In partnership with

⏳ Read Time: Less than 4 min.

Three years into executive coaching, I had a client — a CFO at a London financial services firm — who told me he spent 11 hours on his board presentation. Eleven hours. For a 20-minute slot.

The slides were beautiful. The narrative was muddy. He was exhausted before he even walked into the room.

That week I gave him the system I'm sharing with you today. The following quarter, his prep time dropped to 23 minutes. His board loved it. Let's fix your prep time too.
__________________________________________________________________

This Week’s Insights

The RAPID Protocol: prep any presentation in under 25 minutes
The Peak Window — the calendar trick protecting your best thinking hours
The one-touch rule that eliminated my email backlog (with the science behind it)
AI tip: Use Copilot to cut your prep time by 40%
Your action challenge: implement one system before Friday

THE MAIN EVENT
🎤 The RAPID Protocol: Any Presentation, 25 Minutes or Less

Here's the truth: the reason presentation prep takes hours isn't the slides. It's the decisions. Every blank slide is a question — "what goes here?" — and those questions stack up until your creative energy is gone and you're still on slide 3.

The RAPID Protocol eliminates the decisions first.

R — Recommendation: Write your ask in one sentence before you open PowerPoint. Not the problem. Not the context. Your recommendation. "I'm proposing we pause the Manchester expansion until Q4." That one sentence is your anchor. Everything else is just evidence.

A — Audience reality: What do they already know? What do they need to know right now? Two sentences max. This is slide 1.

P — Position: Present 2–3 options or the key challenge. One slide. Not five.

I — Impact: One piece of evidence per slide. One. The minute you add a second data point, you've doubled the decision burden on your audience.

D — Decision + Next Steps: What specific action do you need from this meeting? Write it. This is your final slide.

Build the slides in R-A-P-I-D order — not presentation order. Write your recommendation first, then fill backwards. Total time: 22–25 minutes for a standard 5–8 slide deck.

Before: Hours of blank-slide paralysis, context-heavy openings, 40-slide decks.
After: 25 minutes from brief to deck, a clear ask, and the energy to deliver it.

Ready to build faster decks using AI? My Executive Prompt Pack gives you 71 prompts that work with Copilot and ChatGPT — including a full deck-building sequence. £19.99.

QUICK HITTERS: Fast Wins for the Week

💡 Tip — Write your recommendation before your slides, not after. The first thing you type should be your conclusion. Build backwards from there. Every great deck is built in reverse.

📊 Stat — In 2025, only 64% of executives use a formal productivity system — up from just 35% in 2023. The executives gaining ground are the ones who finally have a system. The ones falling behind are still winging it. (Prialto Executive Productivity Report, 2025)

🎭 Power Move — Tomorrow, decline one recurring meeting you don't need to attend. Send two bullet points: what you'll review instead, and how you'll stay informed. Nobody will push back.

📖 ReadSlow Productivity by Cal Newport (2024). His counter-intuitive argument: doing fewer things, done at a natural pace, produces more value than the "always-on" approach. His pull-system for managing incoming requests alone is worth the price.

WEEKLY DEEP DIVE
The Peak Window - Protect Your Best Two Hours

A 2025 peer-reviewed study published in the Partners Universal International Innovation Journal confirmed what high-performers have long suspected: the prefrontal cortex — the part of your brain responsible for strategic thinking and decision-making — operates best in dedicated, uninterrupted blocks of 90–120 minutes. Outside those blocks, under constant interruption, it literally runs out of cognitive fuel.

Microsoft's June 2025 Work Trend Index found that employees are interrupted 275 times per day. Once every two minutes. 60% of meetings are ad hoc. 52% of senior leaders describe their working days as "chaotic and fragmented."

You can't out-will a fragmented environment. You have to architect around it.

1. Identify your sharpest two hours. For most people, it's 9–11 am. For some, 6–8 am. Not when you're free — when you're sharp.

2. Block it daily. Not weekly. Daily. Label it "Strategic Work" in your calendar. Make it recurring. Make it sacred.

3. No meetings, no email, no Slack inside that window. One project. Your hardest thinking. That's it.

I use mine for writing, framework development, and high-stakes presentation prep. Three months in, my output doubled. Not my hours — my output.

And the one-touch rule I promised? Here it is: when you open an email, you action it immediately — respond, archive, delegate, or add to a task list. You never re-read it or defer it. Pair this with two scheduled email sprints per day (11 am and 4 pm), apply the one-touch rule inside those windows only, and your inbox stops being a permanent source of anxiety. This is the OHIO method (Only Handle It Once), originally from executive coach Robert Pozen — and it works.

Turn AI into Your Income Engine

Ready to transform artificial intelligence from a buzzword into your personal revenue generator?

HubSpot’s groundbreaking guide "200+ AI-Powered Income Ideas" is your gateway to financial innovation in the digital age.

Inside you'll discover:

  • A curated collection of 200+ profitable opportunities spanning content creation, e-commerce, gaming, and emerging digital markets—each vetted for real-world potential

  • Step-by-step implementation guides designed for beginners, making AI accessible regardless of your technical background

  • Cutting-edge strategies aligned with current market trends, ensuring your ventures stay ahead of the curve

Download your guide today and unlock a future where artificial intelligence powers your success. Your next income stream is waiting.

AI TIP OF THE WEEK

Cut presentation prep time by 40% with this Copilot prompt:

Open a new Word document (or Copilot in Teams) and paste this:

"Act as a senior executive communication coach. I need to prepare a presentation for [audience] about [topic]. My recommendation is: [your one-sentence ask]. Generate a 5-slide outline:
Slide 1: The decision needed
Slide 2: Current situation (key context only)
Slide 3: Options or key challenge
Slide 4: My recommendation + rationale
Slide 5: Next steps with owner and timeline
Keep each slide to one headline and three supporting bullets maximum."

Replace the bracketed fields and Copilot generates a full deck structure in 45 seconds. You validate, refine, build. The RAPID Protocol + Copilot = presentation done in under 20 minutes.

💻 The Copilot Edge - Your weekly unfair advantage

Use Copilot in PowerPoint to turn your RAPID outline into a full deck:

Step 1: Open PowerPoint → click the Copilot icon
Step 2: Type: "Create a presentation from this outline: [paste your RAPID outline]"
Step 3: Copilot generates all slides, including layouts, in one step
Step 4: Review each slide — replace placeholder text with your one data point per slide
Step 5: Run Designer to polish the visuals

Total time from RAPID outline to designed deck: 18–25 minutes.

The Executive Prompt Pack includes a full library of Copilot prompts for PowerPoint, Word, and Teams — 71 prompts designed specifically for executive-level presentations. £19.99.

ACTION STEPS & COMMUNITY QUESTION

 This week's challenge: Your challenge before Friday: Pick your next presentation and run the RAPID Protocol. Don't open PowerPoint until you've written your recommendation in one sentence. Time yourself. Tell me how long it takes.

Ti

Community question: What's the one thing eating your time that adds the least value? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response — and I might feature the best answer in a future edition.

P.S.
Next week I'm diving deep into

Turn AI into Your Income Engine

Ready to transform artificial intelligence from a buzzword into your personal revenue generator?

HubSpot’s groundbreaking guide "200+ AI-Powered Income Ideas" is your gateway to financial innovation in the digital age.

Inside you'll discover:

  • A curated collection of 200+ profitable opportunities spanning content creation, e-commerce, gaming, and emerging digital markets—each vetted for real-world potential

  • Step-by-step implementation guides designed for beginners, making AI accessible regardless of your technical background

  • Cutting-edge strategies aligned with current market trends, ensuring your ventures stay ahead of the curve

Download your guide today and unlock a future where artificial intelligence powers your success. Your next income stream is waiting.

— and I'm sharing the one micro-behaviour that instantly shifts how a room perceives you. It's not about your suit or your slides. It takes 4 seconds and it works every time. Don't miss it.

See you then!

Keep building your edge—one conversation at a time.

YOUR OPINION MATTERS!

What did you think of today's email?

Your feedback helps me to create better newsletters for you!

Login or Subscribe to participate

If you have more feedback or just want to get in touch, respond to this email, and we’ll get back to you!

Thanks for reading!

Until next week!

Mary Beth

Keep Reading