How to express thoughts and ideas clearly

Did you ever struggle to express your thoughts or ideas to others? I did too. However, there are many with this problem. Expressing your thoughts and ideas is an art. Many people are good at it and many can improve.

In this article, I will share all the techniques that helped me to express my thoughts and ideas clearly.

4 ways to express your thoughts or ideas clearly

• Use simple words - The rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Try to use simple words while expressing your thoughts/ideas. Replace jargon (Words related to a specific field) words with more simple words.
• Be concise - Try to be concise. You don’t need to explain or define every single detail. Make your speech straightforward and simple. Here is an article I wrote about How to be more concise when speaking?
• Provide Data/Examples - Including data or examples in your message is a great way to back your thoughts/ideas. It gives people a reason to trust you and your information.
• Organize your thoughts/ideas beforehand - If you are going to give a presentation or a public speech then you should try to organize and clarify your thoughts/ideas. It helps you to deliver your presentation or speech more clearly.

How to clarify and organize your thoughts or ideas?

Here are some ways to clarify and organize your thoughts or ideas. These are individual technics so don’t this list as a checklist.

Reading

Many times it's the vocabulary that holds you back. You can overcome this weakness easily by reading books. Reading is a great way to increase your vocabulary.

Reading can introduce you to good sentence structure. Read at least 10 pages a day. It will teach you to structure your thoughts.

Journaling

Writing or recording your thoughts and ideas can help you to better organize them. It also helps you to identify some of your hidden thoughts and ideas. Journaling is a way to observe your thoughts and ideas.

Steps to organizing your thoughts with journaling -

1. Record or Write your thoughts or idea. Don’t hold back, say whatever comes to your mind.
2. Listen or Read what you have recorded or written.
3. Create a list of important points of your thoughts or idea after listening or reading.
4. Now, try to organize them in a logical manner.

It will give you an outline of your thoughts and ideas.

Sometimes, some of the points about our thoughts and ideas are already clear in our minds, and we just need to identify them. Journaling helps us in this situation as well.

Visualizing

In this technique, you can visualize yourself expressing your thoughts and ideas to people. Now, try to think about the questions that people can ask you about. Like clarifying a sentence or a word.

Answer that question and think about the follow-up questions and so on.

Discussing with someone

This is a good way to clarify your thoughts and ideas. You can discuss it with a family member or with a friend. Someone whom you trust and can provide you feedback.

This technique can give you practical knowledge and experience for your presentation or speech.

Conclusion

Having difficulty in expressing your thoughts and ideas is not a unique problem and can be cured with some practice and technics.

Choose simple words, make them concise, back them up with data and examples, and organize them beforehand to express your thoughts and ideas clearly.

To clarify and organize your thoughts and ideas you can use reading, journaling, visualizing, and discussing them with someone you trust. Remember this is not a checklist, you any one of these or all of them. It’s on you.