Metacognition Writing: the best way to add value I’m aware of

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By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.

Reading time: 3 mins


Summary: A unit of work = 1. A unit of exploration + 2. A unit of synthesis (Metacognition Writing). I often find that ~90% of the value comes in the ‘Unit of synthesis’... and that this takes ~10% of the overall time. 


Analogy - How a PhD often is

  • 90% of the time ≈ exploration

  • 10% of the time ≈ synthesis (thesis writing AKA Metacognition Writing)

  • But…

    • Exploration ≈ 10% of value derived

    • Synthesis (thesis writing AKA Metacognition Writing) ≈ 90% of value derived

You have to do the 90% exploration time to be able to do the ‘thesis writing’ (synthesis). But I find that if you don’t do the thesis writing (Metacognition Writing) then you are often leaving 90% of value on the table. 


Metacognition writing (synthesis)

  • “You don’t learn from your experiences, you learn from reflecting on your experiences.” John Dewy. 

  • Reflecting on your experiences = Metacognition Writing 

  • Metacognition Writing = Explaining what you are doing

  • Outcome = What you did * How you did it

    • How you did it = Metacognition writing (yes I know the words are contradicting) 


I try to spend 10% of my week doing ‘Metacognition Writing’

  • If you work for 50 hours in a week I’d recommend doing 5 hours of Metacognition Writing. 

  • Examples of Metacognition Writing:

    • The CloudStreaks blog. The CloudStreaks blog is intended to be ways to help Edrolo operate better as a company. I do ~50 hours a week on Edrolo and 1-2 hours a week of ‘Metacognition Writing’ for CloudStreaks on ways to hopefully help myself and / or others level up. 

    • I do another 3-4 hours of ‘Metacognition Writing’ that is Edrolo internal only each week. Some examples of what this is: 

      • I write an internal only blog at Edrolo weekly on Product Metacognition (like this CloudStreaks blog but on product only). 

      • I’ll systematically write larger Metacognition pieces on any product I’m working on. For example Year 7 Humanities I’ll try and write out the top down recipe.

      • What I believe most of the company wide presentations I give to Edrolo are. 

      • Well done ‘freeform thoughts’ people do in project updates to me count as ‘Metacognition Writing’. 

  • Can you imagine doing all the exploration work for a PhD and then not writing a thesis (doing the synthesis AKA Metacognition Writing)? It would be stuid AF right? Well that is what I feel I was doing before I started to systematically do Metacognition Writing each week. 

  • Jingle: Metacognition Writing = Mega cognition up levelling! 


With the benefit of hindsight, I think I was heavily underweight the time I spent on ‘Metacognition Writing’ until ~3 years ago. In other words I was leaving a massive amount of value on the table. 

  • Let’s assume that knowledge doesn’t compound (I’m of the view that most of the time knowledge compounds). 

  • How could how much value you add be shown if you do ‘Metacognition Writing’ for 10% of your week vs don’t. 

  • You are 10x up if you do ‘Metacognition Writing’ if these calcs are fair. 

  • Honestly, it’s hard to describe how much I find that Metacognition Writing levels what I do up. It’s the single largest upgrade strategy I’m aware of. 


If you only take away one thing

  • My recommendation is that you do a unit of Metacognition Writing on the key areas you want to upgrade each week. A unit of metacognition I normally find is 0.5-2 hours. 

  • I think you likely want to have 1-3x personal things you are wanting to upgrade and 1-3x company areas you are wanting to upgrade. 

  • So you are doing 3-5x units of Metacognition Writing per week.