5 min read Work advice

How I Prepare For My Presentations

How I Prepare For My Presentations
Photo by Jackson Schaal / Unsplash

Disclaimer: This is not aimed at people already delivering presentations to thousands of people without breaking a sweat. This will hopefully be helpful for people who are preparing for their first big presentation or trying to minimize the anxiety they feel before presenting.

Presentations come in many different formats and they all have their time and purpose, but there will be a few guiding principles that apply to most of them. This is my process for when I have a bit of time to prepare and it's the process I follow when building standard presentations for other people to use.

  1. Outline. You might be preparing for a product presentation at work, a process cascade, or a presentation for something you've written; regardless of what you're trying to present, there is definitely a goal: to sell something, to teach something or to share something. Keep that goal in mind when you create an outline and try to make sure that every point being made is a step towards that goal. If you don't know where to start, the first things you can write out are your agenda and your chapter break slides. Once the headlines of your presentation have been written out, you'll start to see what the best way to sequence them is. Chronologically might not always be the best way to tell your story.
  2. Script. It's surprising how some of the most seemingly casual and relaxed presentations are often scripted. A script is often associated with the idea of a presentation being really stiff and impersonal, but it doesn't have to be. The great part about scripting your own presentation is that you can write a script that sounds like you, but the most prepared version of you. You may be really knowledgeable about the topic, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the clearest and most appropriate words will come to you on the spot. This is why we have a saying about how the best practitioners might often be the worst teachers. A script is just a tool to make sure you have the right words at your disposal once you take to the stage and present to an audience. And if used well, scripting will allow you to lay out your story end-to-end, optimizing the flow of your speech. It will allow you to see if you're unnecessarily going back and forth between topics or introducing concepts before the groundwork is laid for them. It will make sure that you're covering every topic that you wanted to discuss without frantically having to rattle off crucial notes at the end as people are turning their attention elsewhere.
  3. Rehearse. Regardless of how polished the script is on paper, it's entirely different when you have to actually deliver it. This is where rehearsing comes in. Even if you wrote your own script and even if you think you wrote it in your own voice, the way it sounds in your head doesn't always translate to how it will sound when spoken. You might accidentally write in a tongue twister only to realize it when you accidentally cuss out someone important. Or you might find that you've written such long sentences without breaks that you lose your breath before getting the point across. Rehearsing will allow you to feel comfortable with the words and it'll help you get used to the flow of your presentation. If possible, try to rehearse in front of a trusted friend who can mention if ever you're using terms that need clarification or if the tone needs to be adjusted. But at the very least, try to rehearse your piece ahead of time.
  4. Record. This is probably the most useful thing you can do while preparing. An easy way to check if your presentation flows well is by video recording yourself as you go through it end to end. Try to imagine yourself as the audience member that'll be listening and see if the presentation is highlighting the important parts. If you know you're laying down the groundwork for a topic you'll be returning to later on, it might be good to highlight that for your audience in your script. Being able to tell them ahead of time that you'll be adding to this concept in 3, 5 or 10 slides makes you look more professional, shows off mastery of the material, and preempts any intrusive questions that might break your flow.
  5. Refine. When you've watched yourself go through the presentation, and you're happy with your script and how you present it, the last way you can easily refine your presentation is by watching your recording back at 1.5x or 2x speed. When you watch a video playback that fast, it highlights any non-verbal mannerisms that might be distracting to someone who's watching you speak for the first time. Humans rely on body language a lot to determine if other people are trustworthy, so make sure you take advantage of this. The only way you can improve your natural body language is by identifying the flaws and consciously practicing them away. It doesn't feel natural for most of us to get in front of a crowd and speak, so it's fine to feel nervous. The more you practice being at ease in front of an audience and the more you try to act like you're confident in front of others, the more you embody that confidence. Pretty soon, you'll fake-it-til-you-make-it all the way to being a truly confident public speaker.

After you've outlined, scripted, rehearsed, recorded and refined your presentation, you've probably become more familiar with your material than you otherwise would have. You've watched a few good recordings of yourself from start to finish, and hopefully you watched a few that you were even impressed by. At this point, all you can do is trust in the preparation you've put in and try your best. Now go out there and break a leg!

These 5 things focused on the aspect of presenting that I think is most important: the presenter. There are tons of other aspects to presenting like the design and visual impact of your materials, but we all have our own styles and I find that different design mantras work for different applications. I might go over how I personally prepare my slides in another piece in the future, but if you want to see some of the resources I recommend, I've linked to them below.

Resources I found useful:

Note: I do not mean to claim these listed resources as my own and I do not get a kickback from any of them. They are publicly available resources that I found invaluable during my own learning process and I want more people to see them. If you are the owner of these resources and would like your link taken down, please reach out to me through my Contact Me page and I will happily comply.