How you can to improve your thinking by writing

A lobbyist in Brussels who can write clearly and persuasively is valuable.

Few can. Most writing in the Brussels bubble is gibberish.

How you can persuade through writing

This is strange. Lobbying is about persuasion. Perhaps the most effective way to persuade a decision-maker or influencer is by sending them a well written, clear and concise briefing note.

For a long time, I guessed that lobbyists, like many academics, revelled in pouring out dense and comprehensible prose.

With age, it became clearer that poor writing comes about for three bland reasons.

Firstly, the writer does not really understand what they are writing about.

Secondly, the writer is not interested in communicating to the reader. They don’t want to have a real conversation. They are not interested in persuading the reader.

Thirdly,  technical brilliance often comes at the expense of not being able to communicate at all. The ‘gifted’ experts often find it hard to explain themselves to the non-expert. It does not matter if they are writing or speaking in English or their native tongue, they just can’t do it.

 

Why Write?

The real benefit of writing is it a great tool to sharpen your thinking.

Thinking on paper exposes every strength and weakness in your case. It is unforgiving. There is something sobering about the exercise. When you throw your ideas down on paper, the ideas that are going to be destroyed in the cold light of day jump out. The written word exposes the absurd,   bizarre, and outright lies. Moments before, those same words in the mouth of a snake-oil salesman may have sounded convincing.

Good writing is not easy. I have finished writing a book contribution. It was tough work. The first draft was vomit.  The hard work is in the editing. The change from the first pile of garbled ideas to the final chapter is (hopefully) significant.

 

Tim Ferris

If you want to improve, the suggestions from  Tim Ferris are helpful.

 

 

Tim’s Recommendations

 

1. Write every day.

2. Think on paper. It helps show if your ideas are sharp or if dull.

3. Writing is re-writing.  Your first is scrappy. It’s a pile of vomit.  After your first draft, you re-write. The first edit is for yourself. The second, for your fans. The third, for your critics

4. Get a proofreader. The proofreader needs to identify:

  1. What’s confusing
  2. What’s unclear
  3. What makes the mind wander
  4. What 10% should you keep no-matter-what
  5. What 10-20% should not be kept

 

5. Note from me. If you don’t have a proofreader, sleep on it, and come back and edit a few times.

 

 

Transcript from Tim Ferris

I’m gonna talk a little bit about how to

use writing and why you should use

writing to improve your thinking so I

would credit much of the success I’ve

had to whatever extent I’ve had success

to learning how to write and to

practicing writing and the reason for

that is that without writing it’s very

hard to freeze your thinking on paper so

that you can sharpen it so that you can

see where for instance using words that

aren’t well-defined where you’re saying

things that don’t need to be said all of

this will help everything else I

remember in college for instance when I

took a class with John McPhee an

incredibly gifted writer and teacher all

of my grades and every other class went

up because every extraneous bit of

information that was hurting instead of

helping me was taken out so to sharpen

the salt a couple of different

approaches

number one is write anything anything

whatsoever stream-of-consciousness essay

doesn’t really matter let’s just call it

one two three pages something along the

lines of morning pages and Julia camera

and the artists way popularized this and

there are a number of folks like Brian

Koppelman very well-known writer

screenwriter co-creator of the show

billions swears by morning pages so that

is an easy way to ease into the practice

of just moving a pen I recommend

freehand so that you can see your

thinking on paper that accomplishes two

things number one it takes the anxieties

and nebulous worries in your head puts

them down in a freeze frame so that you

can kind of trap them in the printed

form so you can get on with the rest of

your day the second thing it does is it

allows you to see where you are sharp

and where you were dull in your thinking

now if you are drafting as I do for

instance right now once a week writing

if you are looking for a proofreader and

you do need a proofreader if you can’t

find a professional writer because we

can’t all find professional writers talk

to friends who have any type of legal

training or you could even hire a lawyer

to do this or a paralegal someone with a

law degree they are trained to look at

language very very carefully because in

a dispute in a negotiation and a

disagreement arbitration it’s going to

come down to the

wording of contracts and I have found

that when I do not have access to

professional writers it is oftentimes

just as good or even better to get

lawyers or people with legal training to

read my writing so that would be a

workaround that I accidentally

discovered this is very powerful

few things to keep in mind when you are

then doing revisions because writing is

in fact rewriting your gonna vomit out

your first one or two pages and my

mantra of sorts which I borrowed from

someone else who is a career ghost

writer is to crappy pages to crappy

pages per day and very often you’re

going to exceed that and then write more

but so that you set the game up in a way

that is winnable to copy pages is your

minimum and it can be just rain vomit it

can be worthless but got to get two

pages all right once you have those two

pages you can approach revision in a few

different ways and you can revise

yourself say in three rounds like my

friend Neil Strauss who I think has

seven or eight New York Times

bestselling books at this point when he

does his first edit he edits for himself

alright so he’s editing just for his

pleasure for his enjoyment for what he

thinks is good then the second round of

edits he will edit for his fans the

people he thinks will really love this

material the third round is for the

critics the people who try to tear it

apart to find little niggly points that

they could twist and so on and that can

be a helpful framework for revising what

I do with proof readers and you can do

this also with people who are not

trained writers at all and in fact you

should have some lay people so to speak

people who are not writers as a craft

very simply what I will ask people to do

is read and highlight anything this

could be in a Google Doc a word doc on

paper that is confusing people can like

what you write they can dislike it they

can love it they can hate it but it

should not confuse anybody that’s the

first thing I will do is I’ll ask people

just highlight anything that is

confusing or unclear alright that’s that

step one anyone can do that

the next is if you notice your mind

wandering while you’re reading this

please note that alright so if something

is slow

maybe it can be taken out note where

your mind starts wandering alright the

dictum there is when in doubt take it

out just be like I don’t know if I

should take I don’t know if I should

keep this or not take it out at least as

an experiment the other question that I

posed to proofreaders because you can

train people to be very good

proofreaders is the 10% rule and it’s

not really a rule but a guideline that I

like to use so I’ll say please indicate

the 10% I should keep no matter what if

there is 10% that I should keep no

matter well what is the strongest 10%

like there’s 10% I have to keep please

indicate that and if I had to cut 10% or

even 20% in some cases all ask people

please indicate what you would cut if

you had to cut something even if this is

an essay or a blog post that is a page

or two long and what you’ll find if you

approach writing systematically in this

way and revision systematically in this

way is your cognition your analysis your

awareness of how you use words how you

use explanation how you use questions

will become so much sharper that it will

transcend this type of exercise and

begin to positively affect just about

everything in your life so for

fulfillment for excitement for

professional success for personal

success I find writing to be arguably

the most important practice good luck

you