For the second winter in a row, covid has struck our house, and for the second time, we pulled out jigsaw puzzles to keep us busy.
Not just because they were a favorite pastime when I was a kid, or because they can entertain an 8-year-old and covid plagued parents at the same time.
But because puzzles can also solve costly presentation pitfalls plaguing zoom weary, pandemic weary teams.
Presentations can be tricky, even more so online:
You don’t always hit it out of the park on the first try:
You might have too many pieces that don’t connect.
You might be missing pieces.
You might have the right pieces but lack a road map.
Look no further than our pandemic puzzle craze to create engaging presentations that bring your audience along:
These are 4 lessons I learned from doing jigsaw puzzles with my kid:
It’s all in the framing
In the early days of lockdown and remote first grade, I borrowed a puzzle from neighbors and attempted to engage my 6-year-old.
I loved puzzles as a child but this was the wrong puzzle.
We went from an 80 piece solar system puzzle to a 1000 piece book cover montage.
To make things worse, we set up our puzzle Command station on our dining table on top of a brightly printed Marimekko tablecloth.
It was pattern on top of pattern, color on top of color, and a big jumbled mess of puzzle pandemonium.
Much like presentations chock full of charts, graphs, and teeny tiny text no one reads, the details were overwhelming.
My 6 year old got frustrated and gave up.
This is exactly what happens when you stuff your presentations full of data and details and your audience tunes out.
That’s why framing is so critical.
Great presentations don't include every detail and story. They include carefully curated ones.
If you’re worried your content is boring, resist the urge to add more.
Instead, look to add less.
Find the hook that makes your content matter.
Get to work believing that your presentation is interesting and do the work to make it so.
Paint a picture that fills in the gaps
We gave puzzles a second try In December 2020 when we spent the last 2 weeks of the year in covid quarantine.
I snagged puzzle #2 out of our building’s community room. The subject, vintage cars, held more interest with my little one. We were a captive audience and the puzzle was a novel pastime.
Puzzle #2 brought hours of entertainment, days full of deep concentration, and long chunks of family teamwork.
As we progressed we realized the puzzle was missing eleven pieces. This made it more challenging but did not keep us from completing this small pleasure. Our brains had just enough information to fill in the gaps.
This is exactly what a story can do when you’re giving a presentation. You have a captive audience and you don’t want to squander it with unnecessary fluff.
Instead, you want to dazzle them with stories.
Stories can fill in the gaps and connect the dots of how your topic is relevant and important to them. Research shows the human brain is 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it is wrapped in a story.
Stories paint a picture, elicit emotion, and provide just enough information for the audience to draw their own conclusions.
Don’t forget your map
The first puzzle my family completed with all 1000 pieces was a montage of 64 lego characters.
This puzzle came with a map - a larger blowup of the image - essential when placing 64 sets of identical Lego hands.
While you can meander around without it, a map gets everyone situated and heading in the right direction.
It’s the same reason your presentation needs a roadmap. You can have the right pieces but if your presentation lacks structure and focus, it’s still going to be a mess.
Your job is to fit the pieces together into one cohesive story.
Start by articulating your objective in one sentence and use it as a guidepost for every decision, data point, and detail.
Strategy is Essential
Whether you’re doing a puzzle or delivering a presentation, you need a strategy.
When we dumped out the new woodland puzzle yesterday, my now 8-year-old immediately started sorting border pieces, which is exactly what you want to do when you start on a presentation.
First, create the border.
Next, sort by color and section.
Last, fill in the middle.
After you have an outline, you can start filling in the details, data, and stories that create a cohesive picture.
For help creating your presentation strategy and crafting communication that brings your audience along, reach out here.
