How to think in writing
henrikkarlsson.xyz
How to think in writing
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Re: How to think in writing
#2a major problem with writing or any creative endeavor is the reception is out of the creator's control. you can check all the boxes on clarity of thought and it still fails to resonate with renders for whatever reason
Re: How to think in writing
#3This is great and matches something I’ve been doing for over a decade now. Writing in reflections, examining and cross examining.
The only thing I would argume with is:
> We just talked about it aimlessly, read randomly, and made small notes. This cost us time and caused confusion.
No, this is part of the process. It’s part of noticing and a precursor to the step of examination. This is data gathering.
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The other thing I’ve learned over the years is that this kind of thinking/writing scares people.
I’ve made the mistake of sending an edited analysis to a cofounder. Because they didn’t have a similar practice they couldn’t perceive it as an examination of our startup’s situation, and instead received it as anxiety and uncertainty.
It’s unsettling to question assumptions.
Re: How to think in writing
#4Proofs and Refutations is a great book.
Re: How to think in writing
#5The PG quote is a hot take.
Yes, writing can be a productive focusing mechanism, it can also provide you with good reflections. But so can meditation, so can a good walk. It's a tool, not a requirement. It also has it's own downsides in that it forces you to think a certain constrained way, and while that is also one of its strength, it does limit your ability to think creatively.
Similar to how using ChatGPt to draft writing or code, there is a strong biasing effect pushing you towards something non novel.
Re: How to think in writing
#6"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it."
Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.
Re: How to think in writing
#7a major problem with writing or any creative endeavor is the reception is out of the creator's control. you can check all the boxes on clarity of thought and it still fails to resonate with renders for whatever reason
Another major problem occurs when mixing the first intention, to communicate for a specific audience, with a second, separate risk-management intention to control that receptivity and dial it to a resonant frequency. The first intention trusts and takes a high view of their integrity and of your own. The second does the opposite.
Re: How to think in writing
#8"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.
How is it flawed logcally? Seems perfectly correct to me. Although I'd agree it's a bit over-literal. As if the emotional workings of the human mind can be precisely reasoned about (i.e. precisely enough to say "always").
Regardless, I've experienced this effect a lot when writing design docs. Iteration and objective criticism on a tangible thing (a doc) is an extremely effective way to see the problem from all sides.
Re: How to think in writing
#9"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.
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Re: How to think in writing
#10"If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it." Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.
> "If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it."
> Apparently, even writing it down didn't help the author with this flawed deduction.
I think that it can be rescued, at some expense of awkwardness, by grouping not as one would expect ("(fully formed) ideas"), but in a slightly non-standard way:
> "If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully (formed ideas about it)."
That is, if you haven't written about the topic, then you haven't understood it as precisely and completely as you could. While this is obviously exaggeration, I think that it's (1) logically consistent, (2) possibly what pg meant, and (3) a useful slogan, even if intentionally over-stated.