Welcome back to the Skills 360 podcast for today’s lesson on organizing your ideas.

Last week we looked at several ways to brainstorm ideas. But once you have a big list of ideas, what are you going to do with them? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

We’ll look at how to organize your ideas around your objective and put them into groups of related points.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the different situations in your work in which you have to persuade people?
2. How much time would you normally spend preparing for a one-hour presentation?
3. What techniques do you use to develop and organize your ideas?

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In today’s lesson, were going to look at how to organize your ideas.

When it comes to ideas, you’ve probably got lots of them. And sure, they’re important to you. But are they important to others? Well, they could be, but only if they’re clear and organized. You’ve probably been frustrated when people run on at length about what they think using vague language. And you’ve probably tuned out when someone jumps around chaotically from idea to idea without tying it all together with a purpose. That just doesn’t work. And sometimes it’s not the best ideas that win, but the ones that are most clearly articulated.

Today we’ll look at a few different frameworks for generating ideas. In this case, we’re using a form of organization to actually get the ideas flowing.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you have any special ways of brainstorming ideas?
2. Think of someone who you think speaks well. How does he/she organize ideas?
3. Do you ever write out lists of advantages and disadvantages or pros and cons?

Free Resources: Transcript | Quizzes | PDF Transcript

Download: Podcast MP3