By Kari Ann Buckvold
My first speech, the Icebreaker, led me to believe that organizing a speech was easy. It wasn’t hard to come up with 4-6 minutes of talking points about myself—a topic I knew all too well. But the next speech project, “Research and Presenting,” was another story.
Toastmaster Projects include a blank outline intended to be filled out with elements of a speech. But that presupposes that I already know what I want to talk about. I often have an idea, but I don’t always have all the pieces or the order I want to put them in.
Even if I’m knowledgeable about the subject, it’s bewildering to face a blank outline. That single sheet is foreboding, daring me to carve the structure and contents of my speech in stone when I might only have a handful of ideas to start. I have gotten a mental block just looking at it.
The whole step of gathering and organizing the information seems to fuel procrastination. But I’ve come up with a solution to free my creativity. I carry around blank cards to capture bits of information as I think of them.
CARRY BLANK CARDS TO CAPTURE IDEAS
Index cards or post-its work, but since I write very small and I like to be able to see many cards at once when laid out, I like to write on the back old business cards. It might take trial and error to find out what tools work best, but it’s worth exploring because of the overall benefits of carrying around blank cards.
The cards allow me to collect information and ideas on the move. I can quickly organize them into groups and sequences. The best part is the ability to store ideas and speeches for future reference. Not to mention being able to quickly insert a new idea card anywhere into the deck at a moment’s notice.
The mere act of carrying around my business card case reminds me to be observant, and stay focused on the topic I plan to present. Like a string tied to my finger, when I see and feel the case, I’m reminded to be on the lookout to capture ideas as they present themselves to me.
Prior to carrying idea cards around, an idea would pop into my mind and I’d spend the rest of the day trying to remember that thought. Worse yet, I’d forget it all together like Edgar Allan Poe’s remark, “If you wish to forget something on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.”
Having my card case full of blank cards allows me to take out a card and write down every important random thought, freeing me to take care of other things in life until I’m ready to start organizing my speech. And, should the thought spark my imagination and generate more thoughts, I can quickly reduce those ideas to writing as well—allowing me to collect thoughts anytime and anywhere.
ORGANIZING MY THOUGHT CARDS
Chances are I will have ideas…a lot of ideas…too many ideas for one speech.
This is when I place the cards on a table and arrange them into groups or themes. If I know my thesis in advance, the task is simple. But more often than not, I explore various grouping of cards to find a suitable thesis for my audience. It’s like playing ANAGRAM with ideas, there’s more than one way to present an idea.
Once I develop my theme and my statement of success, the next step is fairly easy. I select the relevant cards and arrange them in sequential order. I usually create a new series of cards for each speech and mount them on cardboard, using a few keywords to practice memorizing the only structure of the speech—instead of memorizing the speech word for word.
When I complete a speech, I gather the card series and the original notes with a binder clip. I’ll place a title card on top of the deck that includes the title of the speech, when and where I presented, and any awards that I won. This is placed in a box for long term storage should I be asked to present the same speech to another group or audience.
Keeping my source cards allows me to generate other approaches to the speech to customize the topic for another audience. This also empowers me to dig deeper into the technical aspects of a topic should an audience appreciate finer details.
At the end of the day, I have a box of speeches that I can use for multiple purposes. It is also a reminder of how far I’ve come in my Toastmasters journey. Most importantly, I have a convenient method for easily collecting ideas and themes for speeches as I go about my normal daily life.
© 2021 by Kari Ann Buckvold