If you know me, you know that I tend to overthink. Naturally then, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I also tend to overwrite.

I was sitting in Starbucks today writing a screenplay (cliche, I know) and saw this guy next to me showing a presentation to a colleague. He flipped past 6 slides chock full of information while saying, “So she wrote all of this stuff…”

“Stuff.”

This poor girl he speaks of probably spent 20 hours researching all the “stuff” on those pages. In one fell swoop, all of that diligent work was given the same amount of attention we spend reading spam.

It all reminds me of my own time spent working on PowerPoint presentations. I usually dig up so much interesting research that I want to show it all off in my presentations. I want to show the level of analysis my topics are given.

Every time I’ve done that in my career, those slides fall flat. But whenever I’ve thrown up 3 boxes with pictures and 3 powerful one-liners, those slides are gazed at for minutes at a time. My audience is in wonderment. It’s like the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So keep it simple. If you can communicate one point clearly, those slides will be so awesome you’ll want to share them with your friends.

What? You don’t believe me? 100 Beautiful Slides from Cannes Lions 2010 has been viewed 14,000 times. (credit: @jessedee)