[tokamak-teapot]

I come across as one of these people and I do minimal practice of what I’m going to say, maybe thinking about what I want to say as an intro - and that’s it. Most of my thinking is done while building slides that I use as cues for what I want to talk around.

I can’t be sure of course, but I would guess that the reasons I get away with very short prep time are:

1. 99% of the time I know the subject inside out, because I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I didn’t, so that is already covered.

2. Sharp focus on prepping exactly the right things - and nothing else. If I’m trying to get a point across, that’s the bit I need to make sure I’ve considered - what the obvious holes are in my argument, how I would answer the obvious questions, etc.

I’m definitely not the smoothest presenter, but I do get great feedback (and am still surprised considering I feel like I’m cheating by not spending hours in prep) so if you are already armed with deep and broad general knowledge in your area, maybe going for the laser focus on the specific points that you really care about and then ‘winging’ the rest might work for you too.