notes

Nov

23

Magic Memory Notes

Brain / Gesturing / Memory / Notes / Organization / Uncategorized / Visual Aids  Posted by / 0 comments

Last week I lectured for the second time on a new topic. For my first presentation ten days earlier, I had worked assiduously on the structure, headline subjects, and visual aids. Making changes as I rehearsed, I recopied my written notes several times. Here’s a graphic from that first version.

Anticipating the next lecture just ten days later, I saved my notes (which consist mostly of memory-triggering words) and practiced as I refined my thoughts. My general structure was working, and my notes were serving me well. I planned to use the same outline for the second presentation. Ironing my blouse, I laid them out on my bed, while I practiced out loud. I glanced at them often.

Notes are like security blankets: if we can see them, we feel we know our material. They are comforting. If they are out of sight, we feel lonely and ill-prepared. That’s why I make them BIG, so I can see my friendly notes from far away. I often use several colors. Whether that helps me remember, or it just makes them pleasing, I’m not sure. I am sure that lavishing attention and care on them keeps me focused on the structure. Since I have a rule that each topic has to fit on one page, I have only a few pages for each lecture. That keeps my note-making job contained, circumscribed.

There were four pages of notes for this particular lecture. I carefully put them into my briefcase when I left my house, so I was sure they were with me when I arrived at the conference. I had them with me as I made my flip-chart visual aids—I leafed through them on the sunny porch where I made those visuals. I arranged them on the lectern during the 15-minute break before my allotted time.

Then—poof! They disappeared.

The host of the event had introduced me, and tidied up the lectern as she stepped aside. My initial theme was securely in my mind and on my lips, so I began speaking without looking down. When I did look down to see my next talking point, I did a double-take. I could not see my notes. Thinking, “They are here somewhere,” I took a long breath, and pressed on with what I imagined should be next.

I was in the midst of my 5-minute introduction, fleshing out my overarching structure, and thinking that surely I would come across my notes soon. In the space under the top of the lectern? No. Under the printout of my CLE written materials? No. I tried to be nonchalant as I searched. Under the nicely-wrapped gift the bar association had given me? Nope. Not anywhere. Nada.

It didn’t occur to me that there was a logical explanation, that my host had taken them by accident and I could ask for them back. Under the influence of adrenaline at the beginning of my speech, I couldn’t begin to imagine where they were, except to think that I had lost my mind and forgotten them completely, that I was incorrect that I ever had them with me.

Now, I desperately thought, all I have is my watch, to time my segments. I fervently prayed to the gods of language that I be able to recall structure, ideas, and words. True, I had my flip chart to help me. There were four sheets, three containing the definition of one word, and one graphic representation of how to think about technique.

There I was, trying to think of my own advice about breathing to flood my brain with oxygen, and speaking in phrases to lay out my ideas. I kept track of my ideas by placing topics on an invisible shelf in front of me. More than usually, I became my own mnemonic device by talking with my hands.

And then a surprising thing happened. After concluding I would never find my notes because they weren’t there, I stopped looking. And then I began to see them in my mind’s eye! There they were, stored in my head. I wasn’t trying to see them, I was trying to remember the ideas they contained. But my brain did me the favor of simply posting my notes on the bulletin board of my short term memory. The glimpses I had of them were fleeting, but helpful. They didn’t stay visible, but emerged at a few opportune times. I was too surprised to try to summon them on my own. But was I grateful? Oh, yes!

Reflecting on this event, I am not completely sure what to make of it. I had finally accepted the notion that my notes were gone, so I had relaxed and moved on to coming up with the best structured improvisation I could summon. I have a distinct memory of seeing “practice under pressure” written in my writing, which I had left out. That vision reminded me to loop back and elaborate on how to become increasingly confident. It was a particularly important point of my whole lecture, and I recall being thrilled to see it in my mind’s eye.

Once my notes made their first appearance on the great visual screen of my brain, they gave me confidence that I was on the right track. Perhaps they had become part of my long-term memory store of facts and ideas transferred from short-term to elaborated cognition. Had I stared at them enough that they were imprinted in my visual memory? Maybe that means we can rely on our visual memory to “see” more than we think we can. Or maybe that is one way we remember, and I never noticed it before.

Some days, your mind’s eye has 20-20 vision. Your notes can become your own invisible visual aid.

Have you experienced anything similar? What’s your story of remembering under pressure?

Feb

01

Courtroom Report

Courtroom  Posted by / 1 comments

Superior Court in the Pacific Northwest

News reports in this medium-sized town were abuzz with the latest on a local murder. A hearing was scheduled in the case, so I drove to the courthouse anticipating a lively session centering on the defendant’s competency to stand trial. The session lasted almost a minute, since the prisoner hadn’t been transported to court as scheduled. I left to find a trial where lawyers got to say more than one sentence.

A few courtrooms away, a domestic violence protection session was beginning. In the hallway, people milled about, looking uncomfortable and unsure of themselves. They sat in the corridor, whispered to each other, got up, paced, went out for a smoke, waited for family or friends. Anxiety was in the air. The misery of divorce hovered like storm clouds. A palpable sense of the fear inherent in brutal relationships charged the atmosphere.

By comparison, the inside of the courtroom seemed a safe harbor. An efficient judge moved quickly through the schedule. He spoke with detached objectivity as he dealt with folks representing themselves, listening as each gave a sort of personalized citizen’s complaint about their domestic partners. Topics centered around bad behavior—how he beats the dog or how she drives without a license. There were four accusations of harassment by text message, including a guy who texted his girlfriend that he had bought a gun.

Over the course of nineteen cases, only four lawyers were present in three matters. Three of the four were women, none of whom spoke loudly enough to be heard where I was sitting in the second row of spectators. Granted, the courtroom was large, but as the hearings progressed I began to wonder seriously whether all judges are required to take lip-reading courses.

The first attorney to appear stood hunched forward and with her arms folded over her chest as she addressed the court. Opposing her was her client’s wife, a loud, assertive woman who had no trouble projecting her voice. The lawyer prevailed, proving that a soft-spoken lawyer is better than none, I guess, but I was hoping for a more dynamic performance—or at least to be able to hear what the case was about.

The two other women lawyers opposed each other. Their body language was deferential, and they seemed unsure of how to proceed, so I can’t be positive they were lawyers. From the few words I caught, one represented a registered sex offender, whose tee shirt showcased his tattoos—he looked like a sex offender, anyway, so my brain filled in the information I couldn’t hear.

The teacher in me was dying to leap up and fix these timid performances: “Talk with your outside voices! Unfold your arms to open your lungs, take a big breath, and think about whether you are loud enough. Can everybody in the room can hear you? Show the amateur advocates in the room how to stand proudly, talk like you mean it, and get the job done.”

Lawyer #4 had real presence and a resonant baritone voice. He was just about the only person in the whole session who took over the room and advocated. Unfortunately, this gifted lawyer missed an opportunity to be first-rate. Instead of looking at the judge, he talked to his papers, which he had carefully laid out on counsel table. As he made his case, he stared down at them, continually shuffling and rearranging them. He treated them as if  they held the secret to winning, if only he could get them in the right order. He made virtually no eye contact with the judge. It was a perfect example of how distracting all that paper can be.

It takes a leap of faith to handle notes properly. You have to believe you are prepared. This lawyer was prepared, and he didn’t need anything but a short list of bullet points. I know he was prepared, because for over an hour before his appearance, he sat a few feet from me, poring over his file, studying it and making more and more notes. He was prepared, but he didn’t trust that he was. For a five-minute hearing all he needed was one piece of paper with a limited number of bullet points. What was he asking for, and what facts supported that?

The loudest and most assertive person in the courtroom all day was a guy who wanted to visit his kids. He and his estranged wife were dressed properly for court, and both displayed a respectful, if agitated, demeanor. He spoke fast and nonstop, forcing the judge to interrupt to get a word in edgewise. Even though he was more coherent than most, he engaged in the same variety of public whining we’d listened to all morning: his wife hits him, his mother-in-law hits him, his wife is on probation, and she ran off with the kids to live in a distant town. He unleashed genuine anguish at being trapped in a hopeless loop of attack and revenge.

His wife rebutted with counter-accusations and her own list of grievances. She held her own, but couldn’t match his energy. No sooner had the judge shushed him than he jumped back in. When it was all over, he got exactly what he wanted—to see his kids twice a week.

I wrote in my notes, “This is agony,” and added, “Why is this guy the most effective advocate in the room?” He embodied the emotions I’d felt in the corridor—despair as a ruined family disintegrates, the urge to fight in order to fend off the desolation that would surely follow. He was loud enough, he made eye contact, and he spoke with energy and passion. He rose to the occasion.follow

And that’s what I wanted from the attorneys that day. It would have been so simple: look at the judge and speak up.

See any good performances at trial lately? What techniques made them so?