Trust the first pass
Timebox: 30 minutes
I see roughly four different modes of expression in my day-to-day:
- Extractive, where I verbalize what is “on my mind,” with activities like focusing or thinking by writing
- Emphatic, I focus on what the other thinks or feels instead of what I feel, the mode I’m in when I edit text
- Imitative, where I’m sharing what is “on my mind” without thinking too much about it, like in some casual conversations
- Creative, when I create something new like an experiment, a strategy, or a design.
I noticed that I often get distracted and switch from extractive mode to the other three modes.
For example, when I write to think, I start with the thought that prompted me to write, and then distractions start popping up:
- I should link to this article
- I should learn more about X
- Formatting
- Editing nitpicks
- I should extract this fuzzy group that I want to point at in a neat list
- Taking notes of new things I should write about
It’s a problem for writing to think because:
- If your thoughts aren’t crystallized yet because you’re writing to think, you risk diving into things that are not relevant to you
- In extractive mode, you put words on intuition, on feelings, on things you know well enough to use but not well enough to teach. You lose track if you dive in.
As I started doing this less often, I got clarity quicker. Much like meditation, it takes me less effort to stay in extractive mode over time.