You may recognize the situation where someone (you) need to give a speech in a restaurant or bar. Colleagues, family and/or friends gather around to listen to the speech. As you know it is best practice to memorize the topics that you want to address / say during your speech, but you want to avoid forgetting to mention something. Therefore it may be helpful to have the topics / points outlined on a piece of paper.
But now you are at the bar and you realize that the place is rather dark. It is difficult to read the notes that you have written down on a piece of paper. How to avoid this? There are a couple of solutions. In this blogpost we mention one of these solutions which is related to the preparation. When people print the notes on a piece of paper it is usually printed in black letters on white paper. To make this more easily readable you could change the background colour of the paper into black and select the font of your notes to be white. Having white letters on a black background will make the text “pop” from the paper and will make it much easier for you to read the notes during your speech in a dark bar or restaurant.
Remember that it is never a good idea to have a speech written down word for word on a piece of paper and use that during your speech. Just write down the key words / topics that you need to cover during your speech. This should be sufficient as memory aid and won’t be too distracting. Note that the book Public Speaking Excellence comes with some bonus materials including a separate booklet with practical tips and tricks about giving a speech (available for a limited period).