Speaking Membership

Memory Map in Detail

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The Learning Well Memory Map in detail

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Introduction

The Speaking Well uses The Learning Well Memory Map to provide a step-by-step guide for you to follow in order to greatly improve your ability to deliver speeches, talks, and presentations in the public arena no matter what the size of your audience or the occasion.

How?

By taking your ideas or content and putting them onto a Memory Map you will be able to learn and remember your speech.

With this method you do not need to know your speech word for word.

The best speakers do not need to memorize every word of their speeches, talks or presentations, they know broadly what they want to say and they know the order that they want to say it in.

By using a map to set out the broad content and the structure of your speech it will help you in both writing it and very much with delivering it.

After producing a Memory Map if you do not feel confident that you can remember your speech or presentation without notes, you can have the Map to hand when delivering it and glance down and see what you want to say and then say it.

It’s easy when you know how as the location for each part of your speech is clear on the Map and it is therefore very clear in helping you to speak.

Remember, to give a great talk you do not need to remember every single word of it; all you have to remember is the broad content and the structure that you wish to follow as set out on the Memory Map.

The Memory Map will help you to find your voice.

Structure and confidence

You can use Memory Mapping to give you the structure and therefore the confidence to talk on anything you want.

Memory Mapping is a really clear method of taking ideas and content and putting them in a way so that you can see them and remember them.

If you look at a page of writing or set of notes, you can see all those words and ideas on a page but where are they when you either close the page or look directly at a page? Can you easily see or remember them?

Memory Mapping is a way to take the ideas off the page and put them in an easy to see and remember form so that you will know where to find your ideas and content.

You will see how the ideas and content all connect together and if you use the system you will remember them or have them available to you at a glance on the Map itself.

We will now take you through in detail how to produce and use these Memory Maps.

How to make a map

To help you understand the process we are going to use a Memory Map that explains all about Memory Maps. You can see this Map here on the site.

To produce a Memory Map the first thing you need is a sheet of A4 paper. Use it landscaped as this uses the space in a much better way than portrait.

You start off with a central idea for your speech.

Here the idea we are talking about is a Memory Map.

Put this idea in words in the middle of the page with a line around it. Any shape will do – oval, square… We happen to like oval shapes and so we have an oval shape around the words ‘Memory Map’.

The key to memory mapping is using words. As you can see from our example, there are words throughout the Memory Map.

You can see that there are another 6 words linked to that central idea.

On this map these other words are:

A4 Paper, Guidelines, Location, Imagination, Easy, More

These are the main points to learn about the core idea of producing ‘Memory Maps’ and their use as an aid in delivering speeches.

Our view is that putting 6 main words and locations on the A4 Paper linked to the central idea is preferable to using more than this.

So we have chosen 6 as the optimum number of main points to remember about the subject of a talk or presentation.

This Memory Map is about Memory Maps and uses the above 6 related ideas, but of course as we have already seen the subject of a memory map could be just about anything.

Each of these 6 words are in a separate location on the Map and in delivering a talk on Memory Maps I would use the words and their location to help me.

I would talk about ‘A4 paper’ first, followed by Guidelines, and work my way clockwise around the Map until I got to my final word and its location. As you can see this word is ‘More’.

Each of the 6 main ideas then has linked to it other related ideas or points. The linkage is created by lines that guide from one idea to the next, these are called Guidelines.

You can also see that the closer a word or idea is to the middle of the page the more important it is.

So, the lines are there to connect the ideas or content and for you to show the links between them.

When the Memory Map deals with Guidelines it links the relevent ideas like this:

Memory Map – Guidelines – Words, middle, importance

And also

Memory Map – Guidelines – Lines

So, when I get to talk about the subject of Guidelines I would talk about the sub-points of ‘Words’, ‘Middle’ and ‘Importance’ and second talk about ‘Lines’.

Have you noticed that when explaining memory maps that we always follow the content of the map around in a clockwise direction?

First we explained the A4 Paper, then the Guidelines and next we are going to explain Location as it is the next thing on the Memory Map. And after that? You’ve guessed it, the next explanation will be on Imagination, because that is the next location on the map in a clockwise direction.

Location is the place for memory.

What do I mean?

IF YOU CAN PUT AN IDEA IN A LOCATION, IT WILL DRAMATICALLY HELP YOUR MEMORY.

You already know that the core idea of the speech or talk is put in the middle of the Memory Map.

A4 paper is the first subject on the Memory Map, and where is it?

If you close your eyes and think where is the A4 Paper? A4 paper is to the left and to the side, slightly above the central words Memory Map.

Now you have the location, the words, and the links for all the ideas associated with the A4 sheet of paper.

So when you try and remember something, you go to a place. A place that is not only on the A4 paper it is also in your mind.

By going to a location you can more easily remember something in the same way that you can remember things that happened in a real place. It is really easy to remember ideas when you can link them to a place or location. This is one of the reasons that The Learning Well Memory Map works so well.

By having 6 main ideas in locations on the Memory Map, each time you use a map you have a location framework to follow. So when they go back to the map it is very easy to go to those set places and remember the things you need for your speech.

This makes the Memory Map a great memory tool.

Words will trigger images in your imagination. So our next main idea and place on the Memory Map (bottom right hand corner) has the word Imagination.

3 lines branch of from the word ‘imagination’.

The first line leads to the word Colour.

So far all the words on this Memory Map have been in black.

Using colour on a Memory Map is great for helping you remember. Not only are you going to a place or location to help you remember, but that place will be in colours helping you remember the subject of the talk.

To help you remember this idea the letters of the word COLOUR are in various colours.

The second line leading from the word imagination leads to the word Images.

Just as you can add colour to help the memory you can also add images.

The trick is to keep it really simple. Using images on Memory Maps is not about producing a work of art. It is just about doing a simple thing that helps trigger the memory, something simple, including symbols, to help you remember.

So if we go back to the Memory Map where it refers to Location, the first point made there was memory. To remember this point on memory, we have chosen to put an elephant because elephants are supposed to have a good memory.

That is all you will need. It does not have to be a great drawing of an elephant, a trunk and ears would be fine. It is just that when you go back to that place, not only do you see the word memory, you also see the elephant and this helps you remember the point being made.

It’s as simple as that, images that help you remember can be put wherever you like.

For example, if we go back to the location on the map where we explained about the A4 sheet of paper and words, these words are the important words, they are the key words so if we put in a little key beside the word ‘words’, it will help you remember the point being made.

Remember the key need only be very simply drawn. It is just an aid to help you remember.

The third line leading from the map location for Imagination is the word Exaggeration. So far we have made all the words on the Memory Map the same size. Here though we’ve exaggerated this word above all the others to make it memorable.

A word can stand out. You can make a word big, you can make it small, you can change the font of a word so that when go back to that place on the Memory Map or in your mind, you can see an exaggerated word or a different font.

This enables you to remember, because it is something that is different, something that stands out. So if you go back to the location on the map for the key words, you could make the drawn key a big key, it now stands out and helps you remember.

Have you noticed that what we are doing is to add things on to the basic idea of having words on the Memory Map.

In addition to Words we now have other things to help you remember your speech, talk, or presentation.

We therefore now have:

Words, Location, Colour, Images, and Exaggeration.

All these five things will help you remember all about the core idea of your talk as set down in the middle of the page, which in our example is Memory Maps.

Following on around the Memory Map for teaching about Memory Maps we can see from the fifth location on the Map that the beauty of Memory Maps is that they are Easy to do and really simple. It is so simple to either print out or draw the framework and fill in the words.

The whole point about doing this with just words and then adding all the colour and the symbols is that you are getting the ideas down quickly. You can then decide what you want to add on.

Linked to the word Easy is the therefore the word Speed.

Speed is really important. Doing it quickly keeps you flowing. If you are doing it fast, you will feel that it is an easy thing to do.

It is also very Practical and simple to use so that you will want to use Memory Maps again and again.

Simplicity is the key to Memory Mapping.

As you can see in the sixth and last location on this Memory Map, you can always add More to your memory map and therefore Improve it.

If you are having difficulty remembering something, just make a change that sticks in your mind. In the case of this map that we have been working through, maybe the elephant blows his trumpet.

Now you have sounds to help you remember as well words, location, images, colour and exaggeration.

Please remember a Map is a memory tool first; it’s not about creating a piece of art.

The principles of the Memory Map work

Memory Maps are interesting, enjoyable, and fun and by learning the skills set out you will provide a structure for your speeches, talks and presentations making them much easier to remember and deliver.

The truly wonderful thing about The Learning Well Memory Map is that the Map locations for what you want to say will become fixed in your mind thereby increasing your confidence and making speeches and presentations so much easier.

Even if you feel that you can’t remember what it is that you want to say, it is available at a glance on your Map.

If you learn and use the Learning Well Memory Map technique it will lead to a fantastic improvement in your ability to deliver speeches, talks and presentations.

The more times you use a Memory Map to prepare your talks the better and better your speaking will become and as the last point on our Memory Map says you can become a Brilliant Speaker.

And please remember that with this method you can be a fluent confident speaker and know what you want to say without the need to know your speech content word for word.

The Learning Well Memory Map principles and techniques work, all you have to do is to put them to work for you.

And so what’s next?

As you work through The Learning Well material the improvement in your speaking will be further enhanced as we take you to the next level of speaking with a range of techniques, some related to the Memory Map and others that add to your abilities in other ways.

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