“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” -Dr. Seuss

Reading and writing are fascinating. I believe they are the most important skills you can learn in school. Writing is generally about communicating ideas and stories that transport the audience to a place from which they leave transformed. Less obvious, though, is that writing is also about the writer’s personal transformation. Writing is like a liaison between our inner world and the outer world.

With writing, we express and refine—with reading, we learn and interact. Reading can be about personal development, entertainment, relaxation, motivation, and more. Together, reading and writing are powerful tools that shape our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Let’s explore these 9 reading and writing principles you can apply to your life:

1. Cultivate a Love for Reading.

The foundation of all reading principles is perhaps the most obvious yet underrated: a love for reading. Read whatever you like, but make sure it cultivates your love for reading. The fastest way to dislike reading is by pushing yourself to read what doesn’t interest you. Put the book down if it’s not delivering—just don’t give up on reading itself. If you find ways to enjoy reading, you’ll naturally make a habit out of it. Once you appreciate reading, you open yourself up to all the other reading and writing principles.

2. Always read for Understanding.

Why is reading to understand so important? While you could read for entertainment, information, or comfort, reading to understand is at the core of our personal development. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a great book is worth a thousand pictures. If great books are the culmination of years of work, experience, and lifetimes of wisdom, just imagine the power you have if you decide to read and understand.

Reading to understand implies depth. In reading as in life, true understanding comes not only from expanding our knowledge, but also from seeking ideas that challenge our perspectives. Read about things that are contrarian to your beliefs and biases. Be curious and seek opposing information—that’s where true learning resides. However difficult, understanding opposing views increases the quality of your thoughts and, thus, the depth of your understanding of any subject matter.

3. Aim to read slowly.

I find ads for online speed reading courses ridiculous. Why would anyone want to learn how to read fast? Other than skimming through annoying data, it’s harmful. Reading should be about enjoying it and the possibility of losing yourself in the learning. Read slowly so that you can pick up the nuances among the ideas, take notes, highlight, understand the connections between the ideas and your life, and reflect on how you may be able to implement them. Reading slowly is a luxury we must embrace.

In life, we always seem to be rushing—trading quantity for quality. We think more is better, but that strips us away from the moment. However, when we slow down, we can focus, enjoy, and digest. Slow and steady wins the race. Life is about the journey, and so is reading.

4. Embrace rereading.

Another reading principle for life is the art of rereading. Reading shouldn’t always be a linear progression. Great books should be reread. Rereading allows us to notice specific details and subtleties we missed the first time. A second or third read reveals new intricacies, motives, and themes. Our understanding of great books changes over time: reading a book at 20 won’t teach you the same things as reading it at 40 or 60+. As we age, our context, perspectives, and needs change, allowing us to interpret and extract meaning from great books differently with each rereading.

In life, rereading takes the form of commitment. When we commit, we are essentially rereading. Rereading happens as a result of believing that there are new insights to be discovered and understood. Isn’t that the case in life? Anything worthwhile in life requires our commitment to prevent us from moving on to the next flashy and fleeting thing.

5. Seek the unread and unwritten.

Books we own that we haven’t yet read, they sit around, reminding us learning is a lifelong journey. Unread books symbolize potential knowledge—the mysteries that we have yet to discover. Similarly, allowing our thoughts and ideas to mingle in our minds before writing them down can generate a creative tension that eventually crystallizes into more compelling writing. Paradoxically, books we haven’t yet read and ideas we haven’t yet written down play a fundamental role in our thinking process.

In life, we can apply this principle by allowing our ideas to develop over time. Consider how coffee needs time to brew, how wort must ferment to become beer, and how barrel-aging transforms spirits into something special. Likewise, our ideas can benefit from a period of mental-aging before they’re ready to be read, written, or expressed.

6. Strive to write for clarity.

Once the ideas are roughly written, the magic of writing starts. The ideas have mingled, grown in curiosity, and now the process to clarify them and seek solutions begins. Writing is one of the best tools we have to clarify our thoughts. As we write, we can see our thoughts and ideas become real. And at this point, we can clarify whatever doesn’t make sense. We can refine our thoughts and, most importantly, better understand what we’re looking for.

In Adam Grant’s Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, he says: “…writing is more than a vehicle for communicating—it’s a tool for learning. Writing exposes gaps in your knowledge and logic. It pushes you to articulate assumptions and consider counterarguments. Unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking.” That’s how I write the Insightful Bean’s articles. As I think about the things that bother me or the ideas I’m not too clear about, it’s the iterative process of writing that helps me make sense of it all. It also helps me discover new and unconsidered perspectives. The process brings me joy, I learn, and I’m able to share it with you. I don’t begin insightful—I finish insightful.

7. Keep rewriting.

One of my favorite principles of reading and writing is the ability to rewrite. We can proofread and edit our writing endlessly, which means we can refine and improve our ideas until we’re happy with them. Over time, you’ll find that the nature of ideas and knowledge is ever-changing. Once you think you really know something, you are able to see farther, and thus your knowledge changes.

The more we know, the farther we see, and with new information, we should change our decisions. Therefore, we can rewrite and improve our thought process. I have gone back to edit many of the I.B. articles as my thinking evolves the more that I write. Writing and thinking have a special iterative relationship: The more we write, the better we think—and the better we think, the better our writing.

8. Consider writing with purpose.

Writing with purpose is about making a meaningful contribution. Reading and writing are fascinating tools that can help us enjoy, refine, understand, and deepen the quality of our thinking. But devoid of a positive impact, writing feels empty.

I’ve always liked to write. In high school, I enjoyed writing the typical book reports and essays. However, the only person to ever read what I wrote was the teacher. Was I really contributing anything to the teacher? No matter how small or unrefined an idea, it should find its way to an audience. Then, like anything in life, improvement can follow.

9. Focus on structured and principled writing.

The last reading and writing principle is about writing within structure. Just as cells have membranes, cities have boundaries, and systems have defined limits, writing should also follow certain principles and structures. Writing is no different. When we write, we should keep these elements in mind: clarifying our purpose, being concise, having credibility, being ethical, adhering to structure, proofreading the work, etc.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t get messy. In life, as in writing, we can be all over the place, be a work in progress, have many rough drafts, jot down ideas, and write, read, rewrite, and reread, but always with the end goal of creating something of substance. Fundamentally, it’s in this process that we become a little less ignorant and a little more insightful.