Disclaimer: this article is expressing my take on a concept introduced to me by Nathaniel Drew. Nathaniel- if you read this, thank you for introducing this to me and for all of the content you put out there.
My girlfriend once said that I have a very “thinky” personality. From the name of this publication, it is no secret that she is not wrong- I think a lot about a lot. All sorts of thoughts and emotions run around in my mind at a speed that can sometimes be hard to keep up with. The challenge of having clarity in what I am thinking and expressing these thoughts articulately is one that I find important to tackle but it can be tricky.
There are some fairly obvious reasons that explain why this is such a challenge and its personal importance to me. In a world where you can be exposed to an incomprehensible amount of information at any one time (through social media, news on your phone, living in a busy city, etc), it is becoming increasingly easy to consume, consume, consume without taking time to pause and observe how what you consume sits with you. This is a trap I, like many others, have fallen into and it has left me overwhelmed, compromising my ability to think for myself. In recent years and months, I have tried my best to reclaim this ability, making an active effort to pause and organise the clutter in my mind. I almost see one’s ability to do this well and articulate their thoughts clearly as a sign of their emotional intelligence- something I have come to admire in certain peers and well known podcasters and speakers that I pay attention to.
But how does one go about processing their thoughts? A few months ago, I came across the “internal-external cycle” in Nathaniel Drew’s YouTube video How To Organise Your Thoughts: A Simple Guide - a two stage process that has shaped how I answer this question in my own life.
The internal
The first stage involves taking time to privately unravel thoughts that you capture. In a world of busyness and constantly running from A to B, pausing seems trivial but can be difficult in reality. What connects one thought to another is sometimes not a bold straight line but rather one that is faint and squiggly. There are three things that I keep in mind to help facilitate this process.
Embracing moments of boredom: when one is hit with so many inputs at any given second, it is easy for the brain to become overly stimulated. This lowers the volume of your own thoughts, making it harder to recognise the signals that they are giving you. If you cannot hear this, the challenge of organising your thoughts becomes virtually impossible. This is why I take out time to let my mind wander. This usually involves a daily walk where I am not listening to anything (podcasts, music, voice notes from friends, etc) and just taking in my surroundings. It sounds boring and that is exactly the point. We need more of those moments to let our mind get back to a default state where it has the space to ideate and process.
Having a mode of capture: Through intentional moments of boredom and random moments in my day, interesting ideas come to the surface. The problem is that they are fleeting and incredible easy to forget if they remain a figment of your mind. This is why it is crucial to have something that you can use to get these thoughts out of your head in the moment. For me, I simply use the Notes page on my phone since it is usually easy to hand, even in crowded spaces like a busy train. I know some who use voice notes so that they can be more expressive and others who prefer the more analogue approach of a pocket journal. It does not really matter as long as you have a way of getting it out of your head. What you are capturing does not need to make sense either. Nathaniel says it best when he mentions “delaying the editing process as much as possible”- giving up the tendency to shape what you noting down and rather just taking it down in its most raw form.
Weekly journalling: Eventually, one must take out time to make sense of their thoughts, prepared with the material built up in their chosen mode of capture. Right now, this personally takes the form of a weekly journalling habit where I reference my note of captured thoughts that week. I have found that using a physical notebook instead of something digital forces me to slow down and gives me more freedom to use the page in a way that I feel is the most appropriate. Instead of abiding to the perfect lines on a Word Doc, I can mind-map, make random connections between different points in the page and come back to points noted down earlier on, respecting the lack of linearity in my train of thought.
The external
Once you have made progress in organising your thoughts, it is time to “externalise” them- expressing what you are thinking and getting feedback from others. This can be as simple as talking to your family, friends or loved ones or more public expression, from vlogging and YouTube to podcasting and writing. I recently read Anna Mackenzie’s Substack note where she mentions the idea of “thinking in public” which summarises this perfectly.
Putting coherent words to what you are thinking by speaking, writing or video creation helps you make more sense of it. We all know of a time where we were confused about something and it suddenly clicks once we start talking about it- the connections you seek to make continue to be made as you express them. Not only this, but hearing how other people respond to what you share gets you out of your own head and exposes you to other perspectives. I find that it is this exposure that sometimes drives the evolution of your thought patterns and perspectives over time.
Again- how one shares their ideas does not really matter, with each approach having their own benefits and challenges. Having a conversation with someone you trust (ideally in person) allows you to receive feedback in real time, not only through how they respond but the questions they ask and how they act. Alternatively, writing articles like this on Substack means that I put myself through the task of seeking enough clarity to coherently write about what I think (for others to read and understand). On the flip side however, how much feedback you receive and the extent of this feedback is something you have less control over (especially in my case since I have just started and less people read my content).
It is a cycle for a reason
The switch between internal and external is not something that should ever stop, nor it is something that needs to be so rigid in structure. You are allowed to be making sense of things internally whilst also testing out ideas in the real world (in fact, this is encouraged). It is a continuous work in progress for anyone ranging from the average Joe to the world’s most respected thinkers and philosophers. And while it is not easy to organise the mess in our heads, it is important. This is the origin of all of the great ideas that have impacted lives in the past and present. The “internal-external cycle” is just a framing for anyone struggling to tackle this challenge.