Writing forces me to slow down my thinking, and simply by slowing my thoughts down, they become more clear and go deeper. I wonder if simply slowing my thinking down to writing speed (without actually doing the physical act of writing) would have the same effect.
Yes, slowing down helps a lot. You can slow yourself down by thinking an outline and then sticking to it, for example. It won't remove all of the tangents, but it's mostly sufficient for the smaller problems.
Typical example; packing for a vacation. You can pack by systematically going through phases of all your vacation days and collecting items you are going to need. If you have decent memory, you could also buffer the items that you need multiple times and collect them at once afterwards.
But it is much easier to write it all down. That way you can then fetch it a way that minimizes walked distance and be able to re-check what you bring. Sometimes it strikes you when you see it written; "swimming trunks - should I bring the diving goggles as well?".
I think that writing (making a prototype, sketching...) increases surface of the problem you are in contact with. This gives you more insight and "vectors" to attack it from.Like the gigantic list of things for that vacation makes you wonder: "do I really fit it into duffel bag or should I bring out the traveling case? After all, I might be bringing back some souvenirs...".
Brains work differently. Mine is very unique. If I slow mine down to write I get crippled and lose all thoughts. My brain functions by linking multiple thoughts together. I have one, a new one starts, then I make links between them.
I'm super creative though and cannot do technical work.
