Atwood describes the technique for programmers, but it’s an almost universally applicable technique.

I think every blogger (or anyone else who has written for their own pleasure rather than to perform some task) has fired up the editor to write something (usually posed as a question in some way) only to discover that describing the problems often leads to a discovery of the solution.

I know I do this all the time at work. I work remotely, so I usually Skype chat with my boss, and I constantly find myself describing potential problems/questions with what I’m about to implement, only to have the solution pop up to me before I need to hit ‘send’.