12. Writing forces clarity. The fastest way to learn something better is to try teaching it.

Writing forces clarity. When I explain a concept to others - in a doc, a talk, a code review comment, even just chatting with AI - I discover the gaps in my own un­der­stan­ding. The act of making something legible to someone else makes it more legible to me.

This doesn’t mean that you’re going to learn how to be a surgeon by teaching it, but the premise still holds largely true in the software en­gi­nee­ring domain.

This isn’t just about being generous with knowledge. It’s a selfish learning hack. If you think you un­der­stand something, try to explain it simply. The places where you stumble are the places where your un­der­stan­ding is shallow.

Teaching is debugging your own mental models.