A step-by-step guide to having an opinion on anything

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across so that the knowledge that might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has difficulty in laying his hands.”

— Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlett

Most people think that the more information they consume, the more qualified they are to have an opinion on a particular topic. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

That’s because many of us experience information overload. While many cartoons and memes would have us believe that’s when steam comes out of our ears, in reality, that means that we consume too much information to decide what is actually important and compare one important fact with another.

To quote the (fantastic!) book, The Great Mental Models:

“If we never learn to take something apart, test our assumptions about it, and reconstruct it, we end up bound by what other people tell us — trapped in the way things have always been done.”

As such, our opinions tend to actually belong to someone else — typically the person who has been able to shout the loudest.

In this article, we’re going to have a look at how we can change that. How we can form our own opinions on a topic — not to force them on other people, but to be able to engage in a conversation about a particular topic or to feel confident that a decision we need to make is the right one, relevant to our own specific set of circumstances.

1. “Chain-smoke” your sources

This is an idea that I got from Billy Oppenheimer, who is Ryan Holiday’s research assistant. He talks about using a book’s bibliography to find your next read on a particular subject.

I’ve taken that stage further to make a note of any books or other reference material mentioned in podcasts, web articles, or videos. If you’re interested in a particular person, then put their name into a podcast search engine and use them as your main focus rather than the shows that you normally listen to.

Consuming half a dozen bits of media on one particular subject/person is a great way to be able to expand your knowledge of key events and start forming your own opinions.

2. Start comparing the overlapping facts

Once you’ve “chain-smoked” half a dozen sources, use a note-taking tool to list overlapping facts and themes. I’ve written an article on how I take book notes which looks at this in more detail. I’m currently using Obsidian, but you can use any note-taking tool that you choose.

Apple Notes, Drafts, or Bear are good shouts if you don’t currently have a tool of choice.

You could also use a tool like Readwise to keep track of quotes, highlights, or anecdotes that particularly resonate with you.

Readwise is a great app, but it requires a paid subscription and is by no means necessary to help you make great notes. You can simply copy the quotes manually into your note-taking tool.

3. Force yourself to process what you’ve ingested

You’ve done the hard work of making the notes on what you’ve read/heard so take the time to decide what they mean to you. Do you agree with the overlapping themes that you’ve found? Why or why not?

Have your opinions on a particular topic changed at all? What made them change?

4. Start forming your opinions

Now start a new note. This is your own, personal view on an event or theme.

Use the notes you’ve previously made and the thoughts you came up with in the previous step to begin to form your own opinion. Throw details and experiences of your own life into the mix and you’re guaranteed to have a unique take on a particular topic — along with facts to back your ideas up.

5. Remain open to changing your opinions

An opinion is never really finalised — it should be something that remains fluid and open to change.

As Charlie Munger said “Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant” and the only way that you’re going to find your boundaries is by testing out your opinions in conversations with other people.

To look at this another way, the conversations you have just become another reference for you to “chain smoke” — it’s a circular process that continually refines itself.

When new ideas or information come to light, I try to make sure that I’m willing to update my opinion on something, even if it’s contrary to something that I’ve believed for a long time.

I often find that much easier to write than to put into practice, though.

If you’re able to consistently work through the above steps, you’ll be able to genuinely say that you have a well-informed.

As an added bonus, you’ll also have the beginning of a useful PKM and, for those of you producing content online, a wealth of unique content with which to build an audience.

One last thing

If you found the article above useful, then you’ll be pleased to know that you can sign up for my weekly newsletter.

The newsletter is free and focuses on the technology and writing skills that I’m using to grow my content business.

If that’s not for you at the moment, you can also catch me on Twitter/X or Mastodon