199: 3 Ways to Protect Your Presentation Prep Time

Hey movers, welcome back. It is Sally with This Moved Me, your virtual presentation coach, and This Moved Me is all about creating talks that move the world, and that is what we're all about here on the show. Sometimes we bring in outside experts and speakers who they themselves are in the midst of moving their audiences, and sometimes you hear from me and hear about my ideas, and we are at episode Number 199. What? I know, it's crazy. And it's been pretty quiet over here in podcast land for me as I've been doing some other things. Last week I talked about bringing more joy into my speaking business and into my life, because how great is that? And just what a benefit joy is to us as speakers, because it does actually I think improve what we do on stage when we have a sense of joy in life. We can't help but feel that up front as well. And today we are talking about protecting your prep time because people ask me all the time, how long should it take for me to get ready for this talk? Like, how much prep time should I be taking? And how much time in my calendar do I need to set aside? And my answer is typically more than you think. Because when I'm working with people, they're usually at some point in the process like, "Oh my gosh, this is taking so much time!" And it is a process, it really is. And if you've ever gotten ready for, you know, what feels like a really high-stakes talk, I'm thinking about my TEDx talk. When I did that, I was like, "Wow, I am really spending a lot of time on this." Of course, we do that because we care and we want to make sure we make the most of the moment. But generally, I think most of the time, if people are not thinking about this as potentially a course-changing moment for them, they're not putting in as much time as they should. And sometimes they're just caught flat-footed because they haven't— they didn't realize how much time it could and should and might take. And so they find themselves the last week just stressed out, pulling your hair out because you're like, "This is not— I don't have enough time to do with this moment what I want." And so we want to avoid that moment. We want to avoid the last-minute sense of regret that if we could go back, we would make different choices about how we used our time, so that you can walk in the morning of, or the day of, or the evening of, and just feeling like, "Yes, I am so ready." excited. I'm nervous, but I'm excited, and I'm gonna do this thing, right? That's what we're going for. So what I want to share with you in this short episode are 3 things that you can do to protect your prep time more. So, uh, what I want to start with, number 1, is to set the big picture deadlines. So, um, you know, just to get a sense of the map. Um, and if you're starting from scratch, let's say you don't have— you you have an idea, but you don't have any content fully developed yet. And let's also assume that this is not the only thing that you're doing in your life, right? Like, you might have other people in your life you're responsible for. You might have other parts of your job that you have to attend to, right? This is not the only thing that will consume your time. Well, then you should plan for at least 8 weeks and ideally 12, which may sound crazy to some people, although I really, I was like to point out, I think about Elizabeth Gilbert talking about getting ready for her TED Talk. She spent 6 months really learning that thing, 6 months. So, you know, 8 weeks, not, not that crazy, but 12 12 has been the magic number in my world. If you've got that kind of time and you can see it that far out in advance, if you can start at 12 weeks, you are gonna thank yourself in that last 2, which is where the rubber really hits the road and where everything, all that work that you've spent before then, hopefully, right, is kind of falling into place at that point. So, you want to give yourself time to move through this process. So as we set big picture deadlines, ideally you want to think 12 weeks. Now let's, you know, assume also that we don't often have the luxury of that much time. Okay. And maybe you can do it in much less time if you've got some of the content already, or if you're adapting something else that you've already done, let's say you're taking a workshop and turning it into a 45-minute keynote. And that's going to require a very different timeline, right? And some of you have lots of different experience. And so you just know the process and know yourself and know how you create content so well that you can move through it a lot faster. Okay. And sometimes we just, uh, are asked to do something and the turnaround time doesn't allow for that. And in those moments, we do the best we can. Sometimes we have to kind of lower expectations and just show up and, and, um, meet our audience where they're at, and you just bring yourself and bring your best and let go of the result of that. Okay. All that being said, what you want to aim for as we set the big picture deadlines is you want to aim for being, and I'm going to use air quotes on this, "done," air quotes, 4 weeks out. But please note, right, you're not actually done with your content development. Uh, so when I say done in air quotes, what I mean is get your content to at about 80% done. So if you've been listening to this show for a while, you've heard that before. We're going for 80% done. Uh, the last 20% is gonna get done. Um, once you're up on your feet and once you're kind of putting everything together and as you're evolving your stuff. So go for 80% done about 4 weeks out. Then you're gonna spend those next 4 weeks taking all that content and learning it, getting it into your body and focusing on delivery. So don't skimp this part. 4 weeks sounds like a lot in delivery, but it's really not. This is the part where most people avoid because there's safety behind the screen and gosh, there's so much fun stuff to obsess with in terms of our slides and getting the word choice just exactly right on our content, but of course that is not how it, it lives. It's a living, breathing thing up once you're on your feet, okay? So we want to make sure that we do not skimp on that part, really live into the delivery side of this, okay? So ideally you give yourself a really good month of delivery work. Your slides, if you've got them, you want to make sure that you're not messing with them much more, uh, after you're— once you're 1 week out. Okay. So content development, really 4 weeks out, delivery development for 4 weeks, right? You're going to work on that once you're done with your content development and the slides should be done about a week out. And then, um, you focus on rehearsals and I want to make sure that one of the rehearsals that you have, that you put on your calendar and set a big picture deadline for is some kind of dress rehearsal. Right, where you're picking out the shoes that you want to wear and you're being thoughtful about how you move in them, what they sound like when they walk across the floor. And you want to think about how you're going to wear a microphone if you're wearing a microphone. Okay, so even if you're not on a stage context that requires a mic, you want to think about what you're wearing and how that impacts how you move and how you show up. That day. So sometimes we don't talk about that stuff, and I think it's really important because it really can impact how we show up and how we feel. Okay. So, uh, once you've got those big picture deadlines set, when your content development should be done, when you're focusing on delivery, when you want your slides done, if you're doing slides, and then that key dress rehearsal. Okay, once you've got those big picture deadlines set, you put them in your calendar. Okay, that's step number 1. But the second piece, which I think is really important, is that you've got to create urgency with that big picture deadlines because I don't know about you, but just blocking off time on my calendar does not work for me. It just doesn't. I will negotiate time away because something more urgent is coming up and I'll be like, "Well, I can just do that tomorrow," whatever. And it doesn't happen unless I have a sense of urgency. And so sometimes I've got to create that urgency, especially when you're thinking about a long-term process like this, you've got to create urgency. Honestly, that's half of my work as a coach. When people hire me, they're like, "Okay, so next week this has got to be done. You're working on this. This is your homework." And then I show up next week and hopefully they've made some steps towards that next stage. So bringing somebody else in to help you hold accountable to those dates is really, really important because it helps create urgency. Sometimes you can do that by, you know, bringing somebody else in, right? Besides a coach, maybe just a friend or somebody who shows up with you on those key dates. So what you want to do is is find somebody to walk with you on this path so that you can't cancel a meeting or a deadline without somebody else knowing about it, which just raises the urgency and raises the stakes on it a little bit more. Sometimes an online course can help give you a guide or a map on this, but you've got to bring somebody else into your accountability on this so that, uh, it's not so easy to just ditch out. Okay. You've got to hold and protect that prep time. It'll help you actually do it and not get to that big moment and feel like you haven't given it your all. Okay. The other thing I wanna bring up is sometimes when I'm producing really big events like this, the only way that this long process feels doable is to chunk it out and to think bit by bit by bit. Sometimes I have deadlines on my calendar for months, And when I'm looking at it, I'm like, "Do I really need to have V2 of that thing on my calendar in 4 months?" But what happens is the 3 meetings that happen between then— between now and then helps me take baby steps towards that end goal. It ensures I don't miss anything because I've got plenty of time to foresee those issues and the whole process runs so much more smoothly. So chunk it out, find somebody else to walk with you on it, somebody who can hold you accountable, and all of that will help create a much greater sense of urgency. All right. So number 1, set the big picture deadlines. Number 2, create a sense of urgency. And number 3 is you are going to move through this process with what I call a draft mentality. Creativity work like this that is calling on us to make connections between our life and ideas, where we're looking at resources and pooling all kinds of things. We're not just doing something that is step 1, step 2, step 3, but we are creating meaning. We are really trying to do something with this content. So it's tapping more than just your skills, right? This is a creative process, and creativity does not work on a timeline, and it really doesn't care about your deadlines. We I know that sometimes a deadline will like kick my creativity into gear, but sometimes I'm like, it's just not happening today, right? Sometimes the genius is just not in the room. But if you approach this with a draft mentality, and then it's not about, gosh, I've gotta create the best V2 ever, but it's just, I'm taking the next step on this. This is just the next draft and I'll have time to work on it again later. If you can produce something that is good enough and just keep riffing on the work that you've done in the past, pretty soon at the end of it, all those little adjustments and changes and every little adaptation that you make and every little improvement that you make, by the end of it, you're going to see a huge change from where you started. But you've got to start with that draft mentality and your willingness to just keep putting something out there and to keep trying to improve on what you're doing. Set the big picture deadlines, create urgency, and use a draft mentality. And if you can do those 3 things, it'll help you protect your prep time so that you don't show up on the day of your next big talk going, oh man, I wish I would've taken more time to do this. 'Cause I have been there. It's no fun. It's no fun. And, and we owe it to ourselves to feel really good about all this work that we put in. Right? Right, I'm with you. Alright, that's it for me. Thanks guys. See you next week. This moved me. What is moving you? Let's do it.