Write by hand.
Every day, every other day, whenever you can. It has done more for my thinking than anything else I do, and anyone can do it.
AI and writing tools have made us terrible thinkers. They finish our sentences before we know what we want to say. Writing by hand is the way back.
My hand is slower than my thoughts, so by the time a sentence reaches the paper, I have thought it twice.
Paper doesn’t delete, either. I cross out, and when I am done the page is full of things I almost said. The crossings show me where I flinched.
I say what I mean sooner now, and louder. Attention is the currency, and people spend very little of it on anyone. Getting to the point first is how you keep it.
I would do this even if I weren’t a writer. Before the email I have been putting off, or the message to someone I haven’t spoken to in a while, I write it on paper first. I write it badly. I cross things out.
Then I read what I crossed out.
That is usually what I meant to say.