How to explain your ideas clearly

You understand the thing completely. You start explaining and watch the other person's attention drift, and the more you add the worse it gets.

Almost always this is a structure problem rather than a language problem.

What is actually happening

You know the idea as a whole, all at once. The listener receives it one sentence at a time, in an order you are choosing live — and the order you naturally choose is the order you discovered it in, which is not the order it is best understood in.

So the background arrives before anybody knows why it matters, and by the time the point lands they have stopped following.

Why it happens

Fear of being misunderstood produces caveats, and caveats before the point are what kill it.
The context feels essential to you because you remember needing it.
Nobody asks "what is the one sentence?" before starting, and without that the explanation has no destination.

What it looks like

Explaining why a deadline needs to move.

You start with what happened three weeks ago.
You explain a dependency nobody was aware of.
You mention two other things that also went wrong.
Somebody interrupts to ask what you are asking for.
You say it in eight words and everybody understands immediately.

What to do instead

1. Say the conclusion first

"I think we should move the deadline by a week." Then the reasoning. People can follow an argument when they know what it is for, and cannot when they do not.

2. One sentence, then stop

Let them ask. The questions tell you exactly which background is needed — which is almost never the background you would have given.

3. Cut the history

How you arrived at the idea is rarely the best route into it. That story is for you, not them.

4. Use one concrete example

An abstract explanation with a specific example beats two abstract explanations every time. Pick the smallest real case.

5. Ask what is unclear

"Which part isn't landing?" is faster and less irritating than explaining a second time from the beginning.

Try this

Before your next explanation, write the point in one sentence.
Say that sentence first.
Then say nothing until asked something.
Answer only the question asked.
Notice how much of your prepared explanation you never needed.

What it sounds like

Building up to it

You: So back in March we set the schedule before we knew about the API change, and then the vendor pushed their release, which meant the integration work we'd planned for the second sprint had to wait, and meanwhile —

Them: Sorry, what are you asking for?

Everything said was true and relevant. None of it could be used, because nobody knew what it was in service of.

Point first

You: I think we need another week on the integration.

Them: What changed?

You: The vendor moved their release. The work we'd planned for sprint two can't start until it lands.

Them: Fine. Does that affect anything downstream?

Same information, reordered. The third line is the only background that turned out to be needed, and the question found it.

Why this is hard to actually do

Leading with the conclusion feels abrupt and slightly rude. It is neither, but it takes a few times to believe that.

You lose the chance to justify yourself before anybody objects, which is the real reason people build up to it.

Stopping after one sentence requires tolerating a pause, which is the same skill as everything else on this site.

What it costs to leave it

Good ideas get passed over for worse ones that were easier to follow.
You get interrupted a lot, which is usually read as rudeness rather than as a signal.
In writing it is worse, because there is no one to interrupt and people simply stop reading.

Practise it

Reading about conversations is not the same as having one. Splivex puts you on video with somebody who disagrees with you, for twenty minutes, about one question. There is no score and no winner — the only question afterwards is whether either of you changed your mind.

Practise on Splivex →