Sometimes, I wonder …
I’ve been writing regularly now for almost 10 years.
And writing has become much easier.
I’m less anxious. I trust that somehow, I can turn each idea into a decent blog post.
Yet, my writing process can still be messy. Sometimes, I still wrestle with an idea. A blog post doesn’t always work the way I thought it would.
Is that just how it is?
Or could I use my brain more effectively and become more productive?
How to expand your brain
I recently read the book The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul. The subtitle of the book is: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain.
It’s an intriguing concept isn’t it? Can we think outside our brains?
Below I’ve summarized 4 of the key findings of Annie Murphy Paul’s research that may help you re-imagine how we think, how we write, and how we can expand our brains to become more productive writers.
Want to know more?
1. Your brain is not a computer
If you ask a computer program to write a blog post, you feed it some information, and then it produces a finished piece in one go.
That’s it.
A computer doesn’t revise. It doesn’t edit. It doesn’t restructure a piece of writing.
Why are humans so different?
As Annie Murphy Paul suggests, our brains are loopy. Our ideas—and our thinking and writing—become clearer each time we revise.
That’s why we produce crappy first drafts. That’s why we edit our writing in round after round after round until it’s finally clear and publishable. That’s why we can’t get our thoughts on paper in one go. We have to keep rewriting until our ideas shine brightly.
In the past years, I’ve already learned to accept the messiness of the writing process, and it has made writing more joyful. Now, I also understand why that is: My brain is loopy.
2. You don’t need to sit still
Were you also taught at school to sit still and concentrate?
Perhaps that was the wrong advice …
First, there’s a challenge with trying to sit still.
For instance, when I’m struggling to formulate an idea, I often take my fingers off the keyboard and rub my temples. I do this automatically.
Should I try to stop myself fidgeting?
Probably not. As research suggests, trying to stop ourselves from fidgeting may take up so much brain power that it actually becomes harder to focus.
Next, forcing ourselves to sit at our desk might not always help us be productive either. As Annie Paul Murphy writes:
Moderate-intensity exercise, practiced for a moderate length of time, improves our ability to think both during and immediately after the activity.
It’s no surprise that many prolific writers and scientists are avid walkers.
Darwin did his best thinking not at his desk, but while walking in his garden. Rousseau claimed he could only think and find inspiration when walking. And as Frédéric Gros writes in his book A Philosophy of Walking, Nietzsche even wrote his book The Wanderer and His Shadow while walking, scribbling down his lines in notebooks.
Maybe our brains just work better when our feet move?
3. Free up your brain
Caro is a historian who received a Pulitzer prize for The Power Broker, a biography of Robert Moses.
While researching his book, Caro felt overwhelmed. He was gathering a lot of information but he couldn’t keep it all in his head. And yet, he also felt he couldn’t start writing before he knew how the book would work. He needed to get a full view first.
So, Cato created a mammoth map of all information. As Annie Murphy Paul writes:
One entire wall of his office on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is taken up by a cork board four feet high and ten feet wide; the board is covered with a detailed outline of Caro’s current work in progress, plotting its trajectory from beginning to end.
Creating a map, like Caro did, helps us sift through ideas and see them in perspective. It also helps offload our brains so we can focus on figuring out an outline.
Here’s Annie Murphy Paul again:
[Offloading] relieves us of the burden of keeping a host of details “in mind,” thereby freeing up mental resources for more demanding tasks, like problem solving and idea generation. It also produces for us the “detachment gain,” whereby we can inspect with our senses, and often perceive anew, an image or idea that once existed only in the imagination.
This is probably the hardest lesson for me. I’m not a systematic note-taker. I don’t like big plans. My way to beat overwhelm is to isolate a small question and figure out its answer by writing about it. Then I work on the next small question, and so on until I can see how the small questions connect in the bigger picture.
Could I be more productive if I force myself to take more notes? Should I figure out the big picture before I work on the small questions?
4. Think with your body
John Coates has a PhD in economics, and he used to work as a financial trader.
Before making a trading decision he would read financial reports and review statistics. Despite this careful analysis, many trades would fail.
Sometimes, he’d follow a gut feeling. And you know what? These trades based on instinct were often profitable.
Intrigued, Coates committed himself to scientific research, and he found that traders who were more in tune with their bodies—who have a better interoceptive sense—were more successful.
Who knew that gut feelings had such power?
Here’s what Annie Murphy Paul suggests:
HERE, THEN, is a reason to hone our interoceptive sense: people who are more aware of their bodily sensations are better able to make use of their non-conscious knowledge.
When I write with my brain, there’s more anxious chatter. When I ground myself in my body, I feel more inspired, I’m more patient, and eventually I might get an unexpected flash of insight.
To do my best writing, I need do as photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson suggests: Put my head, my eye, and my heart on the same axis.
How’s that for you?
How to expand your brain power
Of course, we can practice our ability to focus so we can be more productive and write more.
But perhaps some of our biggest productivity wins are less about exercising our brain, and more about thinking outside our brains.
Instead of getting frustrated, we can embrace the loopiness of our brains. We can use the writing process to sharpen our thinking.
Instead of trying to push through stuckness while sitting at a desk, we can go out for a walk and boost our creativity. We can also offload our brains by making notes and creating maps.
And we can learn to pay more attention to the sensations in our body.
And listen to the wisdom within.
Happy writing!
Recommended reading on brain power and writing:
How to train your brain to write more
The two writing mindsets: How to do your best work
How to read as a writer
Great thought inspirer, here! I often get more ideas when I’m vacuuming or doing yard work. I once composed a poem while mowing! I have a son who could figure out his calculus assignments if he went to bed for the night because in the almost-asleep stage, he could understand it and the answer would come to him.
I think sometimes, all that is because of relaxing the conscious mind and allowing it to do some thinking on its own.
You can even solve issues when asleep! Barbara Oakley calls sleep the ultimate diffuse-mode thinking. Diffuse-mode thinking is what we do when we aren’t hyper-focused on solving a specific issue but our minds just wander more freely. This also often happens when doing a habitual task. That’s why you also get ideas while vacuuming. It’s exactly as you say, relaxing the conscious mind and allowing it to do some thinking on its own, making fresh connections.
It’s weird how our brains work, isn’t it? Our productivity is not just determined by the time we sit at our desk typing words.
Thank you Henneke! Once again, you’ve given me one of those enormous, whole-body-sigh-of-relief ‘aha!’ moments. This is me, a looper! Ha, I love it. For so long, I’ve tried to resist my innate desire to simultaneously work on lots of things. I read several novels at once. I work on several assignments at once. Etc. Everything I’ve seen or heard about organisation refers to linear, structured processes that just seem beyond me. And yet – I am actually highly organised. I have never missed a deadline or sufffered stress from being in a self-induced shambles. This post made the penny finally drop. Today, I am going to celebrate my amazing loopy brain! Yesss! There IS method in my madness. Thank you. I soooo love your work.
It sounds like you’re thriving on what you call a “self-induced shambles.” Creativity is inherently messy and you seem to know how to use that chaos to be at your most creative and most productive. Let’s celebrate that!
Thanks so much for stopping by to share your experience. I much appreciate that. It’s so interesting to hear how others work.
Hi,
I love the Mural app for making notes and being able to ‘zoom in and zoom out’.
http://www.mural.co
Interesting. Thank you for sharing, Leo. Do you use the app just for yourself or share your notes and collaborate with others?
Excellent book recommendation
Yes, The Extended Mind is an excellent book, offering an interesting perspective on how we think.
I am reading mindset too, i can read both together it will be interesting I believe.
Such great book choices. I read Mindset by Carol Dweck a few years ago and found her explanation of growth vs. fixed mindset eye-opening. And I think you’re right that the two books complement each other nicely.
I was talking to a person I consider to be a prolific and successful blogger. She said she writes three or four articles at once and flits between them, abandoning some for a while and then coming back later. This is how I instinctively like to work, but I try to force myself to do one thing at a time. I have this belief that I can’t start another article until I have finished the one I am working on. This may be a helpful habit for some people, but I end up paralysed and not finishing or even starting anything. This short conversation gave me permission to work in a more circular and geodesic way. It’s a bit sad that I need that social proof that says “she does it, so it must be okay.” But at least now I know that I can relax and work in the manner that best suits me (loopily!) and get good results that way. This article also echoes the realisation that being productive isn’t always a linear “sit there til you finish it” process. So thank you!
So much truth in your comment. Thank you for sharing your experience, Ann. What works for one person may not work for the next, so we all have to figure out what works for us. And I even think that some habits may serve us well for a while and then they stop working and we have to reinvent how we work. The muse of creative productivity is fickle.
Thanks, Henneke.
Happy writing, Jane 🙂
I find inspiration while walking and working in my garden. I carry my phone with me so that when a thought or insight about my memoir pops into my head, I can stop and write it down.
Sometimes it’s a sentence fragment, a full sentence, or even a paragraph. I know that these thoughts are shitty first drafts that came to me from nowhere. But if I don’t write them down as soon as they occur, they will be lost forever.
You’re way more organized than me (that doesn’t surprise me!).
I resist interrupting my walks to note something down or to record it on my phone. I always think if it’s important, I’ll remember.
From a scientific point of view you forgot the uppermost important advice to get the best from your brain
1. Train sustained uninterrupted attention: don’t multitask and therefore: disconnect.
2. Get enough breaks and sleep for the most creative part of your brain.
See my booklet “How to Unchain Your Brain: In a hyperconnected multitasking world” https://amzn.to/3b53VKD
Yes, that’s a good point. I only mention focus briefly at the end of the post as I wanted to put the spotlight on thinking outside the brain. I focused on sharing what I found the most interesting points from Annie Murphy Paul’s book (there’s a lot more interesting stuff in it!). A blog post always forces me to select and focus 🙂
Hi Henneke, This is a post that I will save and share. As a new writer, expanding my brain is a great need. That’s why I had to click on this post’s link, almost reflexively. Furthermore, it is filled with practical tips I can apply now, while some others I will have to circle back to, simply because I want to take time to digest and act on what I’ve learned here. Thanks Henneke!
I’m so glad you found this blog post useful, Emmy. And I much appreciate your taking the time to stop by. Happy writing!
Mind maps
From a ton of notes are your friend.
Walks, I agree help.
“Glam” bike rides that include a stop in a brew pub.
Swims to clean up both mind and body. Especially after working up a grimy sweat from working hard physically and/or mentally.
Thanks for the post.
I also love bike rides with stops at a pub garden 🙂
I still wonder whether the impact of walking is different from riding a bike. I haven’t figured it out yet. Have you noticed a difference?
“Six of one and half a dozen of the other.”
I think that applies here. The benefits of getting out and about. Moving around. Getting the blood flowing.
It’s easier to pause on a walk to pull out your (Moleskin, don’t leave home without it) notebook when inspiration bubbles up.
You can still do so on a bike ride. But if I’m shredding the gnar on a mountain bike not so much. Winding singletrack tends to make you want to focus on the task at hand. Trips to the emergency room, stiches, casts, not only not fun but expensive.
Wait to scribble at the Pub. Safer.
So I guess one of the goals of a bike ride is to avoid too much impact all at once.
Not sure this helps. But thanks again for a great and useful post.
Your cycling activity is definitely more intensive than mine! But even with easy pedaling it’s not really possible to make notes. I think I like cycling more as a way to blow away the cobwebs.
Annie Murphy Paul made an interesting point in her book about the relationship between the intensity of activity and cognitive function. If one exercises more intensively, then our ability to think coherently actually declines.
Hi Henneke, Love this one. I was just thinking yesterday that I was in a writing slump. Nothing was getting me excited to write about. Then I went out for a walk and enjoyed some nature. It always seems to revive me and helps me to come up with ideas that inspire me. Now I need to create those maps and my gut feelings. Thanks for the advice.
I’ve found the same. Walking is so good in so many ways. I’m going out for a walk shortly!
Just a huge thanks Henneke !! I started writing my blogs again…
Yay! That’s great. Happy writing!