Redundancy is doing the same thing twice. Making a copy. Repeating yourself.
We like redundancy for data storage. If my data’s in two places and I accidentally delete it from one, I have the other as a backup. Whew.
We don’t like redundancy in our code. If I have two blocks of code that do the same thing, that’s extra code I need to keep track of. Yuck.
We even have a name for this idea: the DRY principle: Don’t Repeat Yourself.
(IMHO, sometimes redundancy in our code can be okay: If I have two blocks of code that do the same thing but which mean different things, particularly when I expect to them grow in different directions over time, maybe it’s not so bad to have the duplication.)
We also don’t like redundancy in our communication. As a parent of a toddler, I know very well that having to repeat oneself several times can be very frustrating.
And as a professional knowledge worker, I know very well that it isn’t just small children who sometimes need to be told something several times before it sticks. I do. You do, too. We don’t like it, but it is necessary. And we can learn to like it more when we start to understand its value.
Maybe think of it more like data storage: I want this data to be stored in this other person’s brain reliably. Telling them multiple times is a way to increase that reliability.
