Stop Rambling in Meetings — and Start Getting Your Message Across

If you excel at creativity, you may come alive in a brainstorming session and quickly generate a wealth of ideas. However, if you tend to ramble when describing those ideas, you could come across as scattered and ill prepared. Consider other ways to organize your ideas and communicate them to audiences.

Use whatever forms of communication are at your disposal to help organize your thoughts. You’ll then communicate well-thought-out concepts when you do share.

When speaking, make sure that what you’re saying is necessary and impactful. You can even think of your sentences in tweet form: How would I communicate this idea if I were tweeting and facing a character limit? How can I cut my message down to its essence?

Think of yourself as an editor eliminating words and ideas that don’t communicate the essence of what you want to share.

Are you giving your colleagues enough time to digest what you say and to ask questions? If not, give yourself a signal to pause.

By slowing down and taking deliberate pauses, you’ll be able to regulate your impulse to overshare, and your message will have a better chance of landing.

It may be hard to know in the moment if you’re oversharing. A fresh perspective can offer insight. Ask a trusted colleague or advisor to provide insights into how you’re meeting your goal of talking less and listening more.

While it’s important to share your point of view, it’s critical to know when and how. Experiment with some or all of these tactics to make sure your input is being heard.