Richard Feynman, a 1965 Nobel Prize winning physicist for quantum electrodynamics, challenged his students to understand concepts by explaining the concept in simple language as if you were teaching it to a new student.
Step One: Choose the Concept You Want to Understand
Write it on the top of a sheet of paper.
Step Two: Pretend You Are Teaching the Concept to a Child
Write an explanation of the concept on the paper as though you were teaching a child.
Step Three: Stuck? Go Back to the Source Material
Re-read or re-learn the material until you can complete step two.
Step Four: Simplify & Create Analogies
If your explanation is wordy or confusing, simplify the language. Create an analogy to help understand the concept.