One of the biggest mistakes presenters make is trying to say too much about their topic at one time. And we get it. If you’re presenting a topic, then chances are you know a lot about it and have quite a bit you want to share with the audience. But if you want your presentation to be effective and engaging, you need to resist the urge to share everything and edit your content down to only the need-to-know basics.
That said, every presenter knows that editing content down is no easy feat. Especially when you’re passionate about a topic. Fortunately, there’s a super simple tool you can use to make your preparations a whole lot easier and your presentations a whole lot better. Enter: mind mapping.
Mind mapping elevates presentations in a few key ways.
Organization
One of the most valuable benefits mind mapping offers to presentation prep is information organization. The hardest part of delivering a killer presentation is figuring out exactly what needs to be said and the order the information should be delivered for optimal effect. Mind mapping allows you to literally map out your content so that you can find order and clarity in it with ease.
Memorization
A 2002 study found mind mapping to improve long-term retention of information by 10%. That means that if you create a mind map for your presentation, you’ll have a stronger command over the content you’re sharing which will, in turn, give you a more commanding presence when you share it. It also means that you can spend less time memorizing and more time focusing on an effective delivery.
Creativity
There’s something about stepping away from the computer and taking real-life pen to real-life paper that really stimulates creativity. Combine that with the fact that a mind map’s spatial layout makes it so much easier to view your content as a whole and make new connections, and it becomes crystal clear why mind mapping is a creativity game-changer.
Problem-Solving
A mind map’s ability to show you a birds-eye-view of your content allows you to see connections, relationships, and associations among your data that would otherwise be hard to discover. This fresh perspective means you’ll likely be privy to more problems and challenges around your topic as well as their potential solutions.
Updating
Seasoned presenters well know that new information always makes its way into any given topic, which can significantly complicate the presentation prep process if you thought you were finished. A mind map makes additional information incredibly easy to integrate without obstructing your presentation flow because it shows you in a nutshell what blocks of content go where.
Want to find out more ways to master your presenting skills? Then check out our Catapult training.
