im old enough to have been in both the hearing too much and talking too much perspectives and this is how ive learned to handle it while receiving-   for family wife kidlets  - i raise my hand in a stop gesture and wait for them to stop  - im sorry but im feeling overwhelmed right now i want to understand what youre telling me so please give me time to digest what youre saying im with you up tothe last thing i do remember  - and then repeat back what they say to me after every sentence once ive understood it  - i put my hand up again whenever they start giving me another sentence that never ends say hold on process it and then repeat my understanding    i dont argue at this stage i believe its okay to repeat what they say even if i disagree with it or dont want to do it at the moment im just letting them be heard if they just need me to be an echo chamber for them they can get that with minimal effort from me   i find that this is respectful for both myself and the person trying to communicate with me sometimes the other person just needs to hear that you want to hear them sometimes they need to learn how to communicate better speak then wait for an acknowledgement before continuing in pretty much all cases when someone is talking to you they are after an outcome and its in both your interests that you speak up and help resolve it as efficiently as possible   if you want a real laugh maybe upon re-reading the above for flow i realized thats pretty much the tcp protocol its how many billions of devices in the world communicate with each other