I spent most of this weekend working on my presentation for the Atlassian Summit in a few weeks. Generally when I’m working on something I expand to fill whatever space I have, as you can see below.

I guess having everything spread out in front of me makes me feel better.

I had a really awesome time building these slides this weekend. Maybe that shows you just how sick I am. But I can’t emphasize enough the importance of what Garr Reynolds calls “going analog” before you ever power up your laptop. If you frequently find yourself opening PowerPoint and then staring at a blank slide for hours on end, this technique is for you.

You need to have a plan for your slides before you start building them and the best way to do that, I’ve found, is on paper. I just start writing, sketching, scribbling ideas down until I find a thread that I like. I then try to develop that idea until I have a really good outline of what I want to say and what images best support it. This drastically reduces the time I spend actually building the slides.

That’s it. Simple. Give this a shot next time you build a deck of slides. Your sketches don’t have to be anything more than scribbles (most of mine are positively awful), but you may find it amazing how much going through this process helps clarify what slides you need to build.

Close up of a (very) rough draft of my presentation.