#Things to consider
- Make sure that you have the opening—that first 30–60 seconds—memorized. You need to deliver that part with full confidence and passion.
- You need to be able to deliver the first 60 seconds without any “umms” or pauses and without looking at your notes. After that amount of practice, it’s a question of how much of the rest of the talk you want to be able to give that smoothly.
- People can hold three or four things in working memory as long as they aren’t distracted and as long as their processing of the information is not interfered with.
- Recognition is easier than recall. Recognition makes use of context. And context can help you remember.
- Every 10 minutes, make sure you do something different, like take a mini-break or tell a story, exercise or interact, ask the audience a question, move to a different location, or change the topic.
- Know what to call slides with a lot of text on them? Your notes! If you feel you need slides with text, it’s probably because you need notes. Don’t show the audience your notes.