Reflection is fuzzier than the other practices. It’s something I didn’t realize I needed until I was already doing it.

Find a comfortable spot. Your favorite chair, a quiet cafe, outside with a cup of tea. Somewhere you can settle in and read without rushing.

Start by writing on today’s page: “Reflecting.” Just a note that this is what you’re doing.

Then work backwards through recent pages. Look at yesterday, the day before, the week before. The most recent pages often have thoughts you started but didn’t finish, questions you wrote down and forgot about, patterns you didn’t notice day-to-day.

What you’ll notice:

How much you’ve accomplished. You can actually see it. The progress is visible in a way it rarely is when everything stays in your head.

What you’re stuck on. Things you keep writing about but not resolving. Problems that keep coming up.

Patterns in your thinking. The kinds of ideas you’re having. Topics that keep pulling your attention.

Ideas waiting to be connected. Sometimes you’ll see three separate entries that are actually related, and a new idea emerges.

Most people don’t have a record of their actual thinking. The notebook gives you something rare: evidence of what you’ve actually been working through.

Reflection is how you learn from that evidence.

ɕ

This is part of a series about Hand-Write. Think Better.—a method for people who feel overwhelmed to start simply writing more on paper. Get the book →