As you can see from this blog, I like to talk (my friends will be the first to confirm this). Just as important as knowing how to talk, though, is knowing what to say and when to listen.

In this post I will give a few simple tips on how to improve your communication in various parts of your life. My goal is partly to help you to be a more effective communicator, and partly to reduce the number of people in my life who get on my nerves :P

You don't always need these tips. In casual conversations and when brainstorming, it's healthy to just say the first thing on your mind. But not all conversations are casual, and conversations can slip into seriousness faster than you expect. For those situations, you need to be intentional. Otherwise, it's easy to end up with hurt feelings on both sides, or waste the time of everyone involved.

adapt to your audience

First, think about your audience. Adapt your message to the person you’re speaking to. Someone learning Rust for the first time does not need an infodump about variance and type coercion, they need an introduction to enums, generics, and pattern matching. Similarly, if a barista asks you what the weird code on your screen is, don’t tell them you’re writing a meta-Static Site Generator in Clojure, tell them you’re building a tool to help people create websites.

If you are writing a promotion doc, a resume, or a tutorial, don't just dump a list of everything that's relevant. Think about the structure of your document: the questions your reader is likely to have, the amount of time they are likely going to spend reading, and the order they are likely to read in. You need to be legible, which means explaining concrete impacts in terms your audience understands. It's not enough to say what's true; you have to also say why it's important.

consider your purpose

Consider your intended effect. If a teacher goes on Twitter saying she doesn’t understand why maths is important and we should just give out A’s like candy (real thing that happened on my feed!), dog piling on her is not going to change her mind. Show her a case in her life where maths would be useful, and don’t talk down to her. Self-righteousness feels good in the moment, but doesn’t actually achieve anything. If you just want to gloat about how other people are stupid, go play an FPS or something; Twitter has enough negativity.

If you are writing a blog post, know why you are writing it. If you are writing to practice the skill of writing, or to have a reference document, or to share with your friends, infodumping is fine. If you are writing with a goal in mind—say you want to give a name to an idea or communicate when software can fail or enter an idea into the overton window—be intentional. Consider your audience, and the background you expect them to start from. Posting the equivalent of a wikipedia article is rarely the most effective way to instill an idea.

corollary: don't argue for argument's sake

Don’t fight losing causes, unless the cause is really worth it. Someone on hacker news saying "language A Sucks and you Should use language B instead" is not worth arguing with. Someone who says "language A is good in scenario X, but has shortcomings in scenario Y compared to language B" is much more serious and worth listening to. Arguing with someone who refuses to be convinced wastes everyone’s time.

balance conversational effort

Be a good conversational partner. Ask directed probing questions: they show you are listening to the other person and invested in the topic. Saying “I don’t understand” puts the burden on them to figure out the source of the misunderstanding. If you really aren’t sure what to ask, because you’re confused or the other person was vague, I like “say more?” as a way to leave it open ended for the other person on how to elaborate.

consider implications

Consider the implications of how you communicate. When you say things, you are not just communicating the words you speak, you are also affecting the person you're talking to.

not everyone wants to hear an infodump

If the person you're infodumping to isn't interested in the topic, infodumping anyway puts them in an awkward situation where they either have to ask you to stop or sit through a long conversation they didn't want to be in.

Another tricky scenario is when the other person is interested, but an infodump is not the right level of detail for them right now. Perhaps they are new to the topic, or perhaps they asked a direct question. If they're still trying to get the "big picture", zooming in to fine-grained details will often just confuse them further.

apologies are not the time to infodump

Info-dumping during an apology—even if it’s related to the thing you're apologizing for!—buries the apology. More than that, it implies that you expect mitigated judgement. If there is a power dynamic between you (say a wealth gap, or you are a manager and they are an employee), that expectation of mitigated judgment implies you expect to be forgiven, and an apology given in expectation of forgiveness is really just a request for absolution.

Instead, apologize directly. If you were in an altered mental state (angry, sleep-deprived, experiencing a trauma trigger), you can add at most 1-2 sentences of context asking the other person to mitigate judgement. Not all apologies need context; often "i was wrong, i'm sorry" is enough.

infodumps will not prevent all miscommunication

As we've seen above, there are times when infodumps actively hurt you. Even when they don't, though, there can be times when they aren't helping. Everyone comes to a conversation with a different background, and you cannot perfectly predict how they will respond. Rather than trying to avoid every possible miscommunication by packing the maximum amount of information—Say what you mean to say. Then, address the actual miscommunication (or regular conversation!) that happens afterwards. This saves time and energy for both conversational partners.

be legible

The common theme of all of the above is to communicate effectively and radiate intent. Making it easy for the other person to understand both what you're saying and why you're saying it incurs a lot of goodwill, and makes it possible to say more things more bluntly than you would otherwise.

A common trap I see people fall into is to say the first thing on their mind. This is fine for conversations between friends (although you should still consider how it affects your relationship!) but but is often counterproductive in other contexts. Slow down. Take your time. Say what you mean to say. If you don't mean to say anything, don't say anything at all.