How to Use a Journey to Memorize a Keynote Presentation

An hour-long Keynote Presentation takes a lot of time to memorize.

How many separate points, stories, anecdotes, and lessons have to be included to fill out an hour? How many Slides will be used? Do you ever forget to include a story or lesson at the right point in a presentation?

Speaker Compass has a Message Planner feature which allows you to list every point in your keynote presentation. You can be as detailed as needed, and even save the slide.

You want your presentation to be well-rehearsed without memorizing it word for word. How can you memorize a keynote point for point without being rigid, but also without skipping important points?

The way to do it easily is by linking each memory cue in your keynote presentation to a step in your journey. You're mentally linking an image that reminds you of what you want to say, to a location in your journey.

A Journey is a path you know so well that you can imagine or recall every step along the way. Everyone has at least one journey they know: their own house. Imagine walking through every room in your house. What path would you take? Once you decide on the order of the rooms, you'll never forget it. Now, to add more points in your journey, imagine or recall the furniture, windows, and doors in each room.

I've created a mental journey through my house, starting with the family room in the top floor, down the stairs, into the library, bedroom, walk-in closet, hallway, bathroom, and bedroom. In each room I select an item, piece of furniture, window, or door. So each room has a number of Steps. Together, my Journey, has more than 50 steps, long enough for me to link every point of my Keynote message to a Step in the Journey.

Is this hard? No. It's easy because you don't have to memorize anything, you just have to imagine some silly images.

Here's the first five points in my keynote message along with the symbol I imagine to help me recall the point:

1) Vanish a playing card to symbolize how easy it is to forget names.

2) Tell the story of Sue the college graduate.

3) Tell my story of growing up with a twin brother. Twin babies.

4) Tell how some families use naming systems for their children. Names on a sign.

5) Tell how I got started in memory training as a magician. Magic Wand.

My keynote presentation has about 45 more points I want to discuss. That's a lot to learn through brute-force repetition. To make my message unforgettable to me, I link a symbol for each point to a step in my journey. The first room in my journey is my family room, so:

For point:

1) I imagine a playing card attached to the chimney (Step 1).

2) I imagine a tiny woman (Sue) about 5" tall standing on a chair (Step 2).

3) I imagine baby twins sitting on a table (Step 3).

4) A sign with the names of my brothers hangs on a window (Step 4).

5) A large magic wand rests across a bookshelf (Step 5).

This may seem counter-intuitive, but it isn't any harder to remember a long message than a short message because memorization has little to do with it. Once you've imagined a ridiculous, silly connection between the symbol and the step, you'll remember it. One object is mentally linked to the other, just like you can't think of Salt without _, or Day without __.

Speaker Compass has a memory training system built into the Message Planner. You can list every point in your keynote presentation with the Intro, Body, and Conclusion, and even save the Power Point or Keynote slide.

And you can create a Journey list with every Step in sequence and an picture to remind you of the Step.

Once you've created a Journey, you can export it to the Speaker Compass iPhone layout to review it on your iPhone anytime you want.

So, with Speaker Compass, you can plan a message with every point in order. Include the Introduction, Body, and Conclusion of each point. And save the Power Point/Keynote slide with it.

You can also plan the Mnemonic Journey to help you learn it. Finally, you can link each Point in the Message to each Step in the Journey and keep it stored on your computer to review anytime you need to.

To be notified when Speaker Compass is ready, CLICK HERE!