No amount of organising beats writing when it comes to synthesising new information

I consume a lot of media. On a regular day, my feed reader pushes the latest gadget reviews from The Verge, updates on Southeast Asia from Dari Mulut Ke Mulut, or my Kindle asks me to finish reading The Montessori Toddler, along with all the other books in my ever-growing reading list.

I tell myself that this isn’t mindless consumption. I imagine myself quoting a book I read 2 years ago, or relating some tidbit in a newsletter to a problem I’m facing at work, or applying some sage parenting advice while playing with my daughter.

This wasn’t really happening, though. There was something missing in the process — I wasn’t taking the time to coalesce my thoughts from amorphous human brain file format to concrete written prose. Worse, the more time I spent without writing anything, the more I tried to keep things in my head, taking up cycles and leaving me scatterbrained.

I set myself a goal of 300 words per day in Ulysses, a beautiful writing app that tracks this for me. Did it work? I’m not sure yet, but I definitely feel better!

Book: Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

I finished reading Everybody Writes by Ann Handley, and assembled some book notes. It’s a great book on writing from a marketing perspective. Even if you don’t write or market for a living, I find that the advice applies well to blogs, newsletters, and speeches.

Some of my favourite takeaways:

  • Words are your ambassador, and can make or break you.
  • If you want to get better at writing, just write! Edit and refine later.
  • High-quality content should have utility, inspiration, and empathy.

I’d highly encourage anyone who does any sort of business writing to give it a look.

Renewing my US Visa

I renewed my US visa recently as a Philippine passport holder in Singapore. Here’s my detailed write-up of the experience. For those who don’t know, the US visa is also useful for obtaining an electronic travel authorisation to Canada.

The process was not well documented, but once you know what to do it’s a very straightforward process.

Reading

Here’s a brief rundown of the most notable articles from my recent reading history:

The importance of looking outside of “the data” — Randy Au breaks down Nike’s recent crash due to an over-reliance on the data they currently collect, not realising that it’s the data that they don’t collect (churned and non-customers) that they needed to focus on.

Primary Residence Value As A Percentage Of Net Worth Guide — As a percentage of your long-term net worth, Financial Samurai says your primary residence should be no more than 30%.

Global economic growth has always fallen short of expectations — I’m currently reading The Imagination Machine, and one of the most striking visuals at the start of the book illustrates this point:

The authors make the case that this is because growth opportunities now require a lot more “imagination” than before, where process development and technological innovation were enough.

I actually produced a newsletter post beyond the original “I am restarting my newsletter” post. 🎉 I’d appreciate your feedback, just hit reply.