The Rule of Writing

Use the Rule of Writing to increase your emotional intelligence.

How do you improve your emotional intelligence (EQ)?

That’s a question I get asked all the time, and the main topic of this newsletter. But if there’s a single practice I’d encourage everyone to start with it’s this:

The Rule of Writing.

How to use the Rule of Writing to increase your emotional intelligence

The Rule of Writing says that if you want to clarify your thinking, remember something important, or communicate something clearly, write it down by hand.

Doing so will help you slow down and think, which helps you internalize what you’ve written.

Additionally, write as if you were going to communicate this in a message to another person. As you read what you’ve written, try to anticipate what questions the person reading it might have. This will allow you to clarify your thinking on the matter by anticipating those questions and give you the opportunity to do further research, if needed.

All of this will improve your understanding of the topic.

At the end of your writing session, try to summarize your findings in a few sentences. Write as if you were explaining the topic to a young child; the simpler you can explain the topic, the better you understand it.

Why is the rule of writing so helpful? For one, it helps you build self-awareness, the ability to understand your thoughts and emotions. Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence—because you can’t understand others until you understand yourself, first.

But there’s another reason why the Rule of Writing is so valuable, and it has to do with the fact that it requires you to write by hand.

The pen is mightier than the keyboard

Research has long indicated that writing by hand carries significant benefits over typing with a keyboard, especially when it comes to learning, remembering, and creativity.

“We show that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard,” writes Audrey van der Meer, a brain researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and co-author of a recent study exploring the neuroscience of handwriting.

“Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, is beneficial for learning.”

For the study, 36 university students were repeatedly prompted to either write or type words as they appeared on a screen. They either wrote in cursive on a touchscreen using a digital pen or used a single finger to type on a keyboard. Researchers used a high-density electroencephalogram (EEG), a test that measures electrical activity in the brain, to determine results.

When participants wrote by hand, the researchers observed, connectivity of different brain regions increased. This did not occur when they typed.

The researchers concluded, therefore, that the process of forming letters by hand resulted in greater brain connectivity and promoted learning.

“We have shown that the differences in brain activity are related to the careful forming of the letters when writing by hand while making more use of the senses,” explained van der Meer.

So, the next time you want to better remember, learn, or understand, remind yourself:

Follow the Rule of Writing.

Doing so will help you slow down and think—enabling you to leverage more of your brain and your senses in the process.