How to sharpen your thinking

Yeah, yeah I know.

That quote has been used to the point of exhaustion.

But I still think about it a lot.

Just because it’s not sexy, hip with the jive, or whatever the kids are saying nowadays doesn’t make it any less true.

(sorry for the double negative, those confuse me too)

And I think about it because it’s a core tenant in my life philosophy, Optimalism:

(Yeah, I just quoted myself. Pretty punk rock if I do say so myself.)

The best place to start if you want to be ready for anything is to keep your mind sharp.

And the best way I’ve found to keep my mind sharp is to write.

In fact, it’s the reason I started writing in the first place.

A sharp mind leads to clear thinking which leads to powerful communication.

And if you communicate well enough, you can change the world.

So without further ado, here’s the writing steps I use to sharpen my thinking:

1 - Find something that you want to learn about, then write about it

You’re not going to learn by just thinking.

The real way to expand your mind is to find new topics that stretch your understanding, then talking with other people about those ideas.

Before you do that, though, you need to get your thoughts down on paper. This will expose any gaps.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson writes down every single idea that you hear him talk about in podcasts first. It’s not just off the top of his head. Smart.

2 - Write each morning.

Now that you have stuff to write about, do it every day.

My rule is 400-500 crappy words per day. I keep the top 10%, polish it, and post it online.

You have to get the faucet on and flow established before the good, clean water comes out.

3 - Writing is rewriting.

The polishing part is important.

I used to hate editing.

Until I realized my writing sucked. Now I take it seriously.

I think about editing in 3 phases:

• First edit is for yourself.

• Second edit is for your fans or audience.

• Third edit is for your critics.

These 3 filters will make you think about your ideas in 3 different, distinct ways.

You get bonus points (and better perspective) if you have actual people in mind for a fan and a critic.

4 - Read it out loud.

Stuff sounds different when it’s in your head.

And usually not a good different.

Everything I write, I try to read it out loud during each edit.

(Cool fact: 500-600 years ago, it was weird if you read silently. Most people read out loud.)

If there is ANYTHING that jumps out at you, or just bothers you a little bit, dig in and explain it in writing.

I find that this stuff jumps out more while reading out loud for some reason.

If you do these 4 things for 3 weeks, you will have totally different thinking patterns.

Sharpen your saw.

Swanagan