Thoughts stay dim and fuzzy until you say them out loud. Your partner calls it "thinking out loud too much." Your brain calls it thinking.
Nearly a third of people need to speak to organize their thoughts. It's not a quirk. It's a cognitive style.
For verbal processors, unspoken thoughts feel incomplete. Speaking them literally makes them clearer.
For verbal processors, writing adds a translation step. By the time you type it, the thought has evolved or vanished.
Speaking: 150 words per minute. Typing: 40 words per minute. Voice keeps up with your brain.
Jamie is 28, a marketing manager who's always been told she "thinks out loud too much." Her partner gently suggests she "have her thoughts together before speaking." Her old boss called it "processing in public." She's internalized the shame.
She's tried written journaling. Multiple times. But it feels like pushing thoughts through molasses. By the time she writes one sentence, three more ideas have appeared and two have disappeared. The blank page mocks her. Her thoughts don't come in complete sentences. They come in fragments, tangents, half-formed connections.
She thought she was bad at introspection. Turns out, she was just using the wrong tool.
"Okay so this feels weird but I'm just gonna talk. I've been thinking about the campaign launch and also why I said that thing to Marcus in the meeting and also whether I should apply for the director role and wait, let me come back to the campaign thing because I just realized the problem isn't the timeline it's that we don't actually know who we're targeting... okay this is weird, I'm just talking and no one is interrupting me."
"Something weird is happening. I just talked for six minutes straight and when I read the summary it's... coherent? Like, my thoughts made sense? In my head they felt like chaos but apparently I was building to something. The AI found a thread I didn't even know was there."
"I think I finally understand why writing never worked. My thoughts move at the speed of talking. When I write, I lose half of them. When I talk, I can actually follow the thread. It's like... my brain has been waiting for permission to work the way it naturally works."
I've noticed something interesting about your entries:
The mess isn't the problem. The mess is how you process. The tangents aren't distractions. They're connections your brain is making.
Wait, so the rambling is actually... productive?
For you, yes. Your brain doesn't think in bullet points. It thinks in webs. When you ramble, you're not being disorganized. You're letting yourself follow the connections. That's how you reach insights.
The organized entries feel safer but they're actually you filtering yourself. The messy ones are you thinking.
I've spent years apologizing for being like this.
30-40% of people are external processors. You need to speak to organize thoughts. That's not a bug, it's how your brain is wired.
You've been using tools designed for internal processors and blaming yourself when they didn't work.
"Had a meeting today where I started thinking out loud and caught myself apologizing. Stopped mid-sentence. Didn't apologize. Just kept going. And you know what? The idea I was forming was actually good. I needed to hear it come out to know that."
"I've spent my whole career feeling like I was doing thinking wrong. Turns out I was just in environments that only valued one kind of thinking."
You've recorded 18 entries. Your average entry is 4 minutes of speaking. In written journaling, you told me you lasted 3 days before quitting. The tool finally matches the user.
"I told my partner about the 30-40% thing. That it's not a personality flaw. That my brain literally processes by externalizing. And they said 'that explains so much.' We're now doing this thing where I can just... talk at them for five minutes and they don't have to respond. Just listen. And then I figure it out. They said it's actually easier for them too because they're not trying to solve my problems anymore. I was never asking them to solve it. I just needed to hear myself think."
External processing isn't "too much." It's literally how her brain works. The tool finally matches the user.
Her rambling entries produced the best insights. The tangents were connections, not distractions.
30-40% of people are external processors. It's not a flaw to fix. It's a style to work with.
18 entries in 3 weeks. Previous written journals lasted 3 days. Voice matches how her brain actually works.
Jamie still thinks out loud. But now she has a place to do it that doesn't tire anyone out, doesn't judge her for rambling, and actually helps her find the thread. She stopped apologizing for needing to speak to think. It's not a weakness. It's her superpower, she just needed the right tool to use it.
If written journaling never worked, if your best ideas come when you're talking, if your thoughts stay fuzzy until you say them, maybe the problem isn't you. Maybe you've just been using tools designed for a different kind of brain. Try one that matches yours.