How do I write documentation people can actually follow?

Writing documentation that no one can follow is discouraging, especially when you know you should be doing it. But this is a learnable skill, not a talent you were born without. The reason it comes out tangled is usually that you are writing from inside your own head, where everything is already obvious. Good documentation is written for the person who knows nothing yet. That means starting from what they need to do, in the order they will do it, in plain words. You are not explaining how clever the system is; you are guiding a stranger step by step. Try this: write your next doc as instructions to a new person, one step per line, then have someone actually follow it and watch where they get stuck. Their confusion shows you exactly what to fix. Clear writing is just rewriting until a stranger can follow it.