I’ve been giving many talks and writing a lot here on GitHub during the last few years and have come to realise many good effects that this practice had.
- I structure and formulate my thoughts better
- Discussions time is saved
- Thoughts’ evolution is public
- My company PR is improved
- Self-education discipline is improved
Writing articles and giving talks seems to be the best way to train how I formulate postulates and arguments.
The process improves logical and rational thinking, and in a high challenge / low threat environment improves cognitive and analytical skills.
Mary Myatt’s book describes the high challenge / low threat model. The concept is simple: learning is more effective when your curiosity is provoked and challenged, and topics you’re learning and complicated.
I post articles on GitHub for myself and the community, so there’s no threat to my curiosity.
Also, as I’m aware that people will see my articles, I’m ashamed to write low-quality content, where ‘low quality’ I define as ‘not reasonable/rational enough’.
A good feedback loop emerges naturally — the more ‘I didn’t get your point’ comments I receive, the more I wish to reformulate the arguments or support them better with scientific proofs.
I used to spend lots of time arguing over pretty much the same topics again and again in chats.
It’s pretty hard for me to see someone wrong and resist jumping in and spending time explaining why the thesis is false.
I often regretted that the discussion wasn’t fruitful even though I wanted to help.
I consider this regret (or the urge to jump in) as my internal conflict.
But now it seems I have successfully resolved the conflict in the following manner:
- if I see some discussion that I genuinely want to participate in, I write down the topic and the arguments that people have
- whenever I have time, I sit and formulate my point of view and my arguments here in the GitHub article
- I then come and ‘bump’ the discussion with a piece I have prepared
- I gather counter-arguments and revisit my article to address them
Git is a great instrument to show the thoughts process evolution in time. Revising how your thought process evolves is an essential part of self-reflection.
Many times re-reading my articles, I noticed that I could formulate things differently, easier to understand.
Another benefit of making the thought process public is that the articles are of more value for the hiring managers than any CV.
The more articles I write, the better I’m perceived as a specialist (well, of course, if I write something of value).
The better I’m perceived as a specialist, the better my company is perceived on the market.
I didn’t even think how great writing articles and giving talks would motivate me to learn more and share more with the community.
Every GitHub star and feedback after a talk charge me more and more to do more for the community.
I also figured out that writing works most effectively when I draft my thoughts’ structure on one day, then spend a day or two thinking about them, and only then expanding the ideas. This method allows me to develop thoughts better.