Struggling with something? Write about it

Published on March 27, 2023

Struggling with something? Write it down! Writing isn’t usually anyone’s favorite activity. We have school to thank for that. But if you really stop to think about what it can offer, you’ll wonder what you’ve been missing all this time.

TL;DR:

1. Writing helps clear your head.

2. It helps distinguish what matters from what doesn’t.

3. You can explore subjects in depth and come up with new ideas.

4. You move from “I think I understand it” to “Yes, now I know, because I can explain it simply.”

5. Start small. Write a microblog or full articles. You don’t have to publish anything.

Out of your head and onto “paper”

Especially when you’re dealing with lots of challenges and like taking on many projects, it’s important to write as much as possible.

It frees up space and lets you work with focus. It stops thoughts about different projects from haunting your mind. Your brain is good at a number of things, but it has limits.

One of those limits is “working memory”: how many things you can remember at once.

Writing frees up your memory

In general, you can only remember five things at once, give or take two. Add more, and you quickly reach a point where you might forget something.

The extra effort it takes to keep something in mind also makes you stressed about whether you’ve forgotten anything.

This creates a downward spiral!

Writing down everything you need to do frees up memory for other things. You can rely on a notification on your phone or a list of tasks.

Organizing your thoughts

When everything is on paper and you know you can’t forget it, other tasks become easier too.

It’s easier to keep an overview of everything you still want to do. You can also cross off things that turn out to be less relevant.

Writing requires attention

Writing things down is useful for working through problems as well as for recording tasks.

With complex challenges in particular, you may not know how to do something. Or perhaps you don’t know where best to start.

That often leaves a thought circling in your head.

“Stress doesn’t come from having too much work, but from something you need to act on and aren’t acting on.”
~ Jeff Bezos

Writing it down means you’ve already taken that first step. You also trick your brain.

Because you’re writing something down, you’re effectively paying attention to it, without any extra effort! Why? Because you’re no longer occupied with potential consequences or the stress of something left to do. You’re working to understand the problem objectively. You’re in a state of analysis and understanding rather than stress.

Mapping the “problem space”

“A Problem Defined is a problem half -solved”
~ Charles F. Kettering

Ask why four times

To clarify the real reason behind something, it’s best to ask “why” four or five times.

This technique was developed by Japanese Toyota industrialist Sakichi Toyoda.

The essence is that it brings you closer to the underlying cause.

You can use this technique to:

1. Explain why something happened.

2. Explain why something didn’t happen.

3. Explain why something does or doesn’t matter.

How does it work? Keep asking and answering “why” until there are no more meaningful answers. This is the root cause.

Writing it down on paper means you can always return to the chain of action and reaction.

Explaining clarifies the problem

You probably know this effect: you ask someone for help, but solve the problem yourself while explaining it.

You can use this effect even when there’s nobody available to ask for help or bounce ideas off.

Write it down, on paper or in your digital notes.

The subject expands

Another benefit is that the subject expands as you write about it.

This often happens while you’re simply creating an outline.

When outlining your article, you’re already:

1. Brainstorming all possible directions for a solution and related aspects.

2. Deciding on a sequence. What follows what? Are subtopics connected in a particular way?

That structure in your language also becomes structure in the problem space.

The rubber duck effect

I’ve already touched on the rubber duck effect above.

The term originated in software development. People discovered that explaining a piece of code aloud, line by line, would eventually help them find the bug.

This often happened after hours of trying other ways to fix the code.

ChatGPT: a rubber duck

ChatGPT is a relatively new AI technology based on a language model.

This means it’s good at interpreting words and using them to provide a useful answer to your question.

That makes it an ideal tool for rubber ducking.

A few ways to use it:

1. Ask whether something is correct and why or why not.

2. Ask follow-up questions about the principles behind an answer.

3. Don’t dump your whole homework assignment into it; use the separate parts.

4. Ask it to break difficult tasks into smaller actions.

Publish your thoughts

Although it may sound scary, publishing what you write can help others enormously.

You also learn a lot yourself, partly through that rubber duck effect again. And you get feedback from other people, perhaps about something you hadn’t considered.

Pretend you’re trying to teach someone something

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
~ Albert Einstein

Explaining something forces you to demonstrate that you understand it.

We often feel we “know” something. Later, when explaining it to someone, we discover our understanding isn’t as deep as we thought.

Once you can explain something simply to someone, you have that understanding. You can relate the concept to the context the other person already has.

Ideas from unexpected places

Share your thoughts in your story or on your timeline, and sooner or later you’ll see responses.

I’ve experienced this many times myself. You share how your workout went or how you solved certain problems, and suddenly messages arrive.

Friends and strangers ask for tips and the finer details of how you did it.

Sometimes you also get to hear other people’s experiences, such as how they solved it in their own way.

Why and how to publish

How and where can you publish something? Simple! Start small, with something you already know about.

It can be as simple as sharing your ChatGPT prompts on your own Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat.

Medium / Substack / Wordpress.org

If you enjoy writing, the easiest way to start is on a hosted platform. Then you don’t have to worry about the technology behind the website.

Just sign up and get going.

Medium, Substack and Wordpress.org are very suitable platforms. They often have a good web interface and already offer plugins for comments and different themes.

These platforms often even have a mobile app for writing. Ideal!

It’s a good idea to back up everything you publish. That way, you’ll have all your articles and images available if, for example, you want to move to your own website.

YouTube / IG / Twitter

All the principles described above work with different forms of expression.

If you prefer to explain things visually using, for example:

1. Diagrams.

2. Pictures.

3. Memes.

Then use those rather than the written word.

If you prefer talking to a camera, YouTube is a good platform to use, for example.

There are a few things worth keeping in mind:

1. Something doesn’t have to be perfect before you start.

2. Back up all your content here too.

Your own website

Having your own website is often a logical next step.

It gives you more control:

1. You have more say over how and what you publish.

2. You can add advertisements or sell products yourself.

3. You can easily combine different kinds of material.

4. You aren’t bound by the terms of external services.

The downsides are:

1. It costs some money.

2. Maintenance takes some time.

Combining forms of expression

Of course, you can also combine different forms of expression.

When I want to explain something or explore a process more deeply, for example, I like drawing little diagrams alongside it.

You can even take screenshots of tweets and post them on Instagram. You can easily create infographics in canva.com and publish them on all your other platforms.

It’s sensible to start with one platform and get good at it.

Once you’re comfortable with it and using it consistently, it’s time to consider adding another platform.

Above all, don’t make it too difficult for yourself! Starting is more important than making it perfect. You can always adjust, edit or delete things.