What Writing Does For The Mind

The Truth Behind Writing’s Effect on the Mind

One day, Dr. Stephen Krashen grew curious.

Enjoying the beautiful sun of Southern California, he paused and asked himself a couple questions. Everyone always told him that in order to become a better writer, you must write. “But is this really true,” he asked. “How do we know for sure?  And how does one uncover the answer?”

As a black belt in Tae Kwan Doe and a champion in Venice Beach weightlifting competitions, two things always drove Dr. Krashen: curiosity and discipline. Now, as a middle-aged man, questions like those above were his outlet for exercise.

Much like his 300-plus published papers and books, those questions drove him to dive deep into the beliefs we hold true. And his research on this subject changed our thoughts about writing forever. In fact, his research on this area led to his induction in the International Reading Association’s Hall of Fame–a profound and prestigious honor.

His paper, We Learn To Write By Reading, But Writing Can Make You Smarter, yielded two findings:

1. Writing does not help you become a better writer; reading does.
2. Writing makes you smarter and allows you to solve more complex problems.

Dr. Krashen found that through writing, the brain becomes stimulated. And Ph.D.’s from UC Berkely, Robert Yerkes and John Dodson, have found that through stimulation, the mind is pruned to become more focused an attentive. The more your mind is stimulated, your mind grows and increases its ability to focus.

In summary, two important things were discovered about focus through writing:

• As one writes, they become smarter
• As one writes, they increase their ability to focus

Formulating ideas

Through writing, thoughts disentangle themselves. When speaking, thoughts are poured out in real-time. The communication is raw. With writing, however, one has the ability to redraft and refocus their thoughts. This results in a more clear and concise form of communication. This act of organizing thoughts, is a powerful way to enhance the mind. It allows you to slow down and ask yourself critical questions. After making writing a routine, the way you think will change, the way you speak will change and others will sense this change.

Your ability to formulate thoughts and present them in a concise manner will set you apart. If you make this a habit, you will go further in business, in life and with people.

Grasping the main idea

Just as important, writing out your thoughts and your objectives on a consistent basis will allow you to better grasp concepts–no matter how vague or abstract. For instance, a study was conducted by Arngala Ganguli in the field of mathematics. After each class, the professor asked one group of students to write a paragraph on what main ideas they’ve learned. When compared to the normal group, they significantly outperformed them in test scores. The act of writing down and summarizing what they learned significantly helped them learn.

The lesson is: If you want to really grasp something, don’t read about it. That’s passive; instead, write about it.

Writing is focused action

The vast majority of people out there reason, “I don’t have time to write,” or “I’d rather act and get things done, than write.”

This completely misses the point. Writing is focused action. Writing hedges the trap most people run into: acting without focus. Writing sets you up to act in a focused manner; and writing, in itself is focused action. If all we did was act, we’d all be running around like headless chickens.

Writing leads to an action-oriented life, not a reaction-oriented life.

Just because one acts, doesn’t make one succeed. It is through focused-action that one finds success. And this focused-action stems from writing.

It is in giving that you receive

In another chapter, I outline what types of blogs and books you should look out for. I exhibited that you must be wary of certain types of blogs. Over the years, I’ve read countless books and blogs that have allowed me to grow as a person. If this wasn’t available, I would’ve made countless more business mistakes and wouldn’t have self-taught myself how to program, or even write this. I’m am in great debt to the leaders and individuals who wrote books or blogged. Yet, they too benefit from writing and teaching people like me. Authors and bloggers learn more about their subject as they write more about their subject.

It is in giving that you recieve. It is in writing that you recieve.

9 Tips for Becoming an Unstoppable Writer:

So by now it’s clear that writing not only makes you a more focused person, it makes you smarter. It will propel your career and your life ahead of those who drool on themselves while watching The Kardishians. It will enable you to re-spark your path to accomplish the dreams you’ve since put on hold, or the projects that are on the back-burner. So how do you get started? Here are 9 tips to become an unstoppable writer.

1. Read. A lot.

As discovered above by Dr. Krashen, you must read to become a better writer. In order to do this, I suggest writing in the morning and reading at night. Slap on a pair of headphones and read while your spouse stares at the T.V.

Yet, is what you read more important than how much you read?

To this day, studies haven’t found anything conclusive on this; however, it’s common sense that this principle should hold true. We are what we think about. And what we think about is correlated with the inputs we load into our minds.

2. Map out the idea

Before you sit down to write, map out what you’re going to write. Otherwise, you’re just journaling. And news flash: nobody cares. We live in a world where people have less and less time to read. Don’t make it harder by meandering through thoughts; instead, spend time in communicating points.

Don’t restrict your mind by using electronic tools to map out your idea. When I asked author Seth Godin about his favorite tool, he replied, “Big pads. Different ones all the time. Grease pencils.”

If you’re always on the go, you may want to look into Moleskine notebooks. They’re basic, simple and straightforward notebooks. They’ve gained somewhat of a cultist following due to their history. The list of famous writers and authors that use Moleskines include: Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin.

3. How a writing strategy makes writing easier

When writing about something, you want to present it in logical fashion; yet, this concept doesn’t hold true in writing a novel. In a novel, you’re essentially telling the truth. You’re revealing a story as it comes to you, as the inspiration speaks to you. You then go back and redraft.

It’s different when writing a book that centers on communicating and convincing others of your thesis (this book). As in my case, my thesis centers on the belief that the most successful people have a degree of focus that normal people rarely practice. In order to reach this thesis, I continually craft and map out how I’m going to communicate this point. My chapters are much different than it would be if I were writing a novel. My chapters center on essentially three parts: (i) I tell you what I’m going to tell you, (ii) I tell you through stories, data and steps, (iii) I tell you what I just told you.

You must have a strategy for writing the piece in which you’re writing. If you’re writing a novel, your strategy should be freedom of thought in telling the story. If you’re writing a thesis-based book, your strategy should center on mapping out the direction of your book, and focusing on what your reader wants to know about the subject at hand. Once you understand your strategy, writing will become easier.

4. Creating a writing environment

You need to create an environment that drives you to focus, and enables you to write. Your environment should be quarantined of any major distractions. This includes cell phones, television or anything that may distract you.

In my focus lab, there’s basically two things: a light and a desk. There’s no pictures, no furniture, nothing. The closest thing to art is the entire wall that I painted a deep red–it’s my belief that this color drives creativity, it drives action and it drives focus. There’s also some cultural implications in the use of colors that I’ll soon get into within my chapter on the focus lab.

5. Effective ways to listen to music while writing

Believe it or not, Stephen King rocks out to Metallica while writing. We all have different music preferences for working. Some prefer listening to Pandora all day, whereas others prefer silence. When writing, if you do decide to listen to music, I recommend using headphones and an ipod; not listening to music on your computer. If you’re trying to write and you’ve got music that’s running in the background, you’ll stop where you are and begin fiddling with iTunes, Pandora or whatever’s on your computer. Before you know it, you’ve just wasted 15 minutes. Having music running in the background on your computer is a distraction.

As we discussed in auditing your gadgets for focus, when writing, you should only use tools that serve one major function. In my this case, use a computer for writing, a pad of paper for mapping out thoughts and an iPod for listening to music.

6. Redraft later and you’ll finish writing a book

When writing, nothing’s going to be perfect. Don’t try to finish the perfect chapter. In my case, I literally write this book in real-time. I ship the chapters, and then re-write if it’s needed.

Redrafting a chapter over and over is a roadblock to finishing your project or book. With this book, I am very selective in the time of redrafting. Plus, I’ve got you, the reader, that can help me along the way!

If you want to finish a book, finish it, let it rest for six weeks and then redraft it.

7. Enjoy the process

It’s odd that in many professions, people hate the process of creating. They’re so focused on finishing, that they miss the enjoyment of creating. Ironically, it’s because of the fact that they lose focus on the creative process that people end up never finishing projects or books they’ve started.

Take a step back and enjoy the process of writing.

8. Have a time-line

This is the most critical component in writing. Have a time-line of about three months to finish the first draft; otherwise, the passion that drove you to start the project will start to fade.

After you finish the first draft, leave it alone for six weeks. When you’re ready, pick it up again, print out your work and read it through (making marks of any changes). You’ll find great amusement out of this process. You’ll be surprised with how good your work is. You’ll have forgotten about things you’ve written. And you’ll be confused about things you’ve written. That’s why taking a break is good.

9. No biggie

Life is too important to take too seriously.

Just like life, writing is too important to take too seriously. You need to be honest with yourself, and be honest with your readers. They’ll be able to sniff out any bullshit you throw at them. For instance, as I was re-reading this chapter, I had an introduction that could be cut down to three words. So what did I do? I cut it out. I don’t want to waste your time, because you respectfully haven’t wasted any of my time.

Yet, if you do end up writing something that sucked, or even an entire chapter that didn’t move anyone, don’t worry about it. No big deal. Trust yourself to improve. Trust yourself to grow, and don’t cut yourself down for imperfect writing style.

Everyone must start somewhere. If you look back at prior drafts and nothing stands out that could be improved, you should be worried. That means you haven’t grown as a writer. It’s a healthy sign to look back at things you’ve written in the past and correct them.

Other tools:

• Tempation blocker
• Write or die

Further Sources, Resources and Readings:

• Your brain and exercises to expand the mind
• Stephen Krashen PDF on Writing
• Ganguli on Mathematics and Writing
• Xomba Writing Tips
• Tips to Focus on Writing

IMPORTANT: If you enjoyed this article, I'd like for you to experience much more by purchasing the book. You can check out via Paypal or Google Checkout. Click here to buy the book.