A clear explanation respects the listener’s attention.

GRATITUDE

WHAT THIS MEANS

Attention is finite and borrowed. When you make someone work through a confusing explanation, you are spending their limited capacity on your unfinished thinking, and most people are too polite to say so. Clarity is a form of consideration rather than a stylistic preference. It says you did the work before asking for their time.

Before explaining something, decide what the person needs in order to act. Say that first, then the detail if they want it. Ordering it that way respects them more than completeness does.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Who would thank you for saying it in half the words?

MORE IN COMMUNICATION & LANGUAGE

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.