Worry less about memorization: the beads on a string vs chunk methods

The following is my perspective (Elaine P.); there are certainly other ways to approach this. Let’s talk about how and how much we memorize prepared speeches (at the beginning, you may want to use notes - and that’s fine, but this assumes that you’ve moved beyond needing them). Early in our public speaking journeys, we may feel we have to memorize things word for word. Some of us are good at this, but it creates a vulnerability. I call it the “beads on a string” problem: if you can’t remember the 17th bead (sentence), it can arrest you in your tracks! How do you get to the 18th bead and the rest of your talk when the 17th bead has gone missing? I feel there’s a better way.

With the “chunks” method, you independently learn small chunks such as paragraphs. These are complete thoughts that can, to a limited degree, be stated in varying orders. You can practice them in different orders too; you don’t always need to go from the beginning to the end. Sometimes, for example, you start in the middle (especially useful when preparing a long speech), or you put extra work into the chunks that seem hardest to remember. 

What happens if you forget a chunk during your speech? Since these are complete thoughts, you can leapfrog over the forgotten chunk and go to another one that logically follows. As you’re talking, you’ll realize one of two things. Either your audience is missing something they need to fully grasp the subject and it will jog your memory as to what the forgotten chunk is, which you can then insert into the point you’re at. Or you find that it’s not really important that the forgotten part was left out, because your speech is still coherent without it. Only you will know that the talk didn’t go according to plan, and your audience will just hear a smooth presentation.

How accurately do you need to memorize these chunks? I suggest: not accurately at all. You want to be able to get out the gist of the chunk with whatever words come to mind. That way, you don’t panic if you forget the wording; you stay connected to the meaning that you want to convey, thereby developing confidence that you can come up with the wording you need on the fly. 

How do you test your ability to do that? While the speech is still in rough form, write down a bulleted summary list of your chunks using the briefest description you can. Using that as your notes, practice getting through your speech out loud multiple times. You’ll see that it comes out differently each time - that’s great! This lets you know that even if you have a preferred way of delivering the material, one way or another, you’re going to be able to get to your conclusion, freeing you from being a slave to exact memorization.

Note that I said “out loud” - something different happens in the brain when you say words out loud rather than just think them. Out loud makes it stick. So find the most private area of your home and enunciate away! Recording yourself and listening to multiple iterations of your talk is also a good learning tool, both for refining your talk and for memorizing it.

In the final stage of preparation, pay more attention to the transitions between the chunks (the first and last sentences of each), so that you’re comfortable you know your preferred chunk order and how to get from one chunk to the next. You can even extract just those first and last sentences in a written list and run through them separately so that you’re especially familiar with them.

There are 2 areas of your talk that you should memorize more carefully than the rest: the Introduction and the Conclusion. You want these to be especially strong because they are what the audience will remember most due to the phenomena of “primacy” and “recency” (see the April 2025 edition of Toastmasters Magazine for more on this). Also, for me personally, the time I’m most likely to blank out/freak out is when I first walk up on stage, so I really want to know my Intro. 

With this method, I believe you’ll feel more ease in delivering your speech, because it won’t depend on having a flawless memory. Questions or comments on this topic? Feel free to talk to me about it after a meeting.

For more tips, check out this TM article.