Cut through the Curse of Knowledge
You know a whole lot more than you think you know.
To have a job like yours, you need specialist knowledge that other people don't have. Could your brother or your best friend do your job with no training? Probably not.
Think about it...
You spent half a decade at university to get qualified. Now you have years of hard-won work experience under your belt.
Your happy place might be spreadsheets or maps or medicines or legislation.
You experience a documented cognitive bias
It's called the Curse of Knowledge. You forget that other people don’t know what you know.
Plus, you respect your colleagues and clients
You don’t want to patronise them by ‘dumbing down’ your information.
So you write as if you're speaking to a peer. You use the most accurate language you can, which, it turns out, is full of acronyms and rare terms.
The best outcome is that your readers will be impressed but have trouble following your exact meaning. The worst outcome is that they will feel distanced and frustrated.
Neither outcome does great things for your reputation.
But there's an easy fix
Show your writing to someone who does a different job in a different team. Ask the person to highlight words and acronyms they don’t understand.
This helps the Curse of Knowledge scales to fall from your eyes. You'll see how much you know that other people don't.
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