
Ask HN: How do you prepare for presentations/tech talks? - lbrito
I tend to rely a lot on &quot;presenter notes&quot; (text that only the presenter, and not the audience, can see), to the point that if the talk is a bit long or complex, I literally read out loud my own notes. This has the advantage of not having to &quot;memorize&quot; anything, and the disadvantage of not keeping a lot of eye contact with the audience.<p>I wonder if most people memorize what they&#x27;ll say on each slide or just come up with something on the spot. Both options seem really hard and tiresome to me.
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mindcrime
I don't really "memorize" specific words, and I don't generally rely on a lot
of "presenter notes". Instead, I just try to:

A. know the material well enough that I could ad-lib the entire talk with the
material on the slides just reminding me what I'm supposed to be talking about
as I progress

and

B. mentally rehearse the talk (or at least parts of it) a few dozen times
before hand. Again, not trying to _memorize_ , just making sure I can talk
intelligently about what I'm supposed to be talking about, for 60-90 minutes
(or however long the slot is).

When the actual talk starts, I just start talking and go with whatever comes
out. Nobody is ever going to really know if I was "off script" or not, unless
I go WAY off into la-la land.

~~~
matijash
I am kinda similar! Actually, slides usually serve me as "notes" (although I
never put too much content, just a few words or a code example).

