Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0343: How to explain directions clearly

Episode Date: July 1, 2015

Kobi asks about how to explain directions clearly. Even when you know how to get from one place to another, how do you explain it clearly for another person? What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 343. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Kobe submitted a written question at masterofmemory.com slash question. Kobe says, When people ask me for directions, I always mess up. Sometimes I know how to get the place, but I can't explain, Kobe says, Well Kobe, the principle that I would start with is putting yourself in the shoes of the listener and thinking about how they're understanding what you're saying. Now, notice that

that's the way that I deliver my own episodes here at Master of Memory. I make the episodes quite short. I have one main point or one main principle that I present in these episodes, and I try to make the first step very easily executable so that anybody can walk away from this episode and actually start applying it quite easily. Even if there are difficult parts later on, they can start easily, and getting started is what happens first, just because, and I know that just because I know how to get into the shoes of my listeners. So you want to start by getting into the shoes of your listeners as far as the directions go and think about the way that they're understanding what you're saying.

Now, here's an example from my own life as far as giving directions goes. I've been in San Diego for the last six weeks, and without a car, you pretty much have to take a very slow bus or a nice, fast Uber. And for the last few weeks, I've just opted for Uber. Now, here's the thing. The Uber directions, the map on the Uber app, seems to have been giving them bad directions about half the time, trying to bring them back an alley behind my house instead of just bringing me to the front of the Airbnb where I've been staying. So I have to direct them a little bit for the last few houses or the last block of where we're going. Now, I always found that in trying to tell them which house I was staying in and saying, you need to stop at house number three

or whatever, it was just way too hard to try to tell them, you know, oh no, it's that house. It's the house with the trellis over there. It's the house. Now stop in front of that house, the third house. It just didn't work so well. And then eventually I just realized, look, what's this driver looking at? He's looking at the road. And here are all these cars stopped by the side of the road outside of the houses. So as soon as I started directing the driver just to which car to stop beside, the driver always knew exactly where to stop and it was no problem directing the driver. So I could just say something like, stop right after that white car right there. And there's

no confusion at all. There's nothing to worry about. It's the same thing with teaching and it's the same thing with giving directions. So using that principle, think about what's going to happen when they go out there and try to use your directions. Now first of all, you do want to make sure, of course, that they write these directions down if possible so that they can have them there instead of just trying to remember them in their heads. This is an example of where writing something down just pays off the best. But then to make your directions clear, you wanna get in their heads

and make sure that you know exactly what they're gonna be thinking at the specific point where they have to make a turn or stop somewhere or whatever action they have to take at particular moments while they're making this journey that you're trying to direct them to make. So maybe they have to turn right after a bus stop and a few blocks before a big billboard that they see. It's not going to be the billboard that

directs them, although seeing that billboard may be an indication that they are going to have to turn very soon, but what they're going to be thinking of at the moment of turning is the little bus stop. And as far as left and right go, you can remember that they're making a tight right turn rather than a wide left turn. So right and left are actually very abstract concepts. In fact, there's no way to describe right and left other than from the perspective of the things that are to the right or to the left. If you think about it, you know, up and down are easy to describe toward the sky or toward the left. If you think about it, you know, up and down are easy to describe, toward the sky or toward the ground. But right and left are so abstract that you pretty much just have to use the

environment instead. If you can remember right and left easily, and they can remember right and left easily, that's good, but this is the advantage of writing something down. If you still have trouble confusing them though, just say you'll get to a bus stop, so you'll turn right against the bus stop because the bus stop is on the right. Saying something like that makes your directions quite clear just as far as which way they're going to turn. And if you say that, for example, that they should be careful because there tends to be a crowd at that bus stop and they don't want to hit

the people standing at the bus stop because there's a big crowd, that makes it very memorable as well so that it'll help them to remember the directions and they'll know when they get to that bus stop they're going to be turning toward that crowd or to the right. I hope that helps you, Kobe. At least it gives you some tips

as far as knowing how to think about the way that other people think when you're teaching or when you're giving directions. Now, listeners have asked about how they can support Master of Memory and keep this show free for the world, particularly if you don't have a lot of time or any money to spend. So right now, I'm going to tell you that, believe it or not, right now at this moment, the number one way that you can support the show doesn't require any money of you, is very easy, and will only take a few seconds, and it requires nothing but your smartphone in your hand right now. So listen, if you've enjoyed listening to this show, and you have a smartphone right now with an internet connection, there's no excuse for you not to do this. Here's how you can give this show immense support

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