The Feynman technique
Explain it in writing to a twelve-year-old. Where you stall, you don’t understand it yet. Go back for exactly that, and try again.
For a Skill · After Richard Feynman; the four steps from around 2011 · takes half an hour per idea
How to run it
- Write the idea at the top of a blank page. One idea, not a chapter.
- Explain it, in writing, as if to a bright twelve-year-old who will ask "why?" at every step. Plain words. No jargon unless you define it as you go.
- Read it back and mark every place you stalled, waved your hands, or used a word you couldn’t define. Those marks are the list of what you don’t yet understand.
- Go back to the source for those gaps only. Not the whole chapter: the exact things you marked.
- Rewrite the explanation. Simplify, and find one analogy that a twelve-year-old would get. If the analogy breaks, note where.
- Say it out loud to someone, or to the wall. If it still doesn’t come out plain, repeat from step 3.
Where it falls down. Explaining it to yourself, who already lets you get away with the hand-waving.
With a pen
Explain it to a twelve-year-oldIn writing. Plain words. They will ask why at every step
Where I stalled or reached for jargonThe list of what I don’t understand yet
Back to the source, for these only
The simple version, with one analogyAnd where the analogy breaks