Through writing, I want to:

• Learn more effectively and efficiently by taking notes and chunking my thoughts
• Understand and be able to articulate what I'm thinking
• Keep notes for future reflection and time travel
• Connect with people who have similar interests
• Help other people save time

I'm pretty happy with how I'm doing this so far, although it would be even better if I could write more efficiently and effectively. What would that look like, and how could I move towards that?

I pick up a lot of information from reading and from trying things out. If I spend more time reviewing notes and experimenting with concepts, that will help me get more out of the time that I spend reading. Wouldn't be neat if my personal stash of quotes (my digital commonplace books) linked each note with a blog post reflecting on what I found interesting about it, how I've applied it, and what it's related to? I think that would be handy.

Sometimes I find myself particularly interested in an idea, and writing is easy. Other times, the spark isn't quite there, or the kindling is scattered. I have a massive outline/list of things to write about. Sometimes it seems a little odd writing about stuff, though. Lackluster? But maybe giving myself different recipes for blog posts can help (a personal story, a book quote, etc.). I can also look at it as practice. I have years and years to write, and I can learn a lot when I practise deliberately and dispassionately.

For reflection and review, I can write regular snapshots of what's going on in my life and what I'm trying to figure out. These usually give me enough anchors to remember more.

To make it easier to connect with other people, I can ask people if they blog, and I can post more of my personal stories on my blog.

I've been writing more selfishly rather than focusing on saving people time, but I'm sure that balance will shift at some point too. I tend to find it easy to blog helpful things when I'm immersed in projects or in answering people's questions, so it's probably just a matter of focusing on open source again.

As I write more, I'll get faster, and I might even get clearer. :) I can build on what I've previously written. I'll get a better sense of what I like and don't like in writing, and I'll experiment with the influences of other writers.

So let's say that it takes me about an hour or two to follow a thought and write it down. I'm not really looking for speed here. I don't need to be able to crank one out in fifteen minutes. It might be good to be able to work in small chunks (headline, outline, snippets) to take advantage of the moments that come up during a day. It would also be good to be able to work coherently – to build up to more complex thoughts, to untangle harder questions. That's probably what better writing looks like for me. As for beauty form and flow, I can probably pick that up through analysis and practice, but it's somewhat reassuring to know that people can think (and share) complex thoughts despite being inelegant writers. (Almost impenetrable, even!)

How do I want to change how I write? Well, I can use my phone more, writing instead of reading when I have a free moment on the go. If I feel a little blah when writing at my computer, I can open my book notes and expound on a passage. I can also pick something from my outline and sketch out the next level, tell a story, or look for ways to test it in life (and add a reminder to come back and write about the results). I can embrace the way that many of my blog posts are more like “here's where I am, there's where I'd like to go, here's what I'm going to try” rather than fonts of wisdom. Hey, maybe it will be amusing (or even useful) looking back, forty years from now. We'll see!