Your Presentations Should Be Simple – Not Simplistic

Jason Fried is quoted as saying, It’s simple until you make it complicated.

This quote has become one of my favorite personal mantras, especially since I have a knack for overcomplicating simple tasks in an effort to go above and beyond, or as a result of foolishly aiming for perfection in all things I do. If you also frequently find yourself spending more time than you would prefer on projects, you might also be guilty of overcomplicating your life. If you find that this tendency impacts the production of your professional presentations, you should aim to keep your presentations simple as a method for maintaining your own sanity, as well as a method for keeping your audience engaged.

Complicated visuals, charts, and word selections can be appropriate some of the time, however, most people would prefer to learn from presentations that require minimal time to view, and minimal effort to understand. In essence, they want presentations that keep it simple.

If you can simplify your presentation content and design so that only the important elements are featured, and the excess material has been removed, you will be on the right track to presentation success.

In honor of simplicity, review the presentation slides below, and also check out the additional resources at the bottom for advice on how to create presentations that are simple, but not simplistic.

presentation design Slide07 Slide08 Slide09 Slide10 Slide11 Slide12 Slide13 Slide14 Slide15

Conclusion: Remember to create presentations that require minimal effort from your audience. Simplify your message so that it is easy to understand, and therefore also simple repeat to other people. The more simple your message, the more likely it is to spread beyond your sphere of influence. Also, simplify your presentations so that you don’t get bogged down every time you need to produce a presentation. In summary – simplify your presentations for your audience, as well as for yourself! You will thank me later.

Additional Resources:

The Shocking Secret To Awesome Presentations

Minimize The Extraneous Load of Your Presentations

How-To Conquer Short Attention Spans

The Science of Memorable Presentations





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