, these distractions can be really annoying. I found that once I write down these thoughts it helps to empty my head. Like when I take out the trash. By writing down thoughts -indeed I still use pen and paper in order to do this- it helps a lot to get rid of clutter. In the process I often find some valuable ideas or thoughts that otherwise would have been lost in the 'fog of war' in my head. These gold nuggets would otherwise often be lost - this is also the reason why mind maps work. You just spill out your thoughts as they come and hope to seek to find some kind of pattern or order later. I use this blog as a means to find some nuggets and to post them here. I am fully aware that the quality of the post is going to vary with the days - there will hopefully be some great posts (like my first one on this blog) and some not so great ones. The result I hope to achieve is to sharpen my lenses for the daily details that I would miss if I wasn't always on the lookout for something worthwhile and interesting to write about. Second, the training in publicly clearing out my head already made me better at putting my thoughts into a structured pattern. Of course I hope there is some value for someone on this planet among my posts. But I will admit, that in my view the result is not determined by whether anyone will ultimately find interest in my blog or not. Last but least, and I am certainly no exception here, this blog has a foremost therapeutic purpose. In case anyone should find value in how I force myself to clarity, be my guest. Regardless of the outcome -which I can not directly influence- I'll just keep on digging and continue to document the process of becoming a more effective thinker, finder and writer.
Comments