Writing is debugging your thoughts

You think you have an idea until you try to write it down. Then you find out.

The illusion of a complete thought

In your head, an idea feels whole. It has edges. It connects to other things. You could explain it if someone asked.

Then you open a blank page and the seams show up. The "obvious" connection turns out to need three steps you hadn't articulated. The conclusion you were going to defend doesn't actually follow. The crisp word you wanted is missing.

Why prose, specifically

Bullet points let you skip the connective tissue — therefore, but, which means that. Prose forces you to name the relationship between two ideas. That's where the bugs live.

Diagrams have the same problem in the other direction. They make shape visible but hide the reasoning.

A small practice

When I'm stuck on a problem at work, I write a one-page memo explaining it to nobody in particular. About half the time I solve it in the writing and never send the memo. The other half I send the memo and the conversation starts in a much better place than it would have.

It's the cheapest debugging tool I have.