Practicing your upcoming presentation is going to help you tighten up your content
and refine your delivery skills.
But people don't practice.
They say to themselves:
Don't over complicate things.
Practice is not only simple, it's essential.
Hi, my name is Michael, and I'm with Lighthouse Communications.
In today's video:
Five tips for how to practice
your upcoming presentation.
Tip number 1: practice aloud.
Start by saying what you've written so far,
so you can start to hear how it sounds.
The more times you say it aloud, the more familiar you're going to become with the content.
Keep this in mind:
Memorizing a script word-for-word is a strategy that's best used for high-stakes presentations like a TED talk
or a video presentation.
You can consult the script three or four times,
but after that you've just got to move on.
If you find yourself sounding canned during practice,
this is what experienced speakers call the awkward valley.
When you push through to the sixth or seventh-round, that's when you're going
to start to sound authentic.
It's because the content in your presentation is moving from your short-term memory to your long-term memory.
Tip number 2:
Test out content with friends, family, and colleagues.
Now they're not going to want to hear your entire presentation -- most likely.
And they could get lost during the part where you explain the snippet of code or the bar chart.
But the story or analogy that you use to explain the higher level concept
or the denser, more technical information
-- that will interest people.
The next time you are going for a walk with family, or you're at dinner with friends,
tell them that you're doing a presentation
at work or school
and that you'd like to test out some content with them.
Tell them the story or analogy
and see if it makes sense to them.
Tip number 3: Mark up your Script.
When you do this, you start to think about how
to vocally deliver your presentation.
For example,
Tip number four: Practice with a Clicker for Slide Deck Presentations
Because if you don't, on the day of the presentation you might forget to advance a slide.
Don't let this happen to you. Learn from my mistake.
One of the first big presentations that I ever did was in front of 50 geneticists,
and I got tunnel vision: I was going through the bullet points in my head and
completely forgot about the slideshow behind me.
When I came to, I quickly clicked through three slides, and then the person in the front row, she raised her hand,
and she asked, "What are we skipping over?"
My suggestion: face an imaginary audience when you practice. Don't face the computer.
Tip number five: Record Yourself using your Phone.
Hands down this is the fastest way to improve your presentation.
Listen to yourself as you're driving to work or answering emails.
Learn the content by listening to yourself.
And also check for emphasis, check for pacing.
How does it sound?
Watch yourself and look for facial expressions and gestures.
I get it.
Watching and listening to yourself is not easy, but it gets easier every time you do it.
I'm the one who is editing the video that you're watching right now.
I see my bad habits.
I'm aware of them and I can do them less moving forward.
Now that you have my five tips. How to get started?
Put time in the calendar and stick to your schedule even as work piles on.
If you want to improve, you've got a carve out this time for yourself.
Spend less time stressing, more time practicing.
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