Sleep on it
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I struggle to edit. I am a long-winded storyteller. I guess this comes from my need to help others understand everything I understand. An impossibility. In a recent project, I had to talk about some suggestions for change. I ended up with 43 slides. And then another set of 30 odd supporting slides totaling more than 70.
Time to sleep on it and improve the narrative. The next day I was not coherent yet about what I was trying to say. Going back to the drawing board to adjust these slides ended up taking me to 96 slides now.
Had to stop. Shared the initial idea with my mentor in London, my wife, and one of my trusted colleagues to get totally different perspectives. And then slept on it again.
Got up the next day and my whole narrative still felt incoherent. Threw the whole thing out and started afresh again. From scratch.
The next try ended up with a new narrative of 26 slides. Ah, so much better. Discussed it with my wife again, and slept on it.
The next day ended up adding some more slides to the original story. With a bit of moving around ended up with 10 slides with the rest of the 20 in the appendix.
Another round with my wife and finally dumped the rest of the appendix in total and had only 10 working slides. And then slept on it.
Finally, it brought me to today. Another round of reviews with my London mentor and a second round of reviews with two of my work colleagues evolved the final version of the slides into 13 slides.
And then I shipped it.
Moral of the story. Don’t be long-winded if possible. If you are, sleep on it a lot. That helps to edit. And then have a mentor or two, including your wife. That really helps. Have some trusted colleagues to give perspectives that don’t align with yours. Don’t do it alone. But do sleep on it a lot more.
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