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Comment by asicsp | Hacker News Reader

I started posting videos regularly from March this year (probably had 10-20 subscribers before, now have 150+)

>If you watch some of my earlier videos there are a lot of “um’s” and “ers”...started with writing full scripts

I trained myself to go silent instead of ums/aahs/ers. I then changed how I recorded videos a bit so that I can simply use https://github.com/noisetorch/NoiseTorch to remove all the silent portions.

>Writing full scripts did have the benefit that they could more easily be converted into blog posts.

I'm kinda opposite. I was already consistently blogging and have now started adding videos (mostly for short tip posts, haven't tried for longer posts yet).

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> I trained myself to go silent instead of ums/aahs/ers.

As someone struggling with the same affliction, might I ask how you trained for that?

Not the OP, but for me it just took a bit of mindfulness while presenting, and the realization that your pauses seem way more unbearably long to you than they do to your audience.

You can start out by adding purposeful pauses. At the end of a point you want to really hit hard, build in to your script you literally standing there and just thinking “pause,pause,pause,pause”. Then you get more comfortable doing it and can add it in with differing lengths where needed. Eventually with work you’ll start replacing ums with pauses.

Also, purposefully slowing down can help since you likely talk too fast when nervous anyway.

Not sure if there's some technique to it. I got very conscious about the ums and aahs and practiced forcing myself to stop and stay silent. I was recording short videos (1-15 minutes) about 3-5 times a week and I guess just delibrate practice helped me.

Yes that’s a good tip. I have been using the app recut to cut out all the pauses and unwanted bits.

For those doing this, be sure to check the settings and have someone watch the result - if you're "showing screen" it can be fine but if you're "showing face" and the end result makes you look like you're flickering in and out of existence and spazzing, it can be entirely distracting.

Good point about showing screen vs face differences. I do screen recordings - it is a bit jarring sometimes even after adjusting how I record taking into account that I'll be pruning silent parts.

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