Speaking ShortCuts for Public Speakers

I recently was reflecting on the fact that I’ve now been speaking in public for over 20 years. And as best as I can figure it, I think I’ve probably given over 3,000 talks in my lifetime. (Wow, that makes me tired just thinking about it.) Who am I kidding? I love it!!!

I want to share with so many of you who are speakers or have aspirations of being a public speaker some “Shortcuts” I’ve developed and use in the notes of my talks. I hope that whether you are a speaker who has been speaking for decades, or a newbie, you’ll dig up a couple of nuggets in this article.

5 “Shortcuts” I’ve Developed for my Public Speaking:

1. I use a lot of abbreviations in my notes.

To save space & time and to visually keep my notes as uncluttered as possible, I use several abbreviations and outline shorts in my notes. Here’s what I mean:

IOW – “In other words,” Whenever I want to transition with an “In other words,” statement, I simply put, “IOW.”

MWK – “Me” – For whatever reason I have always referred to myself in my notes as MWK, which is my initials. When I see this in my notes I know it’s a personal illustration or story. It’s just something I do.

b/c – “Because.” – I use “b/c” primarily to save space in my notes.

2. I am an Outline guy.

I am a big outline guy when it comes to speaking notes. I always have been. I think I just like the indentation visually when I look down at my notes. It definitely gives me an eyeline on the left side of the paper for me to visually catch my main points.

I don’t however use Microsoft Word’s outline tool that is built into their program. I make my own with simple tabs. My outlines look like this.

1.

A.

1)

or

I use the “-” dash mark under A. etc. I’m not an outline legalist, I just can see it better on the page. IOW, just because there’s an A. doesn’t mean I am bound to have a B. It’s just a visual guide for me.

3. I make Illustrations, Bible Verses and Main Points stand out visually.

I use ALL CAPS to denote ILLUSTRATIONS in my notes and always put “ILL.” at the end of it so I know it’s an illustration.

Bible Verses are always in Blue

Main Points are always Bold and in Red.

Any other Major point that isn’t a Main point I will make Purple.

Also…

I use Arial Font, size 14.

I make all the margins on the page 1/2 inch, so as to get as much possible content on there as I can.

* The goal is to be able to see it from 4 feet away, (or IOW, standing away from my speaking table or stand and still be able to see it.)

4. I still use printed notes, rather than an iPad.

I know I’m becoming more and more “old school” with this confession, but I still use notes printed on paper. The reason why is because I can become familiar with the actual physical location of a point or illustration, then when I’m on stage, I can look down in the general area of the page where I know it is and spot it because of the color or ALL CAPS that I use.

I do use my iPad when I’m teaching content that is a little bit more fluid, like to leaders, etc. But even on my iPad, I will still make verses blue, main points red, etc.

5. I have found that 4 pages equals about 30 minutes for me.

After nearly 20 years and speaking publicly over 3,000 times, I know about how long my content will be with the points I’m making, the illustrations I have, etc. If I go over 4 pages, I usually know I need to cut something or the message will be longer than I want it to be for our weekend services.

Here are 2 PDF’s of recent messages I’ve done as examples of how I lay out my content.

God of the Underdogs – Part 1

Leaners and lifters message

Also, if you go to www.NextLevelChurch.com, you can watch or listen to these messages to see how they turned out.

I hope this is helpful…