Ah, the art of writing! This should be an easy one to talk about, no? Well not for me, because writing is one thing, but doing it daily is another one. Actually, I am already glad when I get to Write Weekly (Note to self: one added value of writing: it visualizes things: Let’s call it the WW from now on ;-)).

Well, enough about the hard things of writing, let’s start with the benefits!

First of all, it helps you to learn. Not from books or classes, but from your experiences in real life (with others!): By looking back at your day and writing about it, you re-live the day and the learnings you had. As we all know that learning comes from repetition, it helps you in actually storing as many learnings of your day as possible.

Second reason is that — by forcing yourself to write something down — you create your own opinion, your own vision on things: Writing something down requires a structure of words, of paragraphs, of build up… This helps you in clarifying the ideas you have in your head. Also, by seeing your own writing, you will sometimes discover the stupid things that sounded very interesting while they were still in your head. For me, this is clearly the most important reason to write.

Writing also helps you think more in terms of the receiver of the information. It forces you to translate your idea in something another person can understand (without direct access to what’s in your head) and respond to. When it’s out into the world, people can react to it, in order to build a conversation. This helps in making your idea spread and actually have an impact.

And finally, it just can help you to calm down. Let it all go. Don’t you believe me? When you lie awake at night because the wheels in your head are turning on a splendid idea, just write it down in the book that always is next to your bed and have a good night sleep!