I’ve been writing more recently and I was quickly reminded how important it is.
Writing forces you to properly organise your thoughts around a topic. You have to think more deeply and broadly about things – and that often results in new ideas and more clarity.
I absolutely love this quote from Paul Graham which sums it up perfectly:
Expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong
Take my last post on risk as an example. I started off just trying to explain how I was going to take more risk with my investments and re-allocate some funds. As I got into it, I became more comfortable with the idea – especially when I thought about it as a percentage of net worth. And then, as I started to think more about actually doing it, I realised dollar averaging was a good way to do it. These ideas came to me as part of the process of writing it out.
Being able to communicate your ideas well in writing is more important than most people think. And like anything, practice makes perfect – and that’s why I am writing more.
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