Heard a speaker today give a little blurb along the lines of: “oh, here’s something else I meant to say a few minutes ago. Sorry about that. I want to add it now.” This is exactly what goes through your mind when you glance at those notes and realize you skipped a line or more. Every speaker has done this. (And you’ll have even more of these if you go without notes, although the revelation of forgetfulness usually comes as soon as I sit back down after speaking). Is it wrong?Well, no, except that your audience doesn’t really care if you forgot or not (and if they do care, they care in a negative way). And it draws attention away from the message. If it fits in, just say it. Chances are they won’t even tell it’s out of place (hate to break it to you, but most of them aren’t paying that close attention anyway). If it’s even close to in step with the content, they won’t even notice; if it really doesn’t belong, omit it; if it can be capped into the summary, wait and put it at the end. But don’t ruin your flow and swim upstream just because you forgot.In today’s case, it could have been added as is with no alterations whatsoever; just drop that little “hey, oops, it’s me and I goofed, but I’m going to fix it” comment.
Don’t draw attention to the (mis)ordering of content. Just deliver content (and value).
