At DjangoCon US 2023 I gave a talk, and wrote about my experience preparing for that talk
Well, I spoke again at DjangoCon US this year (2024) and had a similar, but wildly different experience in preparing for my talk.
Last year I lamented that I didn't really track my time (which is weird because I track my time for ALL sorts of things!).
This year, I did track my time and have a much better sense of how much time I prepared for the talk.
Another difference between each year is that in 2023 I gave a 45 minute talk, while this year my talk was 25 minutes.
I've heard that you need about 1 hour of prep time for each 1 minute of talk that you're going to give. That means that, on average, for a 25 minute talk I'd need about 25 hours of prep time.
My time tracking shows that I was a little short of that (19 hours) but my talk ended up being about 20 minutes, so it seems that maybe I was on track for that.
This year, as last year, my general prep technique was to:
- Give the presentation AND record it
- Watch the recording and make notes about what I needed to change
- Make the changes
I would typically do each step on a different day, though towards the end I would do steps 2 and 3 on the same day, and during the last week I would do all of the steps on the same day.
This flow really seems to help me get the most of out practicing my talk and getting a sense of its strengths and weaknesses.
One issue that came up a week before I was to leave for DjangoCon US is that my boss said I couldn't have anything directly related to my employer in the presentation. My initial drafts didn't have specifics, but the examples I used were too close for my comfort on that, so I ended up having to refactor that part of my talk.
Honestly, I think it came out better because of it. During my practice runs I felt like I was kind of dancing around topics, but once I removed them i felt freer to just kind of speak my mind.
Preparing and giving talks like these are truly a ton of work. Yes, you'll (most likely) be given a free ticket to the conference you're speaking at — but unless you're a seasoned public speaker you will have to practice a lot to give a great talk.
One thing I didn't mention in my prep time is that my talk was essentially just a rendition of my series of blog posts I started writing at DjangoCon US 2023 (Error Culture)
So when you add in the time it took for me to brainstorm those articles, write, and edit them, we're probably looking at another 5 - 7 hours of prep.
This puts me closer to the 25 hours of prep time for the 25 minute talk.
I've given 2 talks so far, and after each one I've said, 'Never again!'
It's been a few weeks since I gave my talk, and I have to say, I'm kind of looking forward to trying to give a talk again next year. Now, I just need to figure out what I would talk about that anyone would want to hear. 🤔