Why 95% of your presentation needs just one thought per slide

Posted by Sean D'Souza on 08 July 2011

In part 11 of his 12-part series on giving perfect presentations, Blackbelt Presentations author Sean D’Souza explains why most people get bored during presentations and how to make sure it doesn’t happen during yours.

Ever felt a bit of overload when listening to a presenter?

Have you started to doodle, look longingly at the exit sign or started checking email on your phone?

It's simply because the presenter is overloading you with information. And most of that information is in the form of text. Text is easily the most misused element on any slide. And you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve sat in a presentation where there are 17 bullet points on one slide. Worse still, some folks print a whole paragraph on a slide and then proceed to read that paragraph.

In short, most presenters treat their audience as if they were a bunch of monkeys. And the reason why this occurs so frequently is because most presenters don’t understand a simple concept.

What’s that concept?

One. One. One. One. One. One. One. One thought per slide (yes, i know i overdid the “one” but i thought it needs emphasis). So when you have the slide in front of you, what are you going to put on it? The goal is to have one thought.

95% of your presentation has just one thought

95% of your slides have just one set of words. Once you understand this concept, your presentation immediately stops being mundane. And of course, I’ll tell you why, but let me explain what happens in the rest of the 5% of the presentation.

5% of your presentation may require more than one thought

There are parts of your presentation where two or three thoughts are necessary. Let’s say you have a title slide that just sits there before you start speaking.

Hey, the audience can handle more than one thought because they have time to absorb more than one thought. Or you may have to talk about the agenda for the day. That will require more than one thought. Or you may need to give a summary. Again, more than one thought.

So why is this one thought concept so darned critical?

It’s because of how your brain functions. When faced with one thought the brain focuses on that one thought. When faced with seven thoughts it tries, and usually fails miserably.

So why would you put seven thoughts if it’s going to cause confusion anyway? Let’s say you have a presentation that covers 100 thoughts (yes, my presentations often cross the 100+ mark). If you took 10 thoughts per slide, you could do the presentation in 10 slides. But why?

Why bother with 20 slides, when you can do 100?

But aren’t 100 slides a lot? No they’re not. Because when you think about it, you’re going to cover around 100-150 thoughts in about an hour. The presentation that I make for the brain audit is a 40-minute presentation.

It has 82 slides. The presentation I make about pricing is about an hour long. It has 116 slides (and that’s counting a four-minute video). In fact most people cover a fair number of points and no matter how you look at it, a presenter will cover 80-150 thoughts in an hour.

It’s just that some presenters jam the whole darned 150 thoughts into ten slides.

And that makes you miserable

Because now your brain has to work extremely hard and focus more than ever. A presentation with lots of slides and lots of graphics actually feels a lot shorter than a presentation with fewer slides and lots of points. But of course you don’t have to believe me.

You simply watch a live presentation and you’ll be amazed at how many slides flip by without you even noticing. Trust me on this. Less isn’t more when it comes to number of slides. Fewer slides are taxing on the brain. Instead what you need is just fewer words on every slide.

And that will keep your audience focused on your presentation, instead of being focused on the exit sign.

More great advice on presentations

This is part ten of a 12-part series on writing perfect presentations by Sean D’Souza, author of the Blackbelt Presentations series. Further articles will be published in the coming weeks.

Read more about Sean D’Souza’s new Blackbelt Presentations series

Read Part 1: Simple steps to take the fear out of your presentation

Read Part 2: Why variation is the hallmark of outstanding presenters

Read Part 3: Do you quickly want to get the attention of your customers when you’re speaking?

Read Part 4: How to keep your audience coming back for more

Read Part 5: How to get your audience to remember what you said more

Read Part 6: Should you take questions at the end of your presentation?

Read Part 7: How the wrong example alienates your audience

Read Part 8: How to be a rock star presenter

Read Part 9: How to handle questions when training

Read Part 10: Why ‘Impossible-To-Goof-Up’ Questions Relax Your Audience