My family collects coffee mugs. We have mugs from different theaters where we’ve worked and various places we’ve visited, mugs with inspirational quotes and handmade mugs from local potters. In fact, we have so many mugs that they vie for space on one crowded shelf in a kitchen cabinet. Despite our many mugs, we tend to use the same four or five all the time, and the ones in the back never see the light of day. The impulse to collect the mugs is understandable; our implementation of the collection, not so much.
Many people’s presentations are just like our crowded shelf. Instead of curating our ideas and data to serve one clear message, we try to cram it all in there. More charts! More slides! More details! Talk faster!
This approach doesn’t serve our message, or more importantly, our audience. With so much information coming at them, it’s hard to distinguish what’s important, and easy to tune you out.
It can feel a little scary to prune your presentation down to the essentials, but a cluttered, overfull presentation is just like our crowded shelf. Your best ideas and most pertinent points can be pushed to the back and overlooked, instead of featured front and center.
