Setting up presentations quickly

As I have a fair number of presentations to give this semester, I have been reflecting on the time it takes me to prepare these, and the methodology I use to put these together quickly.

Depending on the length of the presentation that I will be giving, it takes me between 1 and 2 hours to put the presentation together. A large one-hour keynote lecture can take me about 4 hours to prepare (in terms of building the presentation, that is).

Over the years, I have developed a methodology to put my presentations together quickly.

Here’s what I do.

I take a sheet of paper, and start by noting down the different sections of the presentation that I want to have. If I am presenting a paper, these sections could be the headings of the paper. If I am presenting typical research, I will have introduction, literature, methods, results, analysis, discussion, and conclusions. If I am presenting a keynote lecture on a broader topic, I start by thinking about the main building blocks of my presentation – to be in line with my key message.

Once I have the different sections, I review how much time I get for the presentation, and take the minutes as a reference for the number of slides that I can present. Depending on how dense my slides become, I will also consider the front slide and the final slide with my contact information as part of this number of slides.

Once I know which sections to include, and how many slides I have, I will note down the number of slides I can use for each section, and the details of what I want to show on each slide. For example, I may assign myself 3 slides for analysis: 1 slide for the link between experimental results and parameter 1, 1 slide for the link between experimental results and parameter 2, and 1 slide for a table with tested/predicted results using various methods. I take care here that the information I present aligns with the story I want to tell, and the key message I want to transmit.

Finally, once I have a draft presentation, I will have a run-through to check the time and see if everything displays correctly. Once I have done this check, I send the presentation to my colleagues to get their input, and then I have a few more practice runs before I get to present.

How do you prepare presentations?