|Note to Self| How to do a conference No.01

There are things I keep learning, forgetting, and having to learn again. Note to Self is where I write them down — not as advice for anyone else, but as reminders to the version of me who will inevitably forget.

I am a PhD student, a teacher, and someone who is still figuring out what kind of scholar she wants to be. These notes are part of that figuring out. They are practical, personal, and sometimes embarrassingly specific. I'm sharing them here in case they're useful to someone else who is also in the middle of becoming.

This is note No.01

You used to leave conferences feeling like you had survived something. Drained, overstimulated, and vaguely guilty that you hadn't networked enough. Slowly, you've learned to think of conferences less as events to endure and more as things to design — around your own work, your own energy, your own goals. Here is what you know now. Don't forget it next time.

Before

• Read the program before you arrive — not skim, actually read it. Mark the sessions that interest you. Write down the names of two or three people you want to meet and think ahead about who you might ask for coffee. Going in with a short list makes the whole thing feel less like a crowd and more like a series of intentional encounters.

• Book accommodation right next to the venue. It sounds like a small thing, but being ten minutes from a nap is a completely different conference experience. You can step away, reset, and come back without losing half a day. Protect your energy as seriously as you protect your time.

• Bring your business cards. They still come in handy, especially with people who prefer an instant exchange over pulling out their phones.

• Writing a detailed script first helps enormously: once the words exist on the page, they find their way into your mouth more naturally when it counts. Word choice, sentence construction, anxiety in the moment — these are things I'm still working on. I'll update this note when I've figured them out more.

During

• Develop a note-taking strategy before you sit down in the first session. I take fleeting notes and snapshots on my Remarkable during talks, then transfer anything that matters into a reflection note afterward. The transfer step is where the real thinking happens.

• On asking questions: a good question is not a comment in disguise, and it is not a chance to prove you've read the literature. The best questions do three things — they show you were paying attention, they refer to something specific the speaker actually said, and they ground themselves in a shared framework so the speaker knows exactly where you're standing. A colleague of mine asks brilliant questions at every panel he attends. When I asked him how, he said: just make sure the speaker can tell you were listening. That's it. Refer to the exact line. Ask what it implies. Then let them think out loud. Let the speaker shine. One well-placed question will make people more curious about you than a hundred words of self-promotion. Ask well, then step back.

• On compliments: if someone's work moved you or shifted how you think about something, say so specifically. Vague praise puts the burden back on the other person to guess what you meant. Specific praise — this line, this argument, this reframe — lands, and it stays.

After

Send a follow-up email, but only to the people who genuinely impressed you or whose work you want to stay close to. Keep it short: one sentence on what stayed with you from their talk, one sentence on why you're reaching out. That is enough. Most people don't do this, which means the ones who do are remembered.

Conferences don't have to cost you a week of recovery. They can leave you energized — if you go in with a plan, protect your rest, and treat each conversation as something worth showing up for properly.

You will get there!