The best way to explain something is to present it in the simplest way possible. Usually, when someone wants an explanation, they want to understand. But this doesn’t mean they want ALL the details. Generally, they just want to understand the big picture. The idea/concept. If they do want more details, they’ll ask and you can get into the more complex stuff.
Starting with simplification vs an in-depth explanation will save you and the other person time and energy. They get the understanding they wanted, and you don’t have to spend half an hour talking about all the specific details that went into it that the other person doesn’t really care about. Details are great. But explanations generally don’t need them.
For example, if you asked me what I do for work I would say “I’m an android developer”. If you say what’s that, I’ll explain “I create the apps on the phone”. Super simple right? I could say “I code this feature and that feature for this project and that in this specific app and I also problem solve x, y, and z.” But you probably would’ve started to tune out after the first few sentences and be wishing you hadn’t asked by the last few. If you are interested, you could ask another question for more details, and I’d provide them then.
We usually don’t care to learn all the details about most things. When we ask for an explanation, we just want the overview, the quick notes version to get a good understanding of what’s going on. We don’t usually care about exactly how everything is working and what’s powering it and why. We just want enough information to understand the idea, the concept.
If your default mode is to explain every tiny detail, you will probably see people asking you less and less questions. Save yourself the time and energy of explaining everything to someone who doesn’t care and will just forget about it as soon as you’re done talking.
Start with the simplification. You’ll save everyone time and energy. You also might find your understanding improving as well. If you can’t explain something simply, you can’t explain it at all.
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