Concept
The rule of three
Three is the largest number of things an audience holds without writing them down. Gallo found the most-watched talks organised in threes; the practical rule is to say three things, say there are three, and cut the fourth however much you like it.
The rule is old rhetoric confirmed by memory research: people retain three items from a spoken list reliably and four or more unreliably. For a work presentation it means choosing, before the deck exists, the three things the room must leave with, and announcing the count so listeners know where they are. It also disciplines the speaker: a talk that cannot be reduced to three parts usually has not found its core. Gallo pairs it with the eighteen-minute ceiling and the one-sentence summary; the three together turn a pile of slides into something a listener can carry out of the room and repeat to someone else.
A real-life example
A team lead's incident review becomes three things: what broke, what it cost, what changes. The chief executive repeats the three back at the end of the meeting and approves the engineer she asked for before the evidence slides are reached.
How to use it
- 1Before building slides, write the three things the room must leave with.
- 2Announce the count at the start and use it as the structure.
- 3Cut the fourth point or fold it into one of the three.