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Do you spend too much time gathering resources before every presentation? Do you feel frustrated trying to find the specific information you want? Here are 11 presentation tips on how to save time and increase your efficiency in creating presentations.
Create a presentation resources folder on your desktop
One of the biggest frustrations faced by business presenters is the time it takes to find relevant information for a presentation. Many times, the data and statistics they need to support their argument are available in their laptop. But they usually are buried somewhere in the 120 GB hard disk. A lot of time is wasted sifting through the titles.
You can change all that and improve your efficiency by creating a presentation resources folder on your desktop. As and when you come across any important information useful for your future presentations, make sure that you store them in the folder then and there.
What should go into your presentation resources folder?
There are two types of information you must include in your presentation resources folder. They are:
- Information related to your company and industry
- Inspirational Resources that save time and provide ideas for future presentations
Let’s discuss each of them in detail.
Company and industry information
There are usually 4 types of information that are useful to be gathered. They are:
1. Latest company updates
It is vital to have the latest information related to your company, available at a moment’s notice. When you quote this information in your presentations, you want to be sure about its correctness. If your organization is sufficiently large, you may assign someone to manage this folder on the intranet, and keep the information current. Make sure that all the press releases and company related news are included in this folder as soon as they are available.
2. Company’s branding essentials
Keep a folder, where you store all the company’s branding essentials like – standard fonts, logos, prescribed templates, color schemes etc. This ensures you don’t have to search for them in a hurry in the last minute. Your presentations will look consistent with your internal guidelines.
3. Latest industry statistics
When you quote the latest and relevant industry statistics your presentation sounds credible and well researched. You may not get the time to hunt for this information when you are fighting presentation deadlines. So, it makes sense to develop the habit of collecting the latest industry statistics in a dedicated folder on an ongoing basis.
4. Useful internal PowerPoint presentations
Countless hours are wasted by executives in creating presentations on topics that have already been created by someone else in the organization. Make sure that you gather all the relevant and important internal PowerPoint presentations in your presentation resources folder. This will ensure that you don’t reinvent the wheel every time you need to create presentations.
Inspirational Presentation Resources
There are certain resources that will save you time and increase your efficiency in presentation creation. Make sure you store these on an ongoing basis.
6. Good presentation examples to learn and inspire from
Good presentation examples can teach you more about presentation skills than the thick and theoretical books available for purchase. Take time to study these examples and understand the principles that make them effective.
7. Good videos to use in your presentations
A good video can convey more in 5 minutes than a 5 hours speech. Keep collecting relevant videos into your presentation resources folder, to support your future presentations. You may not have the time to do the required research and pick the right video, close to your presentation deadline.
Make sure that you write a small description about the video before you store it, to locate the video quickly.
8. Good activities that engage audience
Short activities are highly effective in grabbing and holding your audience attention. It takes time and creativity to come up with these activities. It is helpful to have a set of activities in your resource folder to refer to.
Whenever you see or read about a presenter using a short and creative activity to engage the audience, note the details of the activity and save it in your resources folder. You may later improvise on these activities and create our own set.
9.Good diagrams that explain a concept in a simple and effective way
A visual diagram is probably the most powerful and effective ways to communicate an idea. Save every good diagram that you come across in a sub-folder. You may draw inspiration from these diagrams to explain your own ideas visually.
10.Good analogies and metaphors
If you come across interesting and innovative analogies or metaphors in a presentation, make sure to save them. When you don’t have the time to come up with analogies of your own, you may quote these analogies with due credit to the person. This not only saves you time, but also makes your audience instantly recollect the concept, if they have heard the analogy before.
11.Good templates and backgrounds
It is a smart idea to reuse some of the good templates, backgrounds and custom animations from your previous presentations. This way, your presentations look consistent and you save time. Every elaborate presentation element you create becomes an asset for your future use.
With these 11 elements in your presentation resources folder can save you some valuable time and make your presentation creation faster and more effective. So, act now and see your efficiency soar.
This article can only provide guidelines to creating presentations. If you would like to build your presentation skills, we recommend the Presentations Skills Training Video + Slides. . The video covers a step by step process to create business presentations and has multiple examples and exercises. See the details of the self-learning program here >>
Related: Power Point Templates Sets gallery
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