When I wrote reports and gave presentations early in my career, I loaded them up with statistics.

I assumed that including all the data that led to the conclusions I was presenting would add credibility to those conclusions. And it probably would have—if any of my readers or listeners could keep from falling asleep.

If you need to include stats or other figures in your professional documents or presentations, don’t simply list off a series of numbers. That’s boring. Find a way to spice them up, to make them more memorable.

Snore:

Current projections for the upcoming year are for a budget deficit of $50 million.

More interesting:

We need to cut spending—now. We’re on track next year to be in the hole $140,000 a day.