Let me explain why you should avoid pie charts — and donut charts — in most documents and presentations. Pie charts are easy to create and they’re colourful and you might want to include lots of them in the reports and slidedecks you write. But there are lots of problems with them: they are difficult to interpret when there are lots of slices in the pie especially if some of the slices are very thin adding data labels makes them more cluttered and using a table for the data would be clearer putting pie charts side by side does not show trends.

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I’ve read lots of posts where people explain how they are most productive before they eat breakfast, or late at night, or after they’ve been to the gym. I’m none of those things. I’ve never had a good answer to the question “What time of day are you most productive.” I write about finance almost every day. Sometimes I am writing a big project, such as the manuscript for Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector.

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Don’t overwhelm with details: While it’s important to provide context, avoid overwhelming your clients with too much information. Stick to the most important points and keep the presentation concise. Don’t make assumptions: Avoid making assumptions about your clients’ financial literacy. Ask questions to ensure that they understand the information you’re presenting. Don’t ignore questions: Be prepared to answer questions from your clients. Ignoring questions or providing vague answers can damage your credibility and trust.

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A picture paints a thousand words. A table of data could save you (and your reader) hundreds of words. But your table is a wasted opportunity if the reader doesn’t get your message from it. Or worse, skips over it. Here’s a tip to make the tables in your documents have more impact: Instead of giving a table a title that simply describes its content, write a headline for it that summarises what the table means.

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Writers get better by practising their writing AND from reading the work of other writers. You can do the same. Read finance reports and documents from inside and outside your organisation with a sense of curiosity. If you read something that seems to be very effective, ask yourself how does it differs from what you would write? Is the use of language or structure different? Or is the layout of the words and figures done in a way that is especially clear?

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My philosophy in 12 words.

Tell them what they need to know rather than what you want to say.

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We’ve all been in the audience of a terrible presenter. They’re smart, they’re a professional, they have data, they have PowerPoint slides behind them. But they have no idea what a good presentation is let alone how to deliver one. Don’t let this be you. Here are five reasons you might want to improve your presentation skills. 1️⃣ You’re not confident about facing an audience 2️⃣ You’re confident but your audience is not listening

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You can remove the negative tone of your writing by using ‘and’ instead of ‘but’. When you write a sentence that uses ‘but’ to join its clauses try changing the ‘but’ to ‘and’ (or another conjunction). It’ll sound more positive. We all know when someone says, “Yes, but …,” they are disagreeing with us. When we get feedback from someone that follows the “[comment 1] but [comment 2]” we know the ‘but’ is the warning sign.

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Often the best way for numerical information to be communicated in a document or a presentation is in a chart. I’ve written before about the need to declutter tables so that the reader/audience can easily see what is important. The same principle of removing the clutter applies to your charts. Download my short guide to learn four steps to make your charts stand out.

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How to format a chart TIP: Remove the clutter from your charts. If you want your reader to get your message you need to make your message clear. Don’t just copy and paste a chart from Excel into a Word document or presentation. You need to format it first. Here’s how. ========== I’m Gary Bandy. I help finance professionals to have more impact by improving their writing and presentation skills.

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