I’ve been writing articles since studying graphic design, now some six years ago. Most of my articles are rubbish, boring, and by now, outdated. These items never see daylight though and are put in a folder called ‘articles’ on my desktop. But the thing is; I don’t necessarily write them to be proper, up to date and/or entertaining. I write them to educate myself.

Now, my articles are never about myself, and neither is this. But one thing that sparked my mind is this piece of e-mail reply I got from Ivan Raszl on an e-mail I send him. He wrote me back, saying; “Look, there are lots of ambitious people that chat me up. But very few have the brains to process all the info coming at them.”

I’m not convinced I have more ‘brains’ than others, but it got me thinking (and in the end writing it down, here).
I often force myself to have an opinion about inspiring or interesting things I see or think. My advice to you is that you do the same. Force yourself to unravel any interesting thoughs you have, and force yourself to have an opinion about subjects that interest you. And while you’re at it, take your verdict a level or two beyond the meaningless ‘nice’, or ‘great idea’, cause that’s not really an opinion. A compulsive opinion will make you process the information you’ve just read or seen, and will make you better at processing information. In some ways, the brain is just like a muscle. You need to train it.

Einstein once said; “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Spot on. It’s exactly that.

That’s why; write it down. I’m talking articles here. Not Twitter, not Facebook. Sharing is not the same as processing. Write an article about it. And even though nobody is going to read them, it raises your meta-cognition; knowledge about knowledge. When you’re channelling that mental confetti, you’re raising your self-awareness, and forcing yourself to understand the subject well enough, so that you can explain it, including your own opinion. That’s writing! (Some may argue blogging, regardless of medium.) You’ll get better at it over time, and in the end people might even start to read it.

Little note here; if you have a blog (on which you write), I’d love to know and read it.

It’s a fallacy to think writing is just for copywriters. Everybody can write. Even art-directors. Heck, a lot of teenagers are blogging nowadays – so what’s your excuse anyway?

Now, then. You need no more advice from me I suppose.
You need to go do something.

So go.