Time Management: Presenting Wise!
As we promised at Premast we are going to cover different aspects of Presenting and the skills you need to nail it all. Time management is one of the skills we are always trying to master. I’m sure you have this in your search history,” how to manage my time?”, “How to manage my day” or “How to manage my life?” it’s always the same. We try to implement but hardly achieve it.
To relive you from the stress, today we are talking about a short period of time, you don’t have to commit this all your life. Try it, it would be useful we hope.
To manage your time while presenting is a core point here. It’s the same importance of the content you are sharing. To make everything clear, if you planned everything right and prepared perfectly but you missed to consider timing, your efforts will go to waste. Now we will divide the topic into two pieces, first how to manage time before presenting and how you will manage it while presenting. Let’s get into it with no further duo.
Before The Presentation
Three main points to discuss here, let’s name it “The 3Ps stages”. In order to have a wonderful presentation you need to give time for those three stages. Planning, preparing and practicing, shall we dig into it now!
Planning:
Min part of time management is planning, it’s knowing that for each minute planning there are 10 minutes execution, to plan your presentation a head. Starting with the topic you are speaking about to the content and the breaks. To set down and lay out the time frame you are having for example your presentation is 10 minutes. When you will start and when you will end and when you will give them a break. On what day you will work in documentations and when you will download a video you will use. Everything needs to be planned. Time management.
Planning mainly is putting a head every single move you will do and so every minute you will use. What will be done when?
Preparation:
Now we planned, let’s execute the first step. Preparing your presentation should be time ahead. Look at it as someone else; do these people who will talk about this topic are going to need only 10 minutes to get it done?
Reflecting from a stranger point of view, help you see things realistically. We plan to give a presentation in 15 minutes and we end up stretching it to 25 minutes. Because we didn’t prepare what we will say earlier, or we lost track of what is important. Decide the best system for you, highlight the main points you want to focus on, and then start working on your slides giving yourself a definite time to finish it on. Prepare for the place you will use, where people will set down and how the facilitations are going.
All this will reflect on the second phase, during giving the presentation itself.
Practicing:
Let’s love the mirror extra this week!
Practicing your presentation is the bill you will take to make a stunning one. All the experiment and statistics proved that repeating your speech over and over help you save all of it in your brain, practicing the pauses and when you will say a certain sentence with a certain move. This makes you act like you are improvising and getting it all at instant. It help you drop any papers or documentations that may help you remember, it’s like you are getting and feeling every word and the aim behind it.
While Presenting
This part is even more important, you are anxious and worried which is totally normal, we discussed it several times in other blog articles. Considering time management while presenting is like after studying you now go to exams. It’s time to implement what you have planned.
Use time right
First you should understand that you don’t need to talk all the time, there is different between the time of the presentation as a whole and the talk or presenting itself. Part of your presentation period should be dedicated to checking your audience state, checking the tools you are using and even at least one break to make sure they are still tuned in.
Another part here is time for questions, some expertise recommend having 20% of the time dedicated for Q&A. Ending with this part or give time once and a while presenting is your decision just make sure you are managing it right.
Calculate the time
Most presenters feel in the moment, they think 15 minutes is only 5. That causes them to keep talking and repeat sentences in order to fill the gap of time. The best thing you can do is calculating the time of your speech. You can even use a stop watch to make sure you are putting an eye on the time.
Add to that knowing when you will give your audience a break and the length of this break. If you are using gamification to deliver a point, how much this game is going to take and when we should stop. Starting with a 3 minutes video is a part of 10 minutes intro….all is calculated and known.
Share it with your audience
As we said in a previous article sharing the aim, the agenda and the schedule of your presentation give your audience a chance to help you throughout the presentation. Sharing this makes the attendees feel like it’s their responsibility to make this work out too. They understand the fast or slow base you are using and don’t rush into assumptions.
Time management while presetting is really important to get the best result out. Some of this ideas could be used in other situations. At the end to be honest managing your time is the key to manage your life and from there reaching your goals and making your dreams true.
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