Writing is Thinking

For a long time, in my professional (and personal) life, I would write without much purpose. At work, I would take notes on everything, and then pore over them afterwards to try and synthesize some meaning from the discussions. It was a practice I picked up in middle school, when we had a visitor in my language arts class that did a whole session on proper note taking techniques. It became a habit in high school, a necessity in college, and a compulsion in my career. It became an essential part of how I think. And, just to acknowledge my biases, I began to form opinions on folks who couldn’t articulate their ideas in a clear written narrative - namely that they weren’t clear / deep thinkers.

When I joined the Kindle team (my first official PM gig) in 2010, I was immersed in the Amazon n-pager culture and got pulled into a real feedback loop on my writing. There is nothing like (occasional) S-team eyeballs to make you proofread and edit. And it wasn’t just press releases and requirement…