Almost all communication advice can be boiled down to “get to the point.”
True, but the reason this is hard for people is partly that they haven't formulated the point clearly in their own heads. So often "get to the point" ≈ "think better," which is nontrivial.
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Think smarter, not harder.
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I notice this in my own writing. Sometimes I start to drone on and remind myself to get to the point. And then I realize I don’t know what point I’m trying to make, so I think more, and come back once I’ve solidified the point.
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This is learning.
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Yes. "Know what your message is" comes before "get to the point."
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Are these the same questions? “Get to the point” could be phrased as “Give me your message.” Agree with Paul’s point that you don’t always know what your point is, but I think it’s still helpful advice because then you’ll know you need to think more bc you don’t have a point.
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The link between the two is higlighted in advices over centuries: "Rem tene, verba sequentur" (roughly "Once you have the point in mind, the words will follow), or inverted, "you don't understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother"
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Part of the problem is that we’ve normalized dancing around “the point.” Whether it’s obfuscating it by using lots of big words, or just taking up more space and time. We do this to signify *importance* but less is often more when it comes to getting to the point.
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I want to teach my kid how to think clearly, as rigorously as I will teach her math. It’s the most important life skill but we never train for it.
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This, or they haven't formulated the point clearly in their interlocutor's head; i.e. know one's audience. It may be difficult to gauge what one's interlocutor knows, even if one has formulated a message sufficiently for oneself.
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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
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