E. M. Forster said “How can I know what I think till I see what I say?”

I'm pretty sure I agree.

In fact, now I've written it down I'm certain I do ;)

There's huge value, I believe, in publishing your ideas. Not just for marketing purposes, but to sharpen them and improve them.

I've been posting pretty much daily on Linkedin for the last couple of weeks and every single time I've written something it's clarified my understanding of it.

Warren and Barton talked about this in their book “Thinking on Paper”. Writing isn't just “putting your ideas down on paper” – it's actually part of the thinking process.

Our brains only have limited working memory. We can't juggle enough concepts in there at one time to fully analyse complex ideas. We need to get them out so we can look at them, compare them to different ideas, properly scrutinize them, riff on them.

I regularly find that when I write something down I see discrepancies and inconsistencies I hadn't seen when the idea was just in my head.

Or I spot new connections and new options. It triggers more new ideas.

And, of course, you can get feedback from others.

You don't get any of that if you don't write down your ideas or otherwise express them physically in a form that gets them out of your head and in a way that you and others can review.

Sometimes, when I'm talking to someone about publishing their ideas as part of their marketing they'll say “I'm a do-er, not a writer” as if writing was somehow only for people who can't do.

But writing (or making videos or podcasts or any form of publishing your ideas) not only helps your marketing. It makes you a better do-er.

It makes your ideas better.

So I'm going to encourage you to write (or make videos or audio) more often. And to publish.

I'll tell you in the next email where I think the best place to publish is right now.