Make your presentations "absorbable through "chunking"

According to Cognitive load theory (CLT), your listener's brain has a ceiling as to how much it will pay attention to and retain when presented with new information.

In other words - if you present information in a manner that forces your listener's brain to work too hard - it will eventually shut off and stop listening resulting in an audience that may be physically present but mentally absent.

In order to avoid this, it is essential that you design your presentations to have content that is simple to understand, is supported with powerful visuals, and is broken down into logical chunks that are easy to follow and seamlessly slide into each other.

Here is a highly effective simple 3-step process:

1. CAPTURE ATTENTION

Hook, objective, promise

2. MAKE YOUR ARGUMENT

(Main point, evidence, an example) x 3

3. CLOSE WITH IMPACT

Summarize, offer a challenge, provide the next steps

The consequences of not following a good structure are great. If your presentation is wandering and difficult to follow, the audience will not only lose interest thereby making moot what you are presenting, but they will also associate your inability to present effectively as a reflection of your professional competence.