Externalize your ideas 🍲

February 24, 2021

Our heads are idea-soup pots. We keep adding ingredients to them all the time. To do this, all you need to do is think and thinking is something we cannot stop even if we tried. That leaves the soup perpetually on the boil and us thinking:

How do we know what does it taste like?
Is it any good?
Do we need to mix it up a bit?
Is there a balance of flavours?

Serve it to someone

We will never know this until we try some of it and perhaps offer a bowl to someone else who is also interested to try it out. To find out how our cooking tastes, we need to serve it on a platter or externalise it.

If you want to generate interest with your soup, it best be:

warm and inviting
appetising
in the right portions; and
at the right place and time

Externalising your thoughts gives you a better idea of what is inside your head. Doing this is also a chance to get feedback from other people but it is important to plate your food well to attract other people and get them to take a bite. Maybe if you're nice, they might even share their reflections with you.

Different ways to externalize ideas

Journaling: for you to taste the soup, appreciate the flavours and aroma, notice what is missing and add that in the mix
Social posts: Serving the soup, made better with iteration, to people who might come by and wouldn't mind having a taste
Blog posts Opening a soup-shop with the whole spread, now that you are great with cooking them up, to let people feast on your work, keep on coming back and spread the word for you.

Summary

Think outside your head
Do it in public
Talk to people who might be interested in your content
Get their take on what you do well and what needs improvement
Iterate
Show up regularly with new stuff
Enjoy the process

And that, my friends, is how you find clarity!

#communication #creativity #iteration #writing