Write what you have in mind in five steps

Have you found yourself procrastinating to write down your thoughts? And even worse, you are doing it due to a sense of stress that comes with it. Well, I have seen myself doing that, and I think it is because we want to nail it right off the bat when the actual process is far from it.

So, I would like to share how I cope with this.

The process

1 - Identify

First things first. We need to clarify and identify the following:

What do I want to communicate?
Who is going to read it?
How do I want to address my audience?

These are the base question, still you can continue exploring more aspects by your own.

2 - Dump

Now sit down, open a text editor or take a piece of paper and write down everything you have in your mind. Forget about layout, formats, or even order; just clear your mind and dump your ideas out.

Personally, I have found that it is easier when you express your thoughts in short sentences. You can worry about making sense later.

3 - Connect

Once you finish dumping your ideas out, look for the related sentences and connect each other. You might feel the temptation of rewriting them on the spot, but it is easier to take one step at a time.

4 - Organize

During the last 3 steps, you might have a conversation with yourself, so it is time to rewrite those inter-connected sentences into paragraphs that someone else will read.

Remember, sentences express ideas, paragraphs are sentences that relate to each other, and the whole document is paragraphs with a logical sequence that drives the conversation with your readers.

5 - Rinse and repeat

We are almost finished, but we need to clean it up before moving on.

One way to spot what is out of place is to read what you have written aloud and hear yourself. While doing this, focus on redundant ideas or things that do not make any sense, then rephrase or delete those.

Probably, you might want to repeat the whole process from steps 2 to 5, just to be sure.

When to stop?

Well, you can make that call yourself, but it is preferable to hand over what you have written to a third party and let them review it. If this person can tell what you are talking about, you are done.

PS: In case you were wondering, yes, I used this process to write what you have read here.

PPS: For non-native English speakers like me, it is beneficial to use services like Grammarly to express ourselves better.

Last modified on 2022-01-30