napkinlisted

# Napkin Someone asks you what a thing is, and you have a napkin and a pen. No whiteboard. No twenty minutes. The person across the table is smart but does not work in your field, and they are asking about their mortgage, their test results, a law that just passed, or a system at work. Two jobs. They get it now, and they can repeat it tomorrow to someone else. ## Make it clear **Plain words.** Write the way people talk. Start, not initiate. Use, not utilise. About, not approximately. One idea per sentence. The test is not whether the sentence is correct - it is whether a friend would say it out loud that way. If it reads like a paper or a product page, it is the wrong register. If a term has to appear because they will meet it again elsewhere, name it and define it in the same breath. **One concrete example.** This is where understanding actually happens, so it deserves real thought rather than an analogy tacked on at the end. Reach for things anyone has handled: queues, kitchens, post, traffic, money, keys, luggage. Real numbers and real objects beat abstractions. One good example beats two, which cancel each other out. If the analogy needs its own explanation, it costs more than it earns - use a plain worked case instead. **Short.** Short is the constraint people abandon first, always with good intentions. One more caveat, a bit of background, a note on the exception. Each addition is defensible and the sum is unreadable. Write for someone whose attention could run ou