The Under-Valued Skill of Writing
What can it do for you?

writing while working on a laptop
A recent Lifehack.org article, “How Writing Things Down Can Change Your Life,” extols the many ways writing helps us organize our thoughts, frees us for higher-level thinking, and fosters our sense of achievement. While we primarily employ writing as a tool for communicating ideas, it also has been
perceived by scientists and educators as a key method of improving critical-thinking skills.

Analysis and inference skills increased significantly in students who were studied in a quiz-based laboratory, reports the National Institutes of Health. And a 1984 report cited by the NIH suggests that writing improves thinking because it requires us to make our ideas explicit, and to evaluate and choose the right tools to effectively communicate.

Whatever your job or goals, good writing can help you focus on what is most important. I once had an intern in my public relations office who admitted he hated to write and didn’t consider it important  for his future PR success. While I conceded that he might not pursue a writing career per se, I emphasized the many ways writing well can virtually guarantee success in any workplace. Among many benefits,
excellent writing skills offer us these important tools:

Focus & Planning

Writing down tasks, activities and projects forces us to prioritize and helps us develop time-management hacks that save time while improving our accuracy and
efficiency.

Measurement

A well-written plan of any kind requires measurement tools to gauge success. Critical thinking skills paired with expressive writing create a well-organized, rational plan of
attack and measurement.

Organization

Learning to organize a well-constructed news release, feature story or communications plan requires not only good writing skills but perhaps most important, critical
thinking and analysis.

Achievement

Finally, we gain satisfaction from writing down, completing and checking off our tasks. Such progress empowers us to assess our success in making important decisions and
focuses us on future opportunities.

For more on how writing yields lifelong rewards, visit
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-writing-things-down-can-change-your-life.html