As we wrap up our three part series on speaking without notes (Part 1 was on why you should give your talk without using notes and Part 2 was on how to give a talk without using notes), let’s bat clean up by sharing and comparing best practices on how to prepare a talk you want to deliver without using notes.

While there are as many ways to write talks as there are writers, the method I outline below is the method I almost always use. It works for preaching and conference talks.

Because the talk takes a while to develop, and has a simple structure, it becomes easier to deliver without using notes.

So how do you do it? Here are five keys that have helped me:

1.  Start early. It is almost impossible to write something today for delivery tomorrow without using notes. For those of us who preach, the Saturday night special must die. Pull out the gun now.

I personally write my sermons in series. Usually I will start outlining a series two to three months before I deliver it. When you start early, you buy yourself (and your team) the gift of time.

Messages always get better with time. You own them more deeply. The material will feel so much more natural, and your comfort level will go up. So start early.

2. Find your bottom line first. The bottom line (sometimes called the “big idea”) is the message reduced to a single, memorable sentence (click here for a free Preaching Rocket webinar on how to do that). It’s essentially a single idea – a single sentence – that memorably and accurately sums up the content of the entire talk.

Examples of bottom lines I’ve used recently include:

Even a little faith qualifies you for big things

Become the person you want your child to become

God doesn’t love you because you change; you change because God loves you.

This process is not easy. If you’re like me, you start with a hundred ideas about what the message could be. But what the message could be is almost always the enemy of what it should be.

So, our job as communicators is to find the best bottom line for the subject and audience. For me personally, this process of finding the bottom line takes far longer than writing the actual message. Sometimes I can spend hours a week for several weeks searching for the bottom line.

Preachers, having a scripture text selected is just the beginning. You need to be able to figure out what the text is saying clearly and succinctly in a way that’s memorable, helpful and engaging (at least if you want people to listen or be helped when they listen). Hence the bottom line.

When you find the bottom line, it’s so liberating. I think of the process of finding a bottom line as pouring ideas through a giant funnel. You pour all your ideas into the funnel until the single best idea comes out, clearly and memorably stated. Then you’re ready to build everything else around that.

3. Build the entire talk around the bottom line. From this point on, things usually get easier (at least they do for me).

At this point I’ll often write a short paragraph describing the issues we’ll deal with in the talk (we use this in our program and online to describe the message).Then sometimes I’ll even write the small group questions before I outline the message itself. The reason is it helps me think through how this subject is going to play out in the lives of our congregation (or audience) and it makes me focus on application. Then I’ll start structuring the talk.

I’ll develop bullet points around:

The introduction (how am I going to introduce the subject?).

The teaching (what do they need to know about the subject?).

The application (what does the audience need to do with what they’ve heard?)

The conclusion (why do they need to do what they need to do?)

4. Ditch a full manuscript for bullet points. As scary as this might be for full manuscript people, I’d encourage you to try this. Personally, I can’t learn dozens of fully scripted paragraphs. It’s too confusing. But I can own a few key ideas for each section. That’s why I use bullet points, not a full manuscript.

Usually, my bullet pointed notes are under 2000 words. And that includes any bible passage I’m using and will be reading directly. Eliminate that and my ‘bullet points’ will be somewhere between 1000-1500 words for a 45 minute message.

Consider this: in an average 45 minute talk, the speaker will deliver over 8000 words.

If you used a full manuscript, you would have to work your way through 8000 words every time to learn your talk. With bullet points, you’re working through a fraction of that. It also means you’re only trying to remember a few key points for each section of your talk (introduction, teaching, application and closing).

Which is more doable?

Further more, if you’re working off bullet points, you won’t be trying to remember word for word what you wrote, which will make you more natural. And you’ll own your material more, which will make you more compelling, as we’ve seen here.

5. Finish up early in the week, or even earlier. This one’s simple: finish writing your talk early in the week. Maybe even the week before. When you get done early, the talk germinates longer and you will own it far more deeply.

This also give you the flexibility to tweak it and substitute great ideas and phrases for good ones. The difference between a good talk and a great talk is often the last 10%, and that usually only happens when you have time on your hands.

Those are some strategies to help you write a talk designed to deliver without using notes.

What are some tips you’ve picked up? I’d love to hear what works for you.

When I was just starting to speak publicly, I was always amazed by communicators who could speak without using notes.

I wanted to be able to do that, but I had no idea how. I realized communicators who spoke without notes were almost always more effective (here are seven reasons why it’s better for communicators to speak without notes), but I was at a loss to figure out how to become one.

While this is a longer post than normal, let me start the single best piece of advice I’ve received on how to speak without notes. If you master it, you will be speaking without notes soon (I unpack it in detail below). It absolutely worked for me. It’s not as difficult as you might think, and I believe it’s learnable.

So what’s the secret sauce? For me, it was this:

Don’t memorize your talk. Understand it.

I got that advice when I was a seminary student from Thomas G. Long, then head of homiletics at Princeton. I had the chance drive him to the airport one day when he was lecturing in Toronto. I asked him how I could free myself from notes, and that’s what he told me: Just understand what you’re going to say.

While it didn’t allow me to drop my notes right away, it transformed how I thought about communication. Within a few months, I was almost free of notes. Within a few years I stopped relying on them entirely (except when I’m reading a direct quote).

For those of you who are ready to drill down further, let me walk you through step by step how that works for best for me:

When I do these five things, I can give a 20, 40 or even full hour talk without using notes (except for direct quotes that tie into what the graphics operator is putting on screen…then I want to be exact and will quote what’s on the screen verbatim):

1. Build your talk around a single point. This is so difficult, but so important. Pick a point for your talk. Not eight. Not three. One. Write it down. You can remember one. You can’t remember eight, or three.

I turn my point into a (hopefully) memorable bottom line, such as “Our boldest moments are our best moments”,  ”There are no inspiring stories of accumulation, only inspiring stories of sacrifice” or “Wisdom often requires the opposite of desire.” It doesn’t mean you won’t have points, but it does mean all those sub-points will be built around one point. (I’ll be blogging about the process I use to do this in my next post.)

The more cohesive and unified your talk is around a single point, the easier it will be to deliver.

2. Understand the talk’s structural pieces. This is crucial. Master this and you’ve mastered your talk. So let’s get granular. Here we go.

Every talk has big pieces or sections. And here’s the magic about a clear structure:

When you understand the structure of your talk, you understand your talk.

And by the way, the clearer your structure is, the easier it will be for your audience to follow.

So how do you get a clear structure? There are many ways, but it’s simple. It just needs to be clear and logical. I sometimes use Andy Stanley’s suggested structure of Me, We, God, You, We. Other times I structure the talk this way: Problem, Make the Problem Worse, Teaching, Resolution.

Regardless of your method, every talk follows this basic structure: Introduction, Teaching (Body), Application, Conclusion. So let’s use that for the purposes of this post.

I also always use four of the questions Andy Stanley outlines at the end of the book on communication he and Lane Jones wrote called Communicating for a Change. (The questions are: What do they need to know? Why do they need to know it? What do they need to do? Why do they need to do it?) These questions guide me through the key sections of my talk. Each piece of the talk’s structure answers one of those four questions:

a. Introduction: This is where you need to decide how to introduce your topic. I’ll often paint a problem, introduce a tension, tell a story or find common ground to draw everyone into the message. It lasts five – ten minutes max, and it’s easy to remember the problem, tension, story or common ground point you’re trying to establish because the introduction tries to answer this critical question:

Why do they need to know this?

That’s all I try to do in the introduction. If I can answer that, it becomes easy to do the introduction without notes, because you’re simply communicating some common ground (drawing everyone into the talk) what’s at stake, why this matters and why anyone should care.

b. Teaching: This is where I dig into the heart of the issue, the problem, the tension and its relationship to the biblical text or the main subject of the talk. I usually jump between the biblical text and people’s lives today, trying to identify key life issues that arise from the text, point out surprises, highlight tension and drill down on the main point of the talk.

The teaching section answers the question:

What do they need to know?

c. Application. Application doesn’t start here. If you’ve done the introduction well, you’ve already shown people why this matters and how it can make their life better/different. But this is where I drill down. It’s where you get specific, granular and might tell more stories. Focus on remembering the key application points and your story(ies).

The application section answers the question:

What do they need to do?

d. Conclusion. You’ve got to land this plane at some point. Too often, communicators crash land. I’ve done it before, and it’s usually because we don’t think clearly about how to finish. I try to finish by reiterating the key point and showing people what happens when they apply it in their lives. I help people imagine a different and better future when they put what they’ve heard into practice.

The conclusion answers the question:

Why do they need to do it?

Now, that sounds complicated. But it’s not. If you can remember:

How you’re introducing the subject

What you’re teaching

How you’re applying it

How you’re wrapping up

You’ve learned your talk. Bingo.

If you have a total meltdown seconds before the big moment, just answer four questions on your way up the stairs onto the platform:

What do they need to know?

Why do they need to know it?

What do they need to do?

Why do they need to do it?

And then start talking. I promise you it will be a great talk.  Those four questions are powerful.

Now, three more quick points and we’re done.

3. Start early. The longer you live with a talk, the easier it will be to remember.

I write the basic series outline two months in advance, finish it a month in advance (including small group questions) and write the message early in the week. This gives it time to digest. Preaching is like a good stew – the longer it simmers, the better it tastes.

4. Review it. I usually read my message through a few times on Saturday night right before going to bed. I’ll get up early on a Sunday and read over it again several times.

Before I finish, I try to be 100% familiar with the key points in each of the big pieces of the talk (see above).

5. Deliver it. Just get up there and speak from your heart. If, while delivering your talk, you forget a point, move on. No one knew you were going to make it anyway, so just move on. They’ll thank you for being two minutes shorter.

That’s how I deliver a talk without using notes.

By the way, there is a ton of great information on writing and delivering talks at Preaching Rocket. Seriously great coaching! And you might also follow Nancy Duarte and Michael Hyatt on communication. I love what each of them are doing to help communicators get better.

Which of the above points do you find helpful? What would you add?

And finally…tell me, what’s your secret sauce?

One of the questions I get asked all the time is “how do you speak for 40 minutes without using notes?”

Personally, I actually have notes, but I rarely if ever use them when I speak. I prepare them because

Better preparation makes me a better speaker.

It clarifies my thinking.

It gives me something to review the day before the talk and the day of the talk.

When I give a sermon or talk, I almost always take them with me on the stage because they contain the scripture passages or teaching points that will be on the screen (so that helps me stay in sync with the computer operator who runs my slides), but other than that, I never use them during the talk.

But I didn’t start that way.

I remember that moment early in my ministry when I finally freed myself of notes. It was nerve wracking. (In the next post, I’ll look at how to deliver a talk without using notes. It’s actually not that hard, and it’s learnable.) But it was so rewarding. And you can do it too. But maybe you need some motivation first.

So let me jump to that. Whether you

are chained to your notes

refer to them often

glance frequently down for prompting or

keep referring to them nervously trying to remember the next point

using your notes almost always makes you less effective as a communicator.

So, why should you do the work and take the risk associated with freeing yourself from your notes? Let’s jump into some reasons. Because when you understand the why, you’ll be motivated to learn the what (next post).

There are at least seven good reasons to drop your notes:

1. Your favorite communicators don’t use notes. I’m going out on a limb here to guess that your favourite communicators don’t use notes. Why? Because the best rarely, if ever, do. People connect better with speakers who speak without notes. You do. So why not become one?

2. You come across like you mean it when you don’t use notes. This isn’t a good thing. It’s just a true thing. You might be 100% sincere when reading from your notes. But you don’t come across that way. When you read a talk, people think it’s coming from your head, not your heart. Or worse, they think it’s a series of points you’re supposed to believe but don’t. Freeing yourself up from your notes creates a much more believable message.

3. You will be far more natural. There’s a ‘reading voice’ and a ‘speaking voice’ people have. You will be far more conversational, engaging and natural when you speak without notes. And your body language will be 100% better.

4. You can make eye contact. That’s just huge. It’s annoying when people don’t look you in the eye when they talk to you. It’s completely disengaging when a public speaker doesn’t.

5. You will read the room better. So much of communication is non-verbal. While you can’t always see the audience when you talk (in the case of pre-recorded video or dark house lights), when you can, it’s invaluable. You can see which part of your talks are resonating, and which aren’t so you can linger longer or move on faster. You can see who’s leaning forward, and who’s falling asleep. It can help you track how you’re connecting.

6. You’ll own your material more deeply. When you have to ‘say it’ without notes, you’ll own it so much better. Learning your talk forces you to digest it, internalize and own it. As a result, your talk will be more compelling and authoritative. It just will.

7. You’ll be more vulnerable. Notes are safe. Speaking without them is more risky but more rewarding. Sure, you might mess up, but laugh at yourself. People will laugh with you.  They’ll like you because you’ll seem human, which, after all, you are.

Those are seven reasons I see for speaking without notes. What would you add? What helped you drop your notes along the way?