"If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking." – Leslie Lamport
Writing is uncomfortable. That’s the point. It forces you to confront how well you actually understand something. If you never write, you can stay in the illusion that your thoughts are clear.
But growth doesn’t happen in that gray zone. Like lifting weights, you only get stronger by pushing past what’s comfortable.
I can think of three great reasons to write WIBTALs:
You think better. Writing makes you slow down and get specific. That’s how you find out what you really believe.
You build out your mental models. Most ideas aren’t new — they’re patterns. Once you write them down, they become helpful reference points for future use.
You create. There’s a real satisfaction to bringing something into the world in your image.
Over time, writing starts to feel less like a task and more like a sense — a way of perceiving your own thoughts. Before I started writing regularly, it was like I was missing something. Ideas felt fuzzy, incomplete. Now, I can’t imagine thinking without it. Writing gives shape to what’s otherwise just noise in your head. It makes your thinking visible, usable, real.
So write — not because it’s easy, but because once you start, you won’t want to think without it.
Collect this post as an NFT.
