Prep Time

Hi!

I'm often asked how much time one should spend preparing for a Toastmasters speech. My answer: It depends. Of course, it depends on what you want to get out of it. I don't think you always need to spend weeks and weeks preparing every little detail, nor do I think every speech should be a seat-of-the-pants affair. A good speaker can give a good seat-of-the-pants speech and really nail it when taking a lot of time to prepare. The key is to know when to do which.

I don't usually spend more than a few hours over a couple of days preparing for a speech. My justification is this: When giving a presentation for work, I rarely am afforded more than a few days advance notice and even then I have other things to do, so I can't spend all day preparing. In that case, why should Toastmasters be any different? At least if I use the same approach for my Toastmasters speeches, I'm getting practice for when I'm forced to use that approach for work. Toastmasters should be, above all else, preparation for when you have to do it for real. It's a means to an end, not an end itself. For real, in my case, is at work.

Of course, sometimes I like to go all out and see what I can do. I did this for my What Is Hip? speech last June. That was a LOT of work, but also a lot of fun. I wanted to see what I could do if I really put time and effort into preparing. I certainly won't do that every time, but I have found that lately I feel the need to prepare more. Not just because I want to do my absolute best, but because the more advanced Toastmasters projects call for it.

If you're a novice, though, you should plan on putting some time into preparation. If all your feedback is related to things you, of course, would have done differently if you'd spent more time preparing, then you're not going to learn much. Do your best! Toastmasters is a learning environment and it's only effective if you give it your all and still see room for improvement. With experience, you'll learn how to maximize the ROI of your preparation time by focusing on the aspects of your presentations that don't go well if you wing it. For example, some people need to write out every word, but don't need to practice much after that. Others may need to practice specific gestures or body movements they think will really help get their point across. Once you find out what your "problem areas" are, your prep time will be more efficient.

Thanks,
Matt