How You Should Self-Communicate

Be Your Best Friend

What if self-reflection could be as comfortable as instant messaging or using social media?

I understand feeling alone and experiencing unpleasant thoughts. Never-ending journal entries and two hospitalizations led me to losing friends and choosing not to reflect for several years.

After the last few years of reading on philosophy, productivity, psychology, along with writing daily, I want to help you become comfortable reflecting by using self-communication. Because without it, you will experience more scattered thinking, depend on others (or substances) as a means to escape, and risk alienating others who cannot help you themselves.

So here’s your plan to self-communicate.

(1) Use non-linear writing.

Non-linear writing doesn’t require you to write for great lengths.¹ In fact, it’s much like posting to and browsing a social media feed — but of your own thoughts.

It’s simple: jot your ideas down as they come, and immediately throw them into a single box, whether analog or digital. Then, review these each day or so and organize what you find, whether by using folders or paperclips.

Certainly, this does require your time and energy — but channel your inner narcissist. 20–30 minutes a day is all you need. And if you don’t get to the bottom, just pick up from where you left off next time.²

If this sounds familiar, non-linear writing takes from the Getting Things Done methodology by David Allen. If you can send a text and browse Facebook, you can use self-communication and be close to reaping the benefits of what David Allen calls “stress-free productivity.”

Because once you detect patterns in what you find — which, promise, you will — schedule another time to use the ideas you’ve organized to expand upon them, whether toward professions or hobbies (you might find new ones). Create, in a word. Say goodbye to writer’s block (or idea’s block), and find delight in your discoveries. I don’t like to create without first having ideas, do you?³

As Instagram is separated by the pictures you capture, the pictures you view, and the pictures you edit, so should you separate the ideas you capture, the ideas you view, and the ideas you edit.

So Allen suggests, it’s much less painful, and more effective, than doing it all at once.

(2) Annotate.

In addition to social media’s posting, viewing, and creating, there’s providing comments or “reactions.” So, with a different colored pen, annotate any additional thoughts when viewing your ideas.

You can use symbols, in addition, like question marks, exclamation points, or stars. For example, use a question mark when something you’ve written you’re unsure about; use an exclamation point when something you’ve written now seems alarming; or use a star when something you’ve written is insightful. Again, much like “reacting” to a social media post or instant message.

The best part about symbols is combining them. I’ll place an exclamation point and question mark together, for instance, signifying “woah, but maybe I have a point,” and vice versa. And if something doesn’t qualify for a symbol, I’m forced to use words — converse with myself. Kind of fun when given the opportunity.

So this is when self-communication really starts to get its name. Personally, I use blue for writing, black for annotating, and use brackets for containing annotations.

(3) Mix non-linear writing with linear.

If NLW mimics the circle of life of social media — post, view, create, repeat — it’s helpful doing something akin to posting to “Your Story,” i.e., journal writing.⁴

Check in occasionally with a traditional journal, carrying it wherever you go. Then, in the evening, annotate. And, more specifically, keep it to the prior 48 hours.

This will tremendously improve your emotional intelligence; you will be shocked at how many thoughts you felt one way are now seen entirely different, and in such a short amount of time (as you will see in NLW).

Furthermore, this is an opportunity to vent, whether it’s about what excites you or what’s bugging you. And, again, the next night, you’ll notice shifts in your perspective. And I don’t know the science, but I believe your brain does a better job in REM working out the previous day by doing this.

Always, when I do this in bed, I will read a fictional book afterward, so my thoughts and whatever concerns aren’t the last thing on my mind. I like talking to me, but occasionally, he can have a lot going on.

Conclusion

Imagine the next time you have thoughts being able to resolve or develop them further on your own, not always needing to share them or resorting to keeping them buried inside.

This simple method for self-communication will help you to become comfortable reflecting, thus resolve and develop thoughts without depending on others, feel self-reliant, and find delight in discovering your own ideas.

1. Not to be confused with non-linear storytelling. ↩

2. ↩

3. Hence I call B.S. on creativity being something you have or you don’t. See this article. ↩
4. For how you should journal, I use and recommend the Bullet Journal technique. You can learn more in Ryder Carrol’s book of the same name. ↩