 In this video, I want to talk about the process of making an outline for a video which I think can replace many of the other old processes like scripting and storyboarding and can help us get started and create a video that works well. So this is an outline that I created for the entire video workshop, including the outlines for these individual videos. I made that with software called Xmind. And this is the part of the outline that covers this video that I will now cover here. Now let's talk about the process of creating an outline. And there are basically three steps, and this is quite natural for most people, but I find that some people maybe are a bit lost about how to go about that. So let me just kind of quickly address some of the things that I think are important in the process. And there's a brainstorming, creating a structure, and then chunking that together into what could go, for example, on individual slides. So the brainstorming process is well-known, but ask yourselves questions. What do you want the audience to know or be able to do? What do you know about it? What are some common questions that people ask? And just make a list of those. And if you are quite used to this, you can already start doing that in a structured way. But some people just prefer to just brainstorm that list, and then in the separate step, put these things together, group them in a way, and sort of hierarchical structures, and then it flows, like what are the top line things, what are the elaborations, what things belong with each other, and so on. And then finally, you want to go and take the outline and chunk it into things that fit together on one slide, or maybe one topic. And to that you can make a list of related images, graphics, and so on. And that can also be part of an outline. Now, what are some of the tools that you can use for creating an outline? And of course, there is nothing wrong with using pen and paper. There are great tools for outlining, and many people like to use them using raw mind maps or concept maps like this. But unfortunately, I am not one of them, and I think many people are kind of in the same boat they now prefer to just use a computer for everything. And then here I think the easiest tool is simply just use Microsoft Word, and you can create these sort of nice little sections. There's even a navigation pane, and I've made some other videos elsewhere that show you how you can use Word as an outliner. If you want to basically simply create an outline like this, then you can copy it into PowerPoint and with that start creating slides directly from here. So that's the advantage of using Word is that that can go into PowerPoint. And then if you create these little section headings using the heading styles, then you can use this navigation pane to much more easily navigate around the outline as it gets bigger and bigger. So that's right there in Microsoft Word. Now you can do other things there with Word that I don't want to go through in all detail, but it's an easier to move things around. So I definitely recommend spending some time learning how to do that. Now I prefer to use a mind mapping tool for my outlines. This is my favorite program, Xmime, which is free, at least it has a free version that has all the necessary features. So this is the outline here, and it kind of comes out here in an outline form as well. I can copy that into Word, copy it into PowerPoint, and then just start creating my slides directly from that. Another outlining tool that some people prefer is an online outliner called CheckVist, and there are many, many outliners out there. So this is just one that I've used a little bit, and this is just a simpler outline tool, but it's easy to share the outlines online with other people. Now it's important when you're outlining, don't focus on the tool, and learn the tool in a way that disappears from the interface and the using of the tool becomes second nature, so there's no barrier between your mind and the work, in the same way that when you're drawing or writing, there's no barrier there. And I find that learning how to use simply the tab key to actually move around in the outline, to create a hierarchy in the outline, and then shift tab go back to the other level is a very important keyboard shortcut that most people don't know about, and actually makes the outlining process much quicker. So learn the outlining tool well, and then once you've done that, then you can, I think, just focus on the content of the outline. There are some other shortcuts such as I'll shift an arrow keys where you can move things up and down in the outline or left and right in the outline structure. Again, I've made other videos that describe this in more detail, but certainly keep in mind that there are some ways to make your outlines much quicker without having to spend a lot of time on figuring out the interface and sort of fishing around for a mouse and looking at different things. So that's something that I definitely recommend you spend some time and develop those skills. So now that we have our outline, let's talk about how we can create a PowerPoint from it. So that's going to be the subject of the next video.