Freewriting to Better Thinking

I have Amazon.com to thank for this since their profiling of me put a book called "Accidental Genius" up as something I may like (it works).  Mark Levy published the book in year 2000 and has since released the second edition in 2010 which he notes reworking about half of the original content to refine the process after 10 years of use.

The premise: use freewriting to unlock your mind and create your best ideas.

Freewriting, in a nutshell, is "private" writing (writing for your eyes only) but with some additional guidelines that focus the minds attention with more effective precision.  I've been doing private writing for quite a while because I find I'm able to better articulate ideas through the written word than through my internal dialog.  In fact, this blog exists mostly as an outlet for ideas that for my own peace of mind, I've had to refine through the writing process (the introvert in me).  But using Mark's tips and insights have opened up new avenues as I've been doing 10-15 minute exercises frequently on a wide range of topics and find the results to be better than I imagined. 

One of the key points is to keep you pen moving or fingers typing at all times.  This is a bit difficult as the mind is wont to wonder and I write a lot of what probably looks like gibberish but sticking to it guided me to taking ideas deeper and making disparate connections that probably wouldn't have transpired otherwise.  That is just one of many pointers and exercises that I believe if used consistently will lead to positive results - even if not the results you were expecting.

As Mark writes:

"As expansive and impressive as the mind is, it's also lazy.  Left to its own devices, it recycles tired thoughts, takes rutted paths, and steers clear of unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. You could say that one of its primary jobs is to shut off, even when there's important thinking to be done.

Freewriting prevents that from happening.  It pushes the brain to think longer, deeper, and more unconventionally than it normally would.  By giving yourself a handful of liberating freewriting rules to follow, you back your mind into a corner where it can't help but come up with new thoughts.  You could call freewriting a form of forced creativity."

In the short time that I've been practicing freewriting I've found it beneficial to a whole range of uses: writing goals and figuring out what I really want and how to best articulate it; drilling down into current challenges to better understand and in formulating solutions; reinforcing learned material by freewriting on the subject matter; creating ideas by allowing my mind to go while I record it;

And on and on and on....  Often, I'm my own worst enemy and freewriting slows my impulsiveness down and gives my ideas time to ferment and usually evolve into something quite different from my original notions.  It's worth the small investment in time and money to learn this process.