If you are a Koornbeurser, I’m sure that at some point or another you will have come across a Redâkkie member desperately begging people to write articles in one form or another. And for good reason, we need articles to publish.
But I thought my own experience of starting to write might shed some light on how you might go about actually managing to write something, should you be interested in doing so.
Please do.
Wanting to write
I took a ‘keuzevak’ when I was still a student at the Hogeschool Rotterdam, which I believe are pretty much the same as electives at the TU Delft. This keuzevak was called ‘fact checking’ or something. It was about journalism, writing, and, of course, fact checking. We had to write a number of articles during that course. I really enjoyed writing those. The people who taught that class were also somehow really fond of what and how I wrote. Which planted a seed for me to start wanting to write. In hindsight though, I was probably just putting more effort into it than the rest, which I suppose would have made my writing stand out from the rest.
They even asked me to join the team that writes for the Hogeschool Rotterdam. But I didn’t end up taking them up on that. Mostly because I didn’t really feel comfortable writing something that’s accessible by- and specifically targeted to a group of over 40 thousand people. Though the amount of people actually reading that stuff is probably closer to zero than 40k. Also I had no clue what to write about, which made it all the more scary. It is kind of interesting how they were (and probably still are) also struggling to find people to write stuff. Coincidence? Maybe…
Failing to write
Fast forward like a year later. I wanted to start writing articles for the Redâkkie, just because I knew I wanted to start writing and it felt like a good opportunity to do so. But I couldn’t really get myself to actually start doing it.
Eventually I had written like two articles. Well I started with one article but never finished it. And the other I did finish but I really wasn’t happy with the result. So neither of them ever got released. Which discouraged me from continuing to write. I wrote with the explicit purpose of releasing them as Redâkkie articles. When they didn’t live up to that it was very frustrating and I just stopped writing. Which is dumb, but this is how the mind (or at least mine) works I suppose. Plus you can only really comprehend how dumb something sounds after pulling it out of your mind and into the world by saying it out loud or writing it down. Neither of which I was doing.
I did still want to write, I even joined the Redâkkie just because I thought it might force me to actually write something. It did not. The sunken cost fallacy doesn’t seem to be applicable for your own advantage. I’ve never managed to do it at least.
Actually writing
Recently, the tide has turned. Not that I have become a writing guru or anything. In fact, at the time of writing there are only two published Redâkkie articles that I wrote. One of which is an extremely lengthy board interview, which is just a collection of long ass quotes so there’s not too much actual writing there. But yeah, I have actually started writing, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. Which I suppose is what prompted me to write this right here.
What has made me actually start writing is that I stopped writing specifically for my texts to be an article. I started writing for myself. Both in these types of notes (which is now an article) and in my daily log/journal, which is of course just the manly men’s term for a diary. So now I just write notes, then I look at them after I’m done. And sometimes I’m like; hey, this could be an article. And there you go, there’s your written Redâkkie article, easy peasy.
So what got me to start writing articles is actually not trying to write articles.
Instead I now write for myself, to explore and expand upon my own thinking. Sometimes I come to the conclusion that I don’t really have as much thoughts about something as I expected. Or I find out that I just don’t really know enough about the subject to even be able to have any real thoughts about it. Which can be a great prompt to read and learn some new stuff. I can always come back to the subject, armed with new information, and try again basically. Or just expand upon my previous thinking. Other times I just spit out a whole bunch of thoughts or an anecdote that are coherent and well thought out enough that I deem it to be worth sharing.
I have written notes with the idea in mind that it could be an article. But if those turn out to not be “article worthy”, that’s okay. Because the primary purpose of writing that text wasn’t to release it as an article, it was for me. It doesn’t discourage me from writing other things. Which was the whole point of writing articles in the first place; just writing.
Though I mainly really talk about notes produced from thoughts, you can write anything, a fictional story or a review. Just write it for yourself, not for an article. Since you are writing to yourself, anything goes. You can be happy with the outcome regardless of it being “publish-worthy”. Even if it’s garbage, because then you can learn from it, or it could give you the idea for something else.
Notes are Glorious
But like I already said, writing notes is great for exploring and expanding upon your own thinking. I kind of compare it to mathematics. You have to work it out on paper, in writing. Because your working memory just isn’t big enough. Eventually you just have to start splitting up tasks, and keeping track of all those in your mind is nearly impossible (for most people at least). When you write it all down you effectively expand your working memory, by a whole metric motherfucking shit ton.
And the exact same principle applies when writing notes. Or writing anything for that matter. If you think about it actually, when working out your maths on paper, you are writing out your thoughts on paper. You’re writing down your thoughts, creating an overview that you can see and read. Which then helps you to continue developing those thoughts. It prevents you from having to go back to previous thoughts just so you don’t forget them. You can just focus on the thing that you want to focus on and work that out, without the extra burden of remembering and keeping track of the other things related to it, because those are on paper, and they’re not going anywhere.
So I guess; think about taking notes on your thoughts in the same way you think about writing your maths on paper, it’s basically the only viable way of working it out. Although talking with someone can have a similar effect, plus you’ll have an outside perspective. But I have a hard time opening up to people about my thoughts and feelings. In fact, I don’t really do it at all. In writing (to myself) I seem not to give two shits though, which is great!
Since I started writing notes, I no longer find myself in the situation of feeling lost in a way too large library filled with unorganized thoughts, some new, some old, few of them refined or even explored. Don’t get me wrong I still find myself lost in this ‘library’ from time to time, when I’m cycling or trying to sleep or something, but it’s a lot less bad when you can just pick one or two thoughts and note them down quickly (before they return into the depths of your mind). Then, later you can work them out into full notes where you can just explore them, focusing on that thought and just digging around in your brain to see what’s there.
Taking notes has just made me feel better in general, I’m more aware of myself, how I feel and think about things. I just feel more organized somehow. I don’t feel nearly as lost as I have felt in the past. It really helps me to just make sense of everything going on in my mind. I’d recommend giving it a try if you ever feel lost. Actually I’d recommend it to anyone. If you’re stuck on a decision, writing about it can really help to make that decision, it helps you to objectively put all the pros and cons in front of you at the same time, without emotions clouding your perspective.
And me starting to take notes recently wasn’t the first time that I’ve started taking notes, but it is the first time that it feels like it will actually stick. I never really did it in a way that really worked for me. I’ve taken notes in a paper notebook, which is really satisfying if you have a nice pen and nice paper. But handwriting appears to just be too much effort for me. Plus it’s a physical bundle of paper, you can say goodbye to organizing and accessing your previous notes. Also my handwriting is fit for an obscure metal band logo. All the other notes I’ve ever taken digitally were stored all over the place. Some were locally stored on my PC. Some locally on my phone, others on my tablet. I had notes on google drive, I had some on dropbox and I had some on Notion. That’s no good.
But now I just have all my notes in one place that I can sync across all my devices. Which is crucial, you have to minimize the amount of effort it takes to do a habit if you want to actually develop said habit. Every drop of effort that it takes to start doing something new is an extra obstacle when trying to make a habit out of it. And you can apply the reverse for habits you want to stop, if you make it harder for yourself to do some habit then you will probably do it less often, or at least less easily. This is but one of many things you can do in regards to shaping your own habits but that’s way off-topic.
The end
There is a whole lot more to be said about notes, and if you’re interested in that, I’d recommend reading “How to take smart notes”. That’s enough rambling for now though.
Please write something, anything. Not for the Redâkkie, but for yourself 🙂
And if you end up liking what you wrote, definitely don’t hesitate to send it to your local Redâkkie member c:
You can even do it anonymously!