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Time Management – Applies to Presentations Too
Overworked and overstretched executives with looming deadlines and inadequate time to complete the tasks often seem to be prime candidates for time management training. Fewer, however, consider the importance of time management in business presentations.
Unless you have experienced the pain of sitting through a lengthy, uninteresting and lacklustre presentation, you could be forgiven for not recognising the importance of effective time management by speakers, irrespective of the presentation.
I reflected on the importance of time management recently as I witnessed a five-minute presentation evolve into a 15-minute one. And, just when I breathing a sigh of relief, the speaker went on for a further 10 minutes with no intervention by the chair, and much to the irritation of the audience.
What made this overrun of time even more apparent was that while the presenter allocated the least time on the programme took the most. The other speakers managed their time wisely and in one case finished ahead of the time allocated. Not an appropriate demonstration of effective chairing either!
Ensure you do not treat your audience with similar disrespect.
Here are a few suggestions on how you can managing time wisely when you are the presenter/speaker:
1. Develop your presentation and subdivide it into time blocks.
2. Be clear about how much time should be taken to present each section.
3. Decide your ‘must share points’, i.e., supportive of your key messages. Ensure you make those.
4. Be alert to realising when you are behind your planned time-frame for presenting, adjust the number and/or length of the examples you give or stories you tell during your presentation.
5. Be realistic in your use of visual aids. For example, if using Powerpoint slides, do not include more than one slide every minute unless the graphics are essential in explaining specific points. The slides may then be best viewed as a slide show.
6. Respect the Chair. Wrap up your presentation in the time allocated at best or at least soon after.
7. If sharing a platform, be respectful of other presenters. Do not force others to shorten their contribution because you are inconsiderate and speak long after the time allocated.
8. Ensure you give your close/conclusion. Do this even when you are forced to exclude one or more points from the main part of your presentation.
9. Reduce distractions towards the end of the meeting as people leave the gathering because of another engagement, as your presentation took much longer than scheduled.
10. Err on the side of caution and finish ahead of allocated time -if you must. You may then take questions (if the event allows) or give the Chair an opportunity to make relevant remarks.
Time Saving Tips for PowerPoint 2007 or 2010
PowerPoint is a powerful tool for creating and designing eye-catching and dynamic presentations. Below are 10 of the top functions that I use to help me work more effectively with PowerPoint.
1. To quickly jump to slides during a presentation, type in the slide number and press Enter. This is useful if you’re running out of time, and need to miss out on some slides without the audience knowing.
2. In Slide Show view, pressing the B key makes the screen go black, which is great if you want your audience to focus on what you’re saying for a moment rather than look at the slides. Press the B key again to return to where you were before in the presentation.
3. In Slide Show view, pressing Ctrl+H turns the pointer off so the cursor won’t appear during your presentation. You can also turn the pointer on and off by pressing the A key.
4. If you’ve ever presented, then you’ll know how frustrating it is when the screen freezes as you try to move between slides. Well, there are various alternative ways of doing this. To go to the next slide or animation build, press Down or Right arrow, Pg Dn, Spacebar, Left mouse click or Enter key. To go to the previous slide or animation build, press Up or Left arrow, Pg Up, P key or Backspace key.
5. To quickly animate multiple objects on one slide at the same time, select all the necessary objects and animate them as you normally would using the animation task pane. This means that all the objects will be animated together.
6. If you want to create a diagram with duplicate objects placed in particular locations on the slide, then create and format the object (eg rectangle), select it and with the Ctrl key held down, click your left hand mouse button and drag the object to the spot where you want it to be. This is far quicker than copying and pasting the object and then having to spend time moving it to the correct location.
7. Your file size can get too big if you have a lot of images in your presentation. You can reduce the size of the file by up to 90% by compressing the images. Select a picture in the presentation, go to the Picture Tools Format tab and click on Compress Pictures in the Adjust Pane. Select OK to apply compression settings to all pictures, or click the check box to apply to selected pictures only. You can adjust the settings by clicking on the Options button.
8. To copy the formatting of text on one slide to another part of the presentation, select the original text then press down Ctrl+Shift+C, go to the text that you want to reformat and press Ctrl+Shift+V. This command copies the formatting only, not the text.
9. If you do find that you have too much text on one slide (there should be a maximum of 6 bullet points) then you can quickly split the slide into two using the Autofit option, which appears when you click inside the text box. Click on the Autofit option to access the sub menu and select the Split Text Between Two Slides option. PowerPoint will then automatically split the text evenly so both slides have as large font type as possible.
10. Remember that if you are doing your presentation outside of your office, you will need to ensure that any videos or other linked objects are saved in a folder which you can access remotely, ideally the same one as the presentation. Otherwise the media or objects will not display properly because the link they’re pointing to cannot be accessed.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these tips to help you save time and effort when working with PowerPoint.
The Significance of Time Management PPT
If you wish to lead a goal-oriented lifestyle, it is necessary to realize the importance of time management. It is only through a time bound program of action that you can hope to achieve success in any venture. Many people do not attach much significance to time management and because of the same, they are unable to finish their tasks on time and fail miserably.
Importance of time management
It is important to realize that the available amount of time is constant and all that you can change is the way you utilize this time. If you take time management seriously, you can break loose from this bondage and pack more in the available amount of time. You need to alter your habits and your attitude in order to derive the maximum utilization of the limited time at your disposal. Wasted time can never come back.
Prioritizing Your Tasks
The first step towards an effective time management planning is to make a list of all that needs to be done in the course of the day. You would then need to find out which tasks are more important than the others and this will enable you to prioritize your tasks. You, however, should retain the less important tasks on your list. The next step is to estimate the amount of time that each task is likely to take and in doing so, you should take a realistic view. It is no use trying to achieve the impossible and then failing miserably and upsetting the entire schedule. Even the smallest element of the task needs to be considered in arriving at the required time. Once you have analyzed all these elements, you will be able to see where you might waste time so that you can adopt a time saving strategy.
After identifying the areas where you can waste time, you need to eliminate such activities. Your work schedule will thus be compacted and you will be able to find some free time for relaxing with your family. The significance of time management will be apparent when you have been able to organize your daily activities and are able to achieve your long-term goals with a sustained methodical approach.
Start Now
Realizing the significance of time management is essential but not enough as these principles need to be put into practice in order to derive the maximum benefits. The best time to start is now as the duration of your life is predetermined and limited. The time that has elapsed is gone forever and the future is not known. All that you have is the present time and so, you need to start now. If you can set into motion the correct time management techniques, you will find that you will be able to achieve your target of a goal-oriented lifestyle and enjoy life to the fullest.
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