It’s common to worry whether or not you’re going to remember your presentation material. Indeed, the nerves themselves can lead to a mind-blank, mid-presentation, like when you walk into a room and forget what you were there for. You could print out notes as a guide, but you should avoid reading from a piece of paper if you want to 1) engage your audience and 2) look like you know what you’re talking about!
How to remember your presentation?
If you’re prone to forgetting things it will be worth training your brain. Here are some proven tips to help improve your memory…
Visualise your content
Most people remember visual content more easily than written content. Mind maps are diagrams where you lay out your presentation content in a visual shape rather than as a list. This practice is proven to increase memory retention. When you try to recall your presentation you’ll picture the mind map components instead of a long list of words.
Read and Repeat
Research shows it takes 8 uninterrupted seconds for information to enter into your memory. Focus on your text for at least 8 seconds, look away and try to remember it, then read the information again and repeat as many times as necessary. Repeat to remember.
Rehearse
Researchers have found that memory improves over 10% when words are spoken out loud, so practice beforehand to maximise the chances of remembering your content. It’s also worth rehearsing your presentation just before you go to bed as sleep helps to consolidate recently learned information.
Group items together
It’s much easier to remember information in chunks rather than in a long list. So if you have a list of stats try breaking them down into sets of three to five.
Consider how we remember phone numbers (back in the day when we did)… we’d group a long 10 digit number into patterns of 3 numbers at a time for example. It really works, it helps memory.
Take a break
It’s important to rest your brain to help it remember and encode. Set your alarm to make sure that you take regular breaks and move around before beginning again. And did we mention sleep? Sleep is brilliant for memory. Factor it in 🙂
We hope that these tips help you to remember your presentation content.
For more memory tips…
