The art of clear thinking

Writing a daily letter is the best way to generate new ideas all the time.

Writing a daily letter works as a forcing mechanism for generating ideas.

Even as someone who does this for a living, I know this practice to be quietly demanding, at times uncomfortable, and often frustrating.

The whole business of writing is an uphill pursuit because it is always easier to say nothing than something. In wrestling with language, though, ideas that were not top of mind suddenly emerge like a sunrise breaking through fog.

For me, it was only after publishing several hundred pieces that the practice coagulated into a habit.

Working as a financial reporter at Business Insider was my first contact with “high volume” writing. The editors tasked my team to write three, four, sometimes five news stories each day. The work excited me enough at the time that I’d leave the office with enough verve to continue writing in the evenings for my blog and freelance assignments.

After several years of that I came up for air and realized I not only had several thousand bylines to my name, but a command of language that offered me a framework to make sense of reality.

---

A writing habit, I’ve learned, is less a practice of publishing but rather one of thinking clearly.

Through my short career so far I’ve maintained a writing habit that’s anchored me through chapters spanning countries and newsrooms. Even now as I run a business that’s built upon a flagship financial newsletter, I continue to churn out personal letters and blogs as a secondary outlet to synthesize, clarify, and communicate.

I work hard to make these letters here digestible and interesting. I’ll admit, too, I’ve re-read ones from the recent past that meander and miss the mark.

Even so, the act of writing is more valuable than any one piece that publishes. As far as I can tell, there is no better way to spend time if the goal is sharpening ambiguity. As I’ve improved as a writer over the last several years, I’ve noticed similar strides in my ability to communicate in my relationships and in business.

And considering how fractured our attention is today and the screens that compete for our eyeballs, the case for writing has never been stronger.

---

It took writing a million words to learn these two truths:

1. Writing is thinking, concretely

2. Simple is smart

These seven words underscore how writing affords clarity, and that clarity permeates everything else you pursue.

The most obvious sign someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about is when they fail to explain their views with simple language. Someone who has spent intentional time thinking — that is, writing — about a specific topic should be able to avoid any jargon that obfuscates.

Indeed, writing poorly is difficult as is. Writing while avoiding complexity is a monumental undertaking that takes great and consistent practice.

As an example, when I write my morning financial letters, my intention is for everyone from an eighth-grader to a professional stock broker to understand.

Consider one of the most famous sentences of the English language from one of the most revered wordsmiths, William Shakespeare: “To be or not to be?”

The longest word is three letters long but the sentence rings through history.

Now, this isn’t to say the most gifted writers are the ones who can best dumb things down. It’s better stated as prioritizing cutting through noise and fluff.

A writing habit cements this worldview into your bones. It doesn’t take long for this to seep into how you see everything else — you begin to crave precision, shun complexity, and dismiss jargon.

Maybe this is the real gift of a writing habit. An essentialism. A clarity and economy of words and ambitions in an increasingly cluttered, noisy world.

A writing habit means a gradual refinement in thinking.

Clear thinking means more simple writing.

Simple writing, in turn, means even clearer thinking.

Around and around we go.

Have a great afternoon,

Phil Rosen
Co-founder and editor-in-chief, Opening Bell Daily