Idea, Processing, and Productivity - The Meaning Behind The Mechanisms

I decided early on that I wanted this newsletter to be about more than writing systems. I don't want to be the writing systems guru, the guy that gives people these cold, untested processes that work on paper, but never in practice.

Even as a guy that naturally thinks in systems, I understand that real life is messy. People are messy, and that mess can't go away.

So, if it can't be removed, it has to be part of the plan. Even if it could be removed, I wouldn't think of that as a good thing, either. That mess, that unpredictability, is what makes living feel dynamic and interesting. It creates connection, and within that connection, meaning.

That was the train of thought that led me to know I had to talk about more than just a process. I needed to explain why these processes help people achieve goals, and find value in the things they work on. Workers of all kinds, but especially writers, are better when the value and intention of what they craft is clear.

That's why I started writing partner essays for every newsletter I write. I want this newsletter to be focused on the mechanics, though. So, I started a Substack account and a Medium page where people can see these essays.

It seemed like a solid way to build out some other platforms, but it also means I can contribute to the conversations about in writing in a way that matters to me and in a way that can, hopefully, stand out from the crowd. Much like this newsletter, it's early in the process, so the payoff isn't clear yet, but I have hope.

So, I pulled several essays together for your enjoyment today. The first one already exists on other platforms, but the following two are new essays coming out on Substack and Medium later this week. Enjoy them before the rest of the public gets to, and thanks, as always, for spending some of your precious time with me.

Your interpretation is more valuable than what you know. The ability to regurgitate information will be replaced as LLMs and other technologies continue to develop. Thousands of words on any given topic can be generated at the press of a few keys.

But, those technologies can never replace your specific ability to synthesize and extract meaning and value from that information.

That is the meaning behind my Content Castle system. It's not something that is meant to be a hoard of knowledge that you sit on and spit back out at people randomly. It should represent, from the bottom up, your synthesis of ideas from random idea to holistic approach. It should be the fortress from which you attack your field of expertise with, and the bastion against bad information from others.

Thus, like any castle, the structure is only as good as the foundation is built on. The thoughts you capture during your days, and the references you store for later, those represent the foundation of your thoughts. These represent the moment-to-moment activity of your mind, and the consumption of information that was made without you. These notes are the capturing of the past and the present to propel you forward.

Meanwhile, the literature and permanent notes represent your understanding of those previously captured ideas and references. They are where you go from a passive observer and consumer of information to an active thinker, someone who derives understanding and value that can be communicated to others with enough work. They show you the connections you make between your sources of information, created a layered understanding unlike anything most folks are formally taught.

These facts are why I refer to scattered creators and ineffective ones. I've been the writer that kept a loose collection of notes about their work, and made no attempt to record where I got the ideas and inspirations and technical understanding of the craft. I've also been the writer that hoarded information, and never did anything with it.

Both of those versions of me as a writer sucked. Neither of them produced anything that made an impact. Both versions of me believed that I took the right approach to writing, but neither was the case because I was only applying half of myself to the craft at any given time. I would give either my spontaneous creator half or my academic hoarder half full control, and not the synthesized version of myself that was greater than the sum of those two parts.

I don't want that for you. I want you to be someone who can approach their field of expertise from all levels of thought, from fleeting ideas to synthesized frameworks containing ideas from dozens of sources.

Those holistic approaches make for better writing because life is holistic. Writing, an act meant to reflect the realities of life, is best when you take all the pieces of yourself and use them craft pieces that speak to people on more than just one level. Don't meet people just at their vocation, but their family lives, their beliefs, so on and so forth.

You won't do that by spontaneously creating, and never understanding. Nor will it happen if you stockpile the opinions of others and never form your own. You must use your own taste, your own discernment, to find the good and bad out there.

Systems like my Content Castle, with all its layers of notes, force you to develop that taste and think about the things you read and watch. It creates a sort of "intellectual compounding interest," where every note has a greater chance to tie into or create a greater whole with something else in your notes the more that you do it.

When I first started doing this for myself, I would add notes into my Castle and call it good. Now, when I come across new information and studies, I think about how it relates to what I have in my notes even before I finish reading it. Not even one year into this new system, and I already have a stronger foundation of my knowledge than I possessed even when I was a student.

That's why I decided to share this system, and several others, with you, the reader. I want people to better learn how to learn and record their findings so that, as time goes on, more people will create their sense of taste and their clarity of expertise in their chosen fields.

In a world tending towards an even greater flood of available information, the ability to find or source that information will become increasingly cheap in the perspective of others. Pushing the boundaries of that knowledge base, and having the ability to share that discovery with others, will only matter more as time goes on.

Don't get left behind. Capture what interests you so others will care about you.

I published a newsletter a little while ago about the Zeigarnik Effect. When I came across this idea - that our minds will hold onto unfinished tasks and open loops, for better and for worse - I thought this kind of information would be great for writers of all kinds. Writing as a whole requires the completion and synthesis of a myriad of tasks and mental loops, meaning writers are more susceptible to this psychological effect than most other professions.

It explained why my writing always sticks out in my mind, even when I finished part of a newsletter or a book. The project wasn't done, I knew it wasn't done, and therefore my mind would latch onto that desire to see it through to the end, no matter how much time I put between myself and the work.

But, in covering this effect, I came to another conclusion not laid out in that newsletter in plain terms: understanding the Zeigarnik Effect doesn't make you a better writer.

In fact, it might be making you worse at it.

Not because the Zeigarnik Effect can't be harnessed. Rather, because it, like any other psychology hack or trick, can be a distraction from the main event: your writing.

Be honest: have you spent more time looking up how to be a better writing than actually writing recently? Have you spent long swathes of time researching techniques, prose examples, or productivity habits to become an efficient, effective writer?

I have. Because it's easy to do. You can go onto your preferred social media app and surf an endless wave of tips and tricks for hours on any subject you want, let alone writing. Every time you come across something that sticks out, writing it down to use later feels like a win.

But it's not a win if you never implement it. It doesn't help you if the kernel of truth you found online sets tucked away in a vault you never open, or a journal you never review. It was a flowery waste of time. You became a little more able to describe the problem you're facing, but you didn't take any action in solving the problem.

To be clear: finding this sort of information isn't the part that's bad for you. Doing nothing with it is.

Take it from the guy that wrote thousands of words about a psychological trick you can play on yourself. Go back into that newsletter and see that I don't just tell you about the Zeigarnik Effect. I'm trying to give you actionable steps to take so that the barrier between doing nothing and doing something for yourself gets smaller.

Having a system that uses the knowledge of yourself and your craft that allows you to achieve what you want to do will always overcome someone smarter that you that wallows in inaction. Don't just learn about these tricks. Use them.

Otherwise, you can end up like so many seemingly intelligent people. You can be the person, or maybe already are the person, that reviews and researches and reflects, tinkering in your mindscape instead of building in reality. Maybe you are the person that reads a newsletter like mine and plays with the idea for several hours, but never makes progress on achieving more in your craft.

If you are that sort of person (and be honest about it), I want you to do what I have done. Specifically, I want you to get over your fear of creating, whether it's writing or otherwise, and start.

Use the Zeigarnik Effect, or any other system/ or trick you come across. Pick one, implement it in your life, and see what happens. If it sticks, pick another trick, and stack that onto what you did before.

And then keep going until your life looks more different than you thought it could.

I'm not telling you this as an online guru, or some wise sage from the mountaintop. I'm suggesting you give it a try because I was that smart procrastinator for 20 years. I knew at age 14 I wanted to write books, and I let the people around me talk me out of it because they couldn't perceive how I could make that work, and I didn't know any better.

Now that I'm in my 30's, I don't care about those opinions anymore. Not because the people who shared them didn't mean well, or because I think they were trying to hold me back and I therefore need to rebel today, but rather because I can't shake the itch to write from my brain. I imagine it will be around for my whole life, because it has so far.

So, for those of you that write, go do so, by whatever means or trick you can get yourselves to do it. The craft of writing only gets more important the further we progress into the Digital Age, so honing it now will set you up for success in the future.

For those of you that still want to tinker and tweak, I hope you get what you want from the exercise.

As for me, I want to build from here on out, not just dream.

I've noticed that, for many writers, keeping a journal is a hard thing to sell them. I don't say that because these folks, these writers, tell me they don't want to write more. Instead, many of them fail to keep up with the habit, engaging with it on a whim or when compelled by an external force. As if journaling with a metaphorical gun to one's head makes for worthwhile review and processing of one's life.

Some will say that this is why there are different approaches to journaling. That different systems, things gratitude journals, morning pages, VOMIT, my 4C's method, and so on, exist to suit different kinds of writers.

This isn't untrue, but it's also not the full picture. I don't believe these different approaches to journaling exist to only satisfy the different mechanical approaches to daily recording and processing. Instead, I think these differences represent the systemization of something that matters to that specific writer.

In other words, trying a journaling system and failing may not mean you can't journal, but rather that you tried to journal in a way that doesn't matter to you.

Effective journaling gives you both an outlet for your emotional baggage and a way to record your life. For some, writing these down onto the page and never touching them again gives these people the ability to let go of what was bothering them. For others, they seek to have their journaling mean something greater than the written equivalent of a vapid talk therapy session.

For example, take morning pages, popularized by Julia Cameron. In her book, The Artist's Way, she explains that her system is a stream-of-consciousness approach to writing, where you allow yourself to joy down anything that comes to mind during that window. You pour yourself onto the page for several minutes, letting structure, purpose, and intent be damned in an attempt to warm up your writing muscles for the work ahead of you.

I tried this process for a while when I first started as a freelance copywriter, and found it to be dull. Not because the system wasn't good, but because I would come away from the process wondering, "Why did I bother? There's nothing useful here."

I later realized that the implication in that thought is that I want my writing to suit a purpose or fit into a greater whole as much as possible.

I don't consider myself to be a flowery, artistic person, and thus creating for the sake of creating doesn't naturally occur to me. I prefer to have intention when I write, though that doesn't mean writing merely for the craft never happens for me. It just isn't a natural state for me.

So, when I tried morning pages for a few months, I got to a point where I hated the idea of writing first thing in the morning. I started creating goals for myself each day. One day, I would write a poem based off some randomly selected words from the dictionary, or I would use that time to instead draft scenes and chapters for books I wanted to write someday.

I took the free-flowing concept of morning pages turned into a structured prompt because that mattered to me more than writing for the sake of writing.

Thus, I wasn't the person that needed morning pages. I needed something that had the bones of morning pages or other journaling systems, facets like the emotional processing and mental restructuring, but I needed it to link into something above just that writing session.

I also found that doing my journaling in the morning meant that I had a blank canvas for the day. That's great for creating something from nothing, but not for processing the day since the day's events had yet to occur. I found I had a lot to say about my days to loved ones when asked in the evening, but none of that would be recorded for me to look back at later. That needed to change.

So, that's where my 4C's journaling system came from. Each part of that process is meant to tie into something more than just what's written in that section:

Each one takes five minutes, 20 minutes total each night. Each part of the process motivates me to doing something for the greater whole of myself. That's what good journaling looks like.

It's not just about getting thoughts onto a page. I think people will say that, but there's always a deeper reason.

Don't let yourself ignore that deeper reason.