Communicating

“The simplest way to clarify your thinking is to write a full page about whatever you are dealing with and then delete everything except the 1-2 sentences that explain it best.”

“How to clarify a concept you can’t articulate:

1. Change mediums. Draw it. Photograph it. Sing it.

2. Change levels. Explain what is one level up (bigger picture) or one level down (finer details).

3. Change fields. What would this concept look like in different fields?”

When you truly understand something, you can express it at any level of detail while maintaining coherence.

The master can provide the one-sentence version, the paragraph version, and the chapter version, all of which tell the same story at different resolutions. The novice can only repeat what they’ve memorized at one resolution.

First identified by Randy Steve Waldman [Wal12], the term refers to something people treat as though it works, generally for social or institutional reasons, even when there’s little evidence that it works—­and sometimes despite substantial evidence that it does not.

“Communication is about what is received, not what is intended. If there is a gap between what you are saying and what they are hearing, you have to find a new way to say it.”

“Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Of course, you can learn a lot about something without writing about it. However, writing about something complicated and hard to pin down acts as a test to see how well you understand it. When we approach our work as a stranger, we often discover... See more