Here is the first thing you have to realise about blogs. And all writing, for that matter.

It’s about your readers.

Don’t get me wrong, you need to write from yourself — your own life, your own opinions, your own experience, whatever. After all, that’s why people come to your site or read your tweets, or whatever else. But you need to write for your readers. Whenever you write something, the first thing to have in mind is how it benefits your readers. This is because readers don’t want to do things for you: they visit your blog so that you can do something for them: Make them laugh. Make them think. Help their business. Relieve some boredom at work. So do these things for them!

I love what Maddox wrote about bloggers. (Don’t visit his site if you’re easily offended. But do if you love a good rant.) What he says is totally true — bloggers are ruining the internet. Just like all the twitter people who post crap. Stop posting crap!

What counts as adding value? Well, that’s up to you. It can be funny, thought provoking, whatever. Just write something that you honestly think will benefit your readers, and if you don’t have anything to say, then say nothing. Don’t try to put it into words!

Scars aren’t evidence of having been hurt, they’re evidence of having been healed.

This is the best blog I’ve read in a long time. Phil Pringle takes a verse or two, and annotates the revelation that he gets from it.

This is a great way to read the Bible. My Bible is covered with notes in passages that have really spoken to me. I really recommend doing it if you find the Bible hard to understand. It breaks it open so that you can begin to digest it, and it’s better than underlining, because you can never remember why you underlined it in the first place!

Anyway, Phil’s blog is over at http://philpringle.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/grace-and-work/ (it’s a link to a recent post, well worth the read!).

Memory is a basic thinking skill. It’s the ability to hold information in your head. It works in the long term and the short term. In the long term, if you can remember different ideas (over months and years) you can build on them and refine them. In the short term, if you can hold a lot of ideas in your head at once you can process more. You can see links between two different ideas where you haven’t before. Heightened mental bandwidth means stronger thinking. This is true for philosophical thinking but practical thinking as well: you will be a better problem solver if you have a better memory.

I’m going to tell you about a mental exercise that will help increase your memory. Not only does this improve your memory, but it’s also a really useful way of taking notes if you don’t have any paper to hand. It uses your brain’s natural abilities, which means you’re working with your brain and not against it.

You recall images much better and for much longer than anything else — words and numbers especially. So, to remember lists, for each number, get an image that you associate with that number. The more natural the association the better since you’ll recall it more easily. These images will become “hooks” on which you can hang the things you want to remember. My list is below. Notice how the image is logically linked to the number it represents. I’ve also made the images as emotionally striking as possible: either funny, or scary, or pleasant. The more striking it is, the better you remember.

1. The sun (there’s only one sun)
2. A pair of eyes
3. Buses (you wait for ages and then three come along at once)
4. Picnic blanket (four corners)
5. A hand (five fingers)
6. A dice (the 6 face, obviously)
7. A calender (7 days in a week)
8. Spider
9. The month of September (Visualise as going back to school)
10. Two hands

It’s best to choose your own images. The process of choosing means it’s a) customised to you and b) you have thought more about each image so you’re more likely to remember it. Concentration is the key to this method.

Use the same image for the number each time you use this method. This helps to cement things in your brain. The beauty of this method is that you can expand it as necessary for lists of more than ten, using whatever images you need for the extra numbers.

The next step is to associate the items on the list with your number images. This is done by somehow combining the two images. Again, the funnier or more emotionally striking the better. Also, you need to really concentrate as you make the image. Using your imagination, look at the detail, and focus. The concentration makes you remember it better.

Let’s take an example. If you had a shopping list of bacon, onions, eggs and apples you might remember it this way:

1. Bacon frying on the sun
2. Eyes crying because you’re chopping onions
3. Three buses full of eggs (or three giant “egg buses”)
4. A picnic where everyone has giant apples instead of heads.

To recall the list, you picture the sun — and you immediately remember the bacon. Think of eyes, and you remember onions. This method takes a bit of concentration, but you’ll find that it’s very powerful. You’ll be able to remember lists for days or even weeks.

If you use this method regularly, you will improve your memory to the extent that you don’t need to consciously visualise everything. Your brain will have learnt how to memorise things much more efficiently. When this is the case, you’ve increased your mental “bandwidth”. You’ll also have exercised your imagination, which makes life so much more fun. And you’ll be able to add things up more easily in your head. So many benefits!

This project has changed the way I read the Bible. I’ve never before taken it to pieces and thought about each verse with the same level of intent to get the meaning. I took the first five, memorised them (I have a trick for that which I’ll post about tomorrow), and then thought about them in the time since I last posted about proverbs.

Apart from the insight I’ve gained, I also feel like I’ve eaten a really good meal. Mentally. It’s the best feeling ever! I feel like I’ve been given some really good, sturdy, trustworthy advice and I feel … safer.

Reading from the first five verses of Proverbs 10:

My favourite out of the five is “Ill-gotten treasures are of no value, but righteousness delivers from death.” What caught my attention was “treasures” and “no value”. Treasures are valuable, that’s why we call them treasures. But this proverb says that how you get the treasures determines how valuable they are.

The second half of the proverb interested me too. Normally, proverbs are split into two parts which have a kind of symmetry. For example, verse 1 says that a wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish one grief to his mother. (Pretty obvious: behave well and your parents are happy. Act like a moron, and they’ll worry about you). There’s a symmetry between father/mother and joy/grief — a pairing of opposites.

In this proverb, however, the two parts don’t seem connected, even though they’re joined by “but.” You’d expect it to say, “ill-gotten treasures are of no value, but righteousness is more valuable than pearls” or something. I don’t know why it’s been structured this way, but it made me think about it more than the other proverbs, so perhaps that’s why — to draw attention.

What this proverb is saying is don’t pursue something you want in a wrong way, and that righteousness protects. Righteousness is an old fashioned word. It means doing the right thing. Being good. Not cheating, but being honest. It’s a really broad word, it covers all areas of human existence: relationships, employment, business transactions, sexuality, you name it. (We’ll find a lot more about righteousness as we read on).

Let’s say someone starts a business, and in order to make it grow, exploits their employees. Doesn’t pay them right. Doesn’t look after health and safety. Whatever else. Maybe that business is very lucrative, but what they’ve actually created is “of no value.” Value here isn’t just a monetary thing, but a moral thing. The organisation is built on injustice.

This example raises the question: which has the greater value, money, or the people who work for you?

Treat your employees right, on the other hand, and they’re more likely to work better, instead of quit, and people are more likely to want to work at that company: an example of how righteousness protects.

I also liked the third one. It says that God will look after people who act righteously. It’s not a principle, as in some formula or observation about life. It’s a promise. For this one to work you’ve got to trust God, which isn’t an easy thing to do! How do you trust an invisible being that may or may not be there? (Let’s be honest: faith isn’t the easiest thing at times, is it?!).

I like it because it’s not just a principle you can apply to life, like “work hard” or “do the right thing”. It’s talking about a personal relationship, which is the basis of Christianity (and Judaism, apparently, since our Bible is three quarters Jewish, let’s not forget).

To scoot over the other two: laziness makes you poor, but diligence makes you wealthy. That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it. “Get rich quick” schemes don’t work. Winning the lottery is often the worst thing to happen to someone who doesn’t know how to handle money. This proverb says that you make money through taking care of it properly and responsibly. No shortcuts!

The last one: if you don’t help out your family when you can, you’re a disgrace. Wow. Check that out for blunt!

At the end of this first foray into scripture, I feel built up, more mature, and better able to deal with life. The inside of my head feels cleaner, too. I have got a surprising amount out of just five sentences. I’m looking forward to the next five.

I want to make money online. I love the idea that you don’t have to do anything to make money. Who spotted the deliberate over-simplification? Yes, you have to put the work in, maintain things, watch out for trends, check your statistics and all that, but it sure beats minimum wage. I think of all the time I’ve spent learning how to make websites instead of, I don’t know, going outside and getting a sun tan — well now it’s time for those lessons to make me money.

Naturally, I have been thinking and reading about this, and I’ve learnt something. The biggest roadblock to making money online is in your mind. Maybe we could call it the learning curve. If you google around for making money online, you’re sure to come up with a bunch of sites that promise thousands of pounds for doing nothing. Make £££s from home! Or some other horrible contortion of typography.

These are aimed at people who think that making money is magic. They will find that they make £2 a day, maybe. But there is no magic. It’s simple. Here’s the deal: learn how to do it. Then do it. It’s a simple learning of a skill.

I think of all the things I got my head around at school that I thought were impenetrable, but that now seem easy. Ionic bonding. Simultaneous equations. Trigonometry. OK, so I lied about simultaneous equations. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I came across it today, but the point is at one stage I got it. It just took a little effort.

This is where most people go wrong. They think it takes a lot of effort, and will forever. Working for a living takes a lot of effort. I work in a cafe, and while I love it, I have realised something. The cafe won’t run itself. I clean a table, and someone comes and sits on it! I can’t just set it up and leave it — I have to keep cleaning, keep making coffee.

This takes energy, and it would be better to direct that energy into something that maintains itself, because energy is costly! So I’m directing energy into learning how to make money online. It’s a strange new world, but it’s exciting. A little effort now means a system, some time in the future, that generates money for me.

I am a thinker. You may or may not have noticed. And I’ve been thinking about being a thinker and I think there are five things that you need — if you’re a thinker.

Output

Instead of just thinking, do something with your thoughts. Don’t just let them rattle around your head. Write them down. Keep a blog. Outputting your thoughts helps refine them and develop them. If you can articulate them, you can understand them better.

Discussion

Other people are a really great input for new ideas and points of view. Other people see things differently, and you can expand the way you think. Learning new things is the whole reason for thinking in the first place!

Exposing your ideas to other people helps cut away what’s rubbish, and it gives you a more objective view of your own thinking. There’s a real danger of becoming pretentious and getting lost in your own head. Discussion keeps your mind open.

Non-thinker friends!

Non-thinkers are almost the best type of different viewpoint! Don’t be annoyed by people who don’t think about stuff as much as you do: you can learn loads from them. Don’t be tempted to see them as shallow, either. Sometimes being “deep” leads you to being depressed and self-absorbed, and the best remedy for that is fun. Keep in mind that thinking is a “side-project” for life. If you live entirely out of your head, you’re not living life to the full.

Thinking time

I find that thinking recharges me. It’s one of my strengths, and I want to develop it (another reason for the first three things on this list). But thinking time is really important for everything. If you run a business, have a family, want to improve your career, whatever.

Plan it. Do it deliberately.

Know yourself

Learn how best to release your own thinking power. When do you think best, day time or evening? In busyness or quiet?

For me, it’s what I’m doing that affects how I think the most. If I’m doing nothing, I can’t think. I feel claustrophobic and stale. My thoughts just idle and go nowhere — unless I can write copious amounts. I need a sense of movement. Unsurprisingly then, I find a connection between my feet and my brain. If I’m walking, my thoughts flow freely and naturally.

If I’m walking and suddenly stop, it’s like hitting a wall: my thoughts scatter. If I change direction, or go a different way to my usual route, I find my thoughts change direction too. Funny, but that’s how my mind works!

So those are my top tips on thinking. Hope they help :)