Memorizing a speech word for word

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Probably the worst mistake you can make is to try to memorize a speech word for word. First of all, it isn’t really necessary. The assumption is that if you’ve been asked to deliver a speech on a particular subject, you know something about that subject.

Secondly, memorizing the speech word for word will make it sound that way when you deliver it—memorized. And, finally, when you memorize a speech word for word, you’re taking the chance of fumbling over one word you can’t remember. Why take that chance when there are probably dozens of other words that would do?

Reading a speech doesn’t work either, because you want to hold the group’s attention, and reading to them is likely to put them to sleep. Even if you occasionally look up at your audience as you read, it won’t help much. As a matter of fact, that’s the moment when you’re likely to lose your place and start hemming and hawing as you try to find it.

The best way to deliver a speech is to talk it in your own words, thought for thought. A speech is a sequence of thoughts; if the thoughts are out of sequence, the speech won’t make much sense. Now, you know how to use the Link system to remember things in sequence. The Link, plus one other idea, will help you to remember your speech thought for thought.

First, write out or type your speech, including all the things you want to say about all the ideas you think are important. Read it over to get the gist of it. Now for that “other idea”: Select a Key Word from each thought that will remind you of the entire thought.

This is easier to do than it might seem. There is rarely a thought, whether it is to be expressed in one sentence or two paragraphs, that cannot be brought to mind by one word or phrase. It is these Key Words (or Key Thoughts) that you Lin —at which point you have the speech memorized thought for thought!

Here are some excerpts from a talk delivered at a convention to a group of merchants and dealers selling the same line of products. The speaker was asked to talk about a sharp drop in profits over the previous two years and to suggest ways of doing something about it.

The talk originally took thirty-five minutes to deliver. Excerpts have been culled from it to demonstrate the Key Words or Thoughts that the speaker wanted to get across.

The problem is an obvious one. We’re all selling just as many of the product as we always have, but our profit margin has been drastically reduced. The reasons, too, are obvious. The cost of material and manufacture has gone up, and so have our prices. The trouble is that if we raise our prices any higher, we’ll lose sales. What we have to do is find ways to raise our profit margin.…

We have to get more people to walk in to our stores. Obviously, the more people that walk in to our stores, the more opportunities we have to make sales. Perhaps we can organize contests, etc.…

An important part of each of our businesses depends on building a good name in each of our local areas. There are many ways to do this; relaxing our “no return” policy.…

Our products are nationally advertised, but we haven’t been taking advantage of that at all. At least, not to my knowledge. We’ve got to plan local advertising to mesh with national advertising; blowups of the national ads in our windows should be considered, and.…

The new line, Starbright, Holly, Baby Soft, Meteor, and Honeymoon, is really good, and should help to stir up some fresh business. It’s been a long time since we had any new line of product at all.…

We also must work harder to turn bread and butter sales. Why should a customer walk out after buying only the item she came for? A little thought, and effort, would help toward finding ways to almost force the customer to buy at least one other item, perhaps just an accessory, to go with the one she bought. A two-for-one sale might work, or.…

And how can we make customers come back to the store? How many of you follow up a sale? How many of you take advantage of the names and addresses on your sales receipts that are gathering dust in your files? Use those names—send notes and notices of sales.…

The Key Words have been italicized within each of the thoughts of this talk. Let us emphasize that the speaker knew what he wanted to say about each thought—that wasn’t his problem. What he wanted to avoid was omitting an entire thought. Forming a Link takes care of that.

There are two ways to do this. You can either list or underline the Key Words, and then Link them; or you can Link them as you go. As you become more proficient, you’ll most likely Link the Key Words as you go.

Now. The first Key Word or Thought is profit margin. Use a Substitute Word to remind you of it. Perhaps your Ma is drinking gin and being paid for it—she’s making a profit. That will certainly remind you of the thought; if you were delivering this talk, either Ma gin or profit alone would suffice.

The next Key Word is walk in. Associate Ma gin and/or profit to that; a silly picture of your gin-drinking Ma walking in to a store will do it. The next Key Word is good name. Continue the Link; you might see a name (picture gigantic letters of your name, or a gigantic business card) that’s good, walking into a store.

Good name to nationally advertised. You might see your good name being on the cover of a national magazine.

Nationally advertised to new line. See a ridiculous picture of a long line of national magazines hot off the press—they’re new.

New line to bread and butter. See a long line of bread and butter.

Bread and butter to come back. Picture yourself calling a gigantic piece of bread and butter to come back.

Forming such a Link accomplishes two things. It forces you to concentrate on (to be Originally Aware of) the thoughts of the speech, and it will give you the sequence of thoughts. Knowing that you definitely have that sequence also gives you a confidence that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

Thinking of the first thought, Ma gin, is all you need to remind you that you want to talk about the reduction of the profit margin—so talk about it, say it in your own words. When you’ve said all you have to say about that, you’ll automatically be reminded of walk in. Since you wrote the speech, you’ll know just what walk in refers to; it will remind you of the entire thought. Just say what you want to say about getting people to walk in to the store.

If you made the ridiculous association, the Key Word walk in must remind you of good name. Talk about that; then good name will remind you of nationally advertised, at which point you say what you have to say about that thought. And so on, to the end of your speech.

You need only try this idea to see that it will work for you. You might be wondering what you’d do if you had a few facts to remember that pertained to a particular thought. For example, take the product names listed within the new line thought—you simply form an “oshoot” or “tangent” Link. That is, after you’ve formed your basic Link, go back to new line and form an offshoot Link of the names.

You might see a picture of a long line of bright stars; bright stars are forming a holly wreath on your door; you’re holding a holly wreath in your arms like a baby—it’s very soft; a baby is shooting across the sky like a meteor; two meteors are going on a honeymoon.

You’ll see, when you’re delivering the speech, that new line will lead you right through the shoot Link, reminding you of the product names. Then, you’ll still be reminded of the thought you originally associated to new line in the basic Link—bread and butter. If the products have style numbers, you can Link them, too—once you’ve learned how to picture numbers.

If, for some reason, you want to remember the speech virtually word for word, you’ll find that simply going over it a few more times will do the trick. Since you wrote the speech yourself, your own words would be the most likely ones to come to mind as you voiced each thought.

This same system—a combination of the Link and the Key Thought ideas—can be applied to reading material or lectures in almost exactly the same way. Simply Link Key Words as you read or listen. Applied to reading material, the idea forces you to read actively, with concentration; applied to lectures, it does the same thing. It’s difficult to allow your mind to wander when you’re listening for Key Words to remind you of thoughts. The next time you want to remember more of reading or lecture material than you usually do, try applying what you’ve learned here. You’ll be surprised at how much you retain.

The system can also be applied to song lyrics and scripts. Apply the same idea, then go over the material a few more times. It’s still necessary to remember the material thought for thought first; then you worry about word for word. The language itself is a memory aid—there are certain ways to say certain things. Once you definitely know the sequence of thoughts, the words tend to take care of themselves. If you know the thought, the worst that can happen is that you’ll say the line a bit differently from the way it was written; it’s when you don’t know the thought that you can really “go up” (have no idea what comes next).

One famous, award-winning actress has for some time applied these ideas to all her difficult-to-memorize scripts. In a letter, she wrote that the systems “make what is a usual drudgery part of the creative art!”
For now, you might want to apply the same basic idea to help you remember jokes and anecdotes. Two memory problems may have to be solved: remembering the joke in the first place, and remembering the idea of the joke, its premise and punchline.

To remember jokes, many professional comedians Link a Key Word or thought of one joke to the Key Word of the next, and so on. The comedian knows the jokes; he simply needs reminders of the jokes and their sequence. So, a Link of orange to politics to elephant to gas pump would be enough to remind a comedian to tell the joke about oranges, then the one about politics, and so on.

Remembering the idea and punchline of a joke is just as easy. Let’s remember this old gag:

“How do you make a Venetian blind?”

“Stick a finger in his eye!”

Simply form a silly association. Picture a venetian blind with one large eye on your window—see a gigantic finger going into that eye. That’s all. You’ll remember the idea and the punchline of the joke.

When you’re asked to deliver a speech or a presentation, this question may come to your mind often – should I try and memorize my entire speech?

Whether to memorize the speech or not is a personal choice but usually memorization often makes the speech look robotic and less genuine. To avoid this, one can try to understand the outline of the speech instead of word for word memorization. This will help you sound more genuine and at ease while delivering your speech.

Speakers have been debating this for a while. I personally have tried both – some speeches are memorized to the T while for others I simply know the outline of what I want to say. But in most cases, I prefer not memorizing. Here’s why:

What is the Problem With Memorizing a Speech?

Memorizing
your speech is not a bad thing. In fact, if you can memorize your speech, you
should! We’ll talk more about this later. But the problem with memorizing is
that if you haven’t memorized your speech well enough, there is a high chance of screwing up.

Here’s the thing, when we memorize, we’re counting on remembering our entire speech word by word. If we forget a sentence or two when we are on stage, it can be disastrous since we’re counting on one sentence to know the next!

An extensive article on How to Prepare for a Speech When You Have No Time to Prepare? has been written to help you with more such tips.

What to do Instead of Memorizing a Speech?

Prepare a Skeleton of Your Speech

Familiarize. Don’t memorize. Instead of memorizing your entire speech word for word, just create an outline of what you want to say.

This is kind of like “chunking” – a common technique speakers use to memorize their speeches. Break your speech down into chunks and create a skeleton of your speech instead of writing it out word for word.

For example, you may start off with an introduction into your topic, state the problem, move on to an anecdote ending with a solution and a call to action.

Have certain key points or “trigger words” for each of these chunks. It can be a great way for familiarizing yourself with the speech.

Visualize Your Speech

We tend to remember images better than words – you must have heard this before. So when you create a skeleton version of your speech each with its own trigger words, try creating a mental image of those trigger words.

This will help you create a mental picture of the entire flow of your speech. You can keep visualizing these images during routine tasks throughout the day to keep familiarizing yourself with the speech.

This might be a little hard to explain so let me give you an example.

This one time I was delivering a talk on music, on how music affects us emotionally in more ways than we think. The skeleton version of my speech went something like this – the power of music, music has been affecting us even before we were born, the role music has played in my life, why music is a reliable confidant, how we should approach music in today’s world.

The skeleton might come off as a little random to a second person, but it helped me familiarize myself with the speech.

Anyways, with each of the sub-topics, I attached a mental image to each of them – ‘the power of music’ was associated with epic rock concerts, ‘music has been affecting us even before we were born’ was associated with lullabies and so on.

When I was
showering, eating or commuting, I would just play these images in my mind on
repeat. It was much to remember this way rather than memorize the speech word
for word.

Talk About Real Experiences in Your Speech

When we
talk about real-life experiences, those that we have personally been through or
those that we have personally witnessed, it becomes easier to remember the
speech as opposed to when we talk about facts or stories that we are not
personally involved in.

The reason
for this is obvious – when we talk about personal experiences, we don’t have to
memorize anything, we are already familiar with what has happened so it becomes
easier to deliver the talk.

When
writing your speech, try and include real-life experiences along with whatever
message you want to communicate. It will reduce the pressure of memorizing and
help you deliver more naturally.

See What Comes Naturally to You

To make your speech delivery look authentic, it has to be authentic. When you’re practicing your speech, don’t stick to the script!

If some words or phrases are coming naturally, add them in. At the same time, if you feel anything is not feeling natural to you, cut it out!

Sometimes,
when we are writing a speech, we might use language which is suitable for
writing but not so much for speaking. When practicing, try and gauge what is
working/not working and edit your talk accordingly.

Practice and Practice some more!

Visualizing, chunking are all techniques to help familiarize yourself with your speech. It is not a substitute for actually practicing your speech.

No matter how much or how little time you have, practice your speech! There is no defined number of times you should practice your talk. It’s quite subjective depending on the length of your talk, how long you have to practice and so on.

You can read this article to learn more about practicing your speech. Just remember practice is key. Practice enough until your so familiar with your content that you can focus more on delivery.

To learn more about ways to practice your speech check out our article on Surprisingly Simple But Effective Processes to Practicing for a Speech.

If You Do Have Time to Memorize, Memorize!

While memorizing a speech is not recommended, there have been times when I have completely memorized my talk word for word…and it’s turned out great!

The thing is, memorizing, when done right, can help us internalize a speech so thoroughly that it comes out as something that is completely natural. When I memorize each word, I know how to use my body and voice at every point in my speech.

There is no room for error. I gesture at exactly the right time, I know exactly when to modulate my tone and everything flows with predictable smoothness.

But here’s the thing, this only works when I actually have a lot of time to practice: at least 12-15 days (or even more). Without the required time, memorizing a speech can be more harmful than useful, which is why most people recommend to familiarize yourself with the content instead of memorizing it.

However, if you do have the time and are comfortable with memorizing, don’t hold back! Memorize everything – each word, how you will say it, where you will look when you say it, what expression will your face hold, when to go fast, when to go slow – make it foolproof!

How to Memorize a Speech?

Write Down the Speech Word for Word

Start by writing down your entire speech word for word. The sheer act of writing what you plan on saying will help your brain absorb and remember most of your speech.

Read it Out Loud

After you’ve written your speech, read it out loud. The reason for this is that when we write, we tend to write words and phrases that sound good on paper when they are read. But they might not sound very appealing when spoken to an audience.

Reading it out loud will help you identify areas in your speech which can be tweaked to make it more suitable for a speech.

Hold the Notes and Speak in Front of a Wall or Mirror

Now it’s time to integrate body language and voice modulation. While holding the written speech in your hand, start saying it out loud to a wall or mirror as if you’re actually addressing an audience.

The purpose of this exercise is to understand when and where will you be using what part of your body along with the tone of voice. Choose where you want to commit a hand gesture, or where you want to go extremely loud, or where you want to pause and let the silence linger.

Doing this multiple times will be a much more effective way to learn and memorize not just the words of your speech but how you will deliver it as well.

This works much better than sitting down, reading a part of your speech, closing your eyes and repeating the same part until you have it memorized. Such a technique is completely rubbish in my opinion!

Memorize in a manner where you can practice and learn everything, not just your content. That way, you’re entire speech delivery will be flawless!

Don’t Worry about Perfection

That being said, don’t worry too much about being perfect. You don’t need to have every word memorized down to the T. When you’re practicing, if you feel certain words and phrases are not coming out exactly right but are still making sense, just continue!

If you try too hard to stick to the exact words you’ll over-stress yourself and have a good chance of forgetting a few words on stage.

Practice in a Super-fast Pace

This comes at a slightly later stage after you have done the ‘practice-in-front-of-wall’ exercise. Practicing just the content of your speech in a super-fast pace is a great way to test your brain. It will help you point out gaps that your brain has still not been able to fully memorize in the flow of your speech.

Don’t worry about whether you’re sounding like you’ve memorized your speech or not. Memorizing your speech in a manner that uses body language and voice modulation will not make your speech sound memorized, it will make you look prepared.

How Long Does it Take to Memorize a Speech?

A speech that is 1-2 minutes long might take about 30 to 45 minutes to memorize, including the writing of the speech as well as the repeated practices. However, this is entirely subjective and depends on the person’s memory and grasping power. 

If a speech is long, as in 10 minutes, then it might take a little longer. It is advisable to prepare a few days in advance for a 10-minute long speech. In order to be thorough with the speech, an ideal time of 5 days should be enough to memorize a speech that is 10 minutes long. 

Keep in mind to not keep long speeches for the last minute.

How to Memorize a Speech Overnight?

Memorizing a speech overnight might seem difficult but it’s not! Apart from the above mentioned tips, there are a few other tips to be kept in mind if you have limited time to prepare.

1. Write or Type-up Your Speech

Start by writing or typing your speech as mentioned above. This will help you in memorising the main key points that you wish to deliver.

2. Rehearse in front of a Friend

Practice your speech in front of a friend or a family member. This will help you understand your voice modulation, pauses and what areas of speech you would like to focus on. 

Moreover, also try incorporating the feedback that you receive from your friend. Feedbacks always help you improve!

But what if you are not around a friend? Well, then the next point is for you!

3. Record a Video

In order to be thorough with the contents of your speech, try practicing it as much as possible. Recording a video of you delivering the speech often serves as a good way to learn more about the areas of improvement.

You can also send this recorded video to your friends and family members, asking them for their feedback.  

4. Memory Palace Technique

If your speech is too long and consists of a variety of different topics, it might be a little difficult to memorize everything. This is when you can use the memory palace technique. 

In this technique, split your topics into bullet points. After this, try associating every bullet point to an object. By doing this, it is easier to remember the topics of your speech. Hence, the number of bullet points is equal to the number of objects.

For instance, if you are giving a speech on the topic India’s 74th Independence Day. By using the memory palace technique, I will associate the subtopic of India’s freedom struggle to the seats in front of the stage. Furthermore, the topic of India’s growing prosperity can be associated with the stage curtain and so on. 

Here, I have tried associating the topics to objects on and around the stage. You can try and associate objects from your room or kitchen as well!

5. Get Enough Rest

To give a flawless speech, it is important for your brain to rest and for your body to take a break. Take enough sleep before the presentation. Also, taking proper meals and hydrating your body is also important to memorize your speech. 

If you want to learn more about how to prepare for a speech without having enough time to prepare, read our article on How to Prepare for a Speech When You Have No Time to Prepare?

Apps for Memorizing Speeches?!

In case you didn’t know, there are apps for memorizing speeches. Amazing?! Isn’t it?
Here, we’ve listed a few apps that might help you with memorizing your speech.

1. Learn Your Lines

This app uses 3 modes of memorization. The ‘Read Mode’ helps you to listen and repeat the lines whereas the ‘Memorize Mode’ blurs out certain parts of the text to test your knowledge and the ‘test’ part allows you to perform your lines which are assessed by the app. 

This app is totally free and also has a good ranking. However, there are certain complaints of redoing the entire thing if there is a typo. This is an iOS app and can be downloaded by clicking on the following link. 

Here’s the link to download the app. 

2. Memorize Lines By Heart

If you find games as a good way to deal with line retention, this could be a solid match for you. This app takes your lines and blacks out certain words until you know the entire piece by heart. 

It’s like putting together a puzzle! All you have to do is import a file in the PDF format and choose how many words you want to hide. There is also an option to set the pace of scrolling of the article. 

However, there are some purchases to be made if this app is downloaded. 

Click here to download the app.

3. Memorize By Heart

This app is for all the android users out there! This app helps you in memorizing your text by various games and activities. After selecting the text which is to be learnt, the app gives you sometime to read it by yourself. 

After completing this, comes the round of scrambled sentences where you are supposed to reorder the jumbled sentences. Next is the round of missing letters and words, where you have to identify the word. 

The memorization doesn’t stop here and now, there is an interesting activity where you have to type out the first letter of the consecutive word, helping you to memorize the content better. 

The next step involves an audio of the selected text as many people remember better by hearing. Lastly, the app asks you to speak your speech and gives a score, which is the difference between what you said and what is correct. 

With an average of 4.5 rating, the app proves to be quite helpful. The premium version of the app also involves more games such as multiple choice questions.

Click on the link to download this app.

Be it a presentation or a conference meeting, you can now sound confident with these apps helping you give a killer speech. 

How to Memorize a Speech in Another Language?

1. Make Sure You are Familiar with the Language

Before giving a speech in a foriegn language, it is important to make sure that you are familiar with the language. Not knowing the language at all can be risky and there are chances of you screwing up.

In case you are not very familiar with the language, make sure to be around a person who knows the language well enough. This will help you with your pronunciations. Moreover, it will also be beneficial if you can practice in front of that person. 

2. Using the Repetition Technique

By repeating the words/ sentences, your brain will start absorbing words from the new language, making it easier to grasp. 

3. Spaced Repetition Technique

4. Practice Daily

Giving speech in a foreign language can be tricky and hence, one should practice as often as possible.

Is it Ok to Read a Speech?

If you’re really strained on time, don’t panic. Just follow the above steps so you have an idea of what you are going to say.

You can then carry a summary of your speech in bullet points up on stage and read them out as well.

Unless there is a rule in the place you are speaking at that you absolutely cannot use notes, don’t hesitate to carry them on stage.

If you feel that this may make you look like a less credible speaker, think about it this way – it’s better to read your speech as opposed to going up on stage without notes and forgetting what to say mid-way.

This, however, does not mean you take your entire speech up there and read it word for word. That will kill your audience’s attention and make you sound robotic.

Just carry a few cards or one paper with bullet points of your speech. Let the notes be as a guide to you, don’t let the notes be the entire speech.

As you go through the points, elaborate on them as per your understanding. Many great speakers take notes up with them before big speeches, but they don’t read them word for word. You still have to use your voice and body to communicate the message that you are supposed to.

If and when you do take notes with you on stage, ensure that they are written in a big font. You shouldn’t have to strain your eyes to understand what you have written. One quick glance should be enough to know what your next point is.

While you
might be struggling with this debate on memorizing, just remember that as long
as you are confident in the message you are delivering, the exact words can be
improvised. Many times we want to make our speech just perfect, and we feel we should have everything planned out and
memorized. If that is possible, then do it! But in most cases, it’s best to
know what you want to say, why you’re saying it and, with a little
bit of practice, the how will follow.

It’s the big day! Time is running out and you have yet to work on memorizing your speech. The only problem is, you’re due to give your presentation very soon. In fact, you have less than an hour to go. What do you do? I get emails asking me all the time if it is possible to memorize a speech in only an hour. Today, I am going to tell you how it can be done with a simple tips and tricks.

How do you memorize a speech in less than an hour? Instead of memorizing your speech word-for-word, work off of an outline. Create a “memory palace” in your imagination to help recall key facts easier. Visualize images that you can associate with parts of your speech.

Are you are still worried about how you’re going to memorize your speech in one hour? Put your worries aside, because we are going to dive deep into this topic today. And I will have you mastering memorization techniques in no time. We’ve only got an hour, so let’s jump right in!

As a side note, I wrote a short article about the best public speaking books for those who want to become better speakers. Check out these books here.

Have you ever sat in the audience at a presentation by one of your favorite speakers, and found yourself enthralled by them? You sit hanging on their every word, and you wonder to yourself how you could ever be as good a speaker as they are. And if they are reading without notes, you may be wondering how on Earth they memorized that speech. But everyone is human. And chances are, they did not memorize an entire script word-for-word. Your favorite speaker may be improvising more than what you think.

And when everyone is giving a speech, everyone must also learn the steps of how to memorize what they’re going to talk about. Whether you are using notes or no notes, you want to know how to memorize your topic in an hour or less.

For the purpose of this article, we are going to assume that you are not going to be speaking at your engagement while reading a full script. After all, if you have a full script, what do you need to memorize anything for?

Ideally, you won’t be memorizing a full script anyway. There is evidence that shows that writing a full speech word-for-word can sound less than authentic. Not to mention, it is also much harder to remember a full manuscript than it is to remember key bullet points.

Memorizing Your Speech Helps Increase Audience Engagement

When you aren’t looking down at a script or note cards the entire time, you are free to engage the audience. You can give eye contact, use descriptive gestures, move around the stage, and anything else you can imagine!

These things help you connect more freely with your audience during your presentation. After all, these things make you look like more of a human being and less of a pre-programmed robot.

However, if you ended up on this page somehow because you are interested in using notes during your speech, be sure to check out my comprehensive guide here about speaking with notes.

Stay Calm, No Matter the Circumstances

There might be a lot on your mind when you think about memorizing a speech to give in front of an audience. And it is a well-known fact that most people have a fear of speaking in public. But if you let your anxiety get the better of you, then you will find it much harder to be able to recall anything you are trying to memorize. If you get too nervous, your mind may even blank, and you could end up forgetting your entire speech altogether.

Make sure that you are hydrated, well-fed, and well-rested before your speech. If you are starting to get nervous, take a few deep breaths to calm yourself down. Try to take a confident stance, since this can help you feel less anxious in front of your audience.

Start by Working From an Outline

No matter how you are giving your speech, you should always start with an outline. If you have an outline prepared before you start the process of memorization, that is best. If you do not have an outline or any notes or anything to prepare you, take some time to sit down and draw a tentative outline with a pencil and piece of paper.

Remember, an outline is not a full script! You are only writing out the ideas and topics that you are planning to talk about. You are also writing a general order that you plan to cover these topics in. The order of your topics is up to you. If you order things in a way that allows one thing to flow naturally into another, you will have an easier time recalling key facts and ideas.

Your outline can be as in-depth as you want it to be. Or it can be just as simple as you want it to be, too. If you choose a simple approach, you can go with bullet points that illustrate each part of your speech.

For example, you would write down something like:

• Introduction
• Budget
• Marketing
• Production
• Questions
• Closing

Ideally, you should use very specific keywords that help you remember what you were speaking about. And it is okay to write some descriptive language next to your words! This will help you during the memorization process.

A good reason why you may plan in this way is to allow yourself more freedom to be spontaneous during your speech. For example, saying you get to “marketing”, and you think of something great to say at the moment while you are onstage. This is the kind of freedom that you can’t get without a full script.

Remembering what order the bullet points are in your outline may be a challenge for you, but the following tips will help you with your overall memorization quest.

Once You Have Your Outline, Use it to Memorize Your Speech

The clock is ticking, so grab your outline and start reading through it! Now is the time to memorize your bullet points, and what you plan to say for each. Remember, you are pre-planning your general topics, and not what you are going to say word-for-word.

As you go through each bullet point, practice out loud what you are going to say to your audience. This practice will help you commit your ideas to memory faster than reading a word-for-word script. As you practice, look into the mirror so that you can keep an eye on your body language.

You may find that incorporating certain hand gestures and movements may help you remember certain things that you want to speak about. (And if you need more advice for speaking with your hands, see my article here.)

While you are reading through your outline, now is also the time to assign descriptive imagery, or a useful “memory palace” to the things that you want to remember to say.

Visualize the Right Imagery to Help You Remember

Did you know our memory for imagery is better than our memory for words?

Images are very powerful triggers that help us remember things. If you are giving a PowerPoint presentation, some of your slides may be helpful in remembering key parts of your speech. However, you should not rely on your slides alone to memorize your presentation.

When you are practicing reading through your bullet points, visualize different images that go with different parts of what you are saying. Maybe for marketing, you will visualize a pie chart. And maybe if you are talking about insurance, you will picture an insurance salesman going from door to door in a small neighborhood.

To make your visual imagery most effective, try organizing the images in your mind to things that fit together. It is especially useful if the things you visualize go together with the topics that you are talking about. If you picture things like a flowing story-line, this may help you remember the order of things you were talking about with ease.

What Is a “Memory Palace” and Does it Help Memorization?

When you are trying to memorize a speech in an hour, a memory palace can be a lifesaver. But what is a memory palace, and how do you create one? This technique has been around for thousands of years. In fact, Shakespeare has used it. It was also referred to in works by Sherlock Holmes.

The “memory palace” can be thought of as mentally building a home for yourself. The “furniture” in your home is the key parts of your speech that you want to remember to talk about. And while it can take an average of 20 minutes or so to build a memory palace in your mind, it can be incredibly worth it for when you want to recall that information. And, it takes less than an hour!

You could also imagine yourself walking through a familiar location. All of the items in your location correspond with different parts of your speech. Take what time you have to carefully assign the bullet points of your outline to different objects in your memory palace location.

Just remember, you can choose any location that you want for your memory palace. What may work best for you may not for another speaker and vice versa.

And then as you are onstage, just picture yourself walking through your memory palace. This will help you remember key facts faster than trying to memorize them word-for-word. As time allows, let yourself “walk through” your memory palace as many times as you can before your speech. This will help you increase the speed at which you can remember what you intended to say.

Try Timing Yourself During Your Practice

When you go to memorize your speech, do a quick run-through. That is, practice your speech out loud in the same way you would read it to the audience. Time yourself using a stopwatch. If you don’t have a stopwatch available to you, many modern smart phones have stopwatch technology built-in as part of an app.

Be prepared for a time limit

This is especially important if your speech has a time limit. After all, you don’t want to run too far over your time. And if you are supposed to be speaking for a certain amount of time, you don’t want your speech to run too short, either. It is good to know in advance how long you should be speaking for so you have time to adequately practice.

Instead of a stopwatch, you could also set a timer for a certain amount of time that you want to have your speech memorized by. An hour may not seem like much, but if watching the time tick down could be a big motivator for you to work harder to memorize the main details of your speech.

Just don’t let the time constraint make you nervous! Nervousness leads to forgetfulness. Whenever possible, just stay calm!

Make the best of your time

When you are trying to memorize a speech in a short time, make the best of your time. If you are only spending a few minutes on your speech, and the rest of your time scrolling through Facebook on your phone?

You are distracted, and multi-tasking is not conductive to proper memorization. Shut off your phone, stay in a quiet place, and get yourself away from all distractions. When time is of the essence, you must focus completely on what you want to remember.

There Are Some Simple Ways to Increase Your Overall Memory

If you want to make sure your memorization will be at it’s best, there are a few general things that you can do in order to increase your brainpower. Here are a few tips you can utilize:

Sleep

Make sure you are getting adequate sleep. Exhaustion leads to forgetfulness, and sleep is the time when your brain helps to store long-term memories to your subconscious.

Physical exercise

Regular physical exercise helps when you are trying to better your memory. If you have the time, it would be a good idea to get a little light exercise before your speech. And if you have room to move around a little onstage during your presentation, that would also be a good idea.

Eat

Hunger leads to more forgetfulness. Make sure you are eating a satisfying meal before your presentation, and even before you are trying to memorize your speech.

Remember: Alcohol Affects the Memory

If you are thinking of memorizing your speech while you are under the influence of alcohol, don’t do it. When you rely on your memory to get you through, you absolutely have to be sober at the time. This is something I remind students all the time, especially if they are college-aged.

While I always advise my students to give sober speeches, I realize that you may be memorizing your speech at a time when you are not about to go give it right afterward. Maybe you are trying to memorize it the night beforehand because you will be pressed for time the next morning. But if you are drinking that night and show up the next morning hungover? You may not be able to recall anything you were trying to memorize. 

What to do in the Event if You Forget Part of Your Speech

It might sound like a nightmare to be up on the stage, and realize you can’t remember what you were going to say. Nightmare or not, it happens to all of us at some point. The first thing you need to know is that the audience is forgiving, and this is not the end of the world!

If you lost your place or realize that you forgot a key part of your speech, the first thing you should do is keep yourself calm; do not panic! Take a sip of water if you have any available, and take a few seconds to regain yourself. For many, just this moment of composure may help you remember what you were going to say.

But if you don’t regain your memory? Here are some things to try if that happens.

Go back to your last point

Try going back to what you were just saying, and try re-stating your last point. Once you get started talking, you may recall the next thing you were going to say. If re-stating your last point doesn’t help, then try going back to the beginning and re-stating the main point that you started your speech with.

Interact with your audience!

Try taking a few questions in the mean-time, which might be able to help you think of your forgotten words. You can also be honest with your audience by gently laughing and saying you lost your place. Someone just may be able to shout-out and telling you what you were saying.

It is good to be honest, and your audience will enjoy seeing that you are relatable and human. Just be sure to be professional about it.

Back to the memeory palace

Try to tap back into your memory palace, or picture what your visual imagery is that you worked on memorizing earlier.

Keep talking

Keep talking, and moving forward. If you keep talking, this may help you circle around again and remember what you were going to say. This may be a good time to improvise.

Make a joke

Think of a joke to lighten the mood, and relax you a little bit. This may relieve some of your anxiety and help get your brain feeling comfortable enough to remember again. If you feel confident enough, you can also joke about losing your place.

Make a pause

Make use of a pause, just as long as you don’t get stuck and look like you’re freezing up indefinitely. (read more about 13 Effective Ways How to Make Speech Pauses)

Let yourself forget

When in doubt, just keep moving forward and let yourself forget. If you’ve tried a handful of things and you still can’t remember, you might just have to let something go. Nobody is perfect and there are always bound to be mistakes made. Don’t beat yourself up for your mistakes, and allow yourself to learn from them.

Remember, everyone forgets things from time to time. I have even fallen victim to forgetting what I was going to say when I’m onstage. Try not to worry about the possibility that you may forget something. Instead, focus on staying positive! Positivity is much more conducive to memorization, anyway.

Conclusion: How to memorize a speech in less than an hour

Some of the tactics we described using were creating a helpful outline, utilizing a memory palace, practicing your memorization sober, and more. Do you have any other techniques you would like to recommend for memorizing a speech in less than an hour? You can feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments section.

Do you feel like you are getting better at memorizing your speeches, but you still would like some more tips on how to speak like a pro? Go here to read 27 tips from seasoned speaking pros!

Related Questions

Is it better to memorize my speech or use notes? Ask the venue you are speaking at if you are allowed to use notes. There is nothing wrong with using notes, or not using notes. Try practicing both ways and see which you like better. Ask a trusted friend or mentor which method they recommend.

How long does it take to memorize a speech? With the right practice methods, it is possible to memorize a speech in an hour or less. However, if you have more time available than that, you might want to use all the time available to you in order to properly memorize your speech.

What can I do to improve my memory? Decrease alcohol consumption. Get adequate sleep, nutrition, and exercise on a daily basis to improve your memory. Do what you can in order to decrease your stress levels. Regular laughter and time spent with family and friends can help with memory recall, as well.