… so long as you’ve got a system!
I’m often asked (it’s the second most common thing people ask for help with, to be honest), about how they can remember what they’ve got to say once they get up on stage.
Well, there’s the (dumb and generally limiting) option of having a script, obviously, but it’s pretty close to impossible to have a script and be outstanding… which leaves us with various different options for things which act as an aide memoire.
I’ve been involved recently with a discussion with some fellow professional trainers and presenters about the best option and there are pros and cons for each and every one of them.
Mindmaps, for example, some people swear by them and some people simply find them a confusing, apparently random arrangement of boxes on a page.
Presenter View – with your keywords jotted down below the slides, that your audience doesn’t see (my personal favorite.
Notes on your lectern – perhaps in list from, perhaps in some other format; perhaps on paper, perhaps on index cards; perhaps colour coded perhaps ‘straight’…
Scripts – least said the better
I could go on. The list isn’t endless but it’s certainly extensive.
The thing is, each has its own strengths and weaknesses and each has it’s own fans (and detractors!). What’s gradually dawned on me (after watching my daughter and several other people revise for their medical school finals to become medical doctors) is that the system doesn’t matter.
Honestly.
It doesn’t matter what system you use (so long as it works for you). What matters is that you have a system. You see, as Eisenhower observed in terms of military planning (and let’s face it, he know a thing or two about war)
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
My point is simple: it’s not the system that matters, it’s not the system that allows you to remember what to say… instead it is the effort you put into setting your system up that works at least as much.
If you’re creating a list of key words, for example, while the list is a trigger in the end, what’s at least as important is the mental energy and time you put into deciding what the keywords are that locks things in your head (for the written list to trigger when you’re on stage). Without that effort, they keywords are just, well… words.
A Mindmap is just a set of squiggles on the page unless you drew it yourself – and if you did, if you spent the energy and time drawing it, if you set your mind to it, you’ll find that the finished product is nothing more than a key to release what you already know – what the process of creating the Mindmap fixed in your head.
So in a significant sense, none of it matters – all the fuss about what system to use is important on its own… whatever works for you works for you. The important thing is that you put effort into it and it’s in that (not only but largely!) that the choice of system is important.
