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My favourite PowerPoint hack

Tags: Be interesting | Presentations | Impact | Save time

3rd May

Here’s my favourite thing about PowerPoint:

  • When your presentation’s in Show Mode
  • To jump to any slide, simply press that slide number, then the ‘return’ key

Simple as that.

Want to jump to slide #8? Just press the ‘8’ key, then ‘return’ – and you jump straight there.

Magic.

Why’s it my favourite? Lots of reasons:

  • Instant engagement – I can start my presentation by asking my audience which topic they’d like us to do first. When they say topic X, I jump straight to the relevant slide. Engagement complete! And no need to wade through the earlier slides, that they don’t care about
  • Help audiences – when someone asks “please can you show me X again?”, I just jump back to that slide – better than pressing the ‘down’ key twelve times
  • Save time – if we’re running out of time, I can skip a few slides, and jump straight to the final slide. My audience doesn’t know I’ve missed any out. And we always finish on time

In other words, it makes PowerPoint our servant that must follow us around; not our master that we must follow.

This tip leads to the most obvious Action Point ever, which is…

Action Point

…In your next presentation, when it’s appropriate, jump to the relevant next slide. Don’t assume you’ll do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…

Also, of course, your slides themselves must be brilliant. My free video shows the three steps to follow, to ensure they are (scroll down to Month 4’s videos)