How to Manage Time

• 00:05 So how do you manage your time when you're giving a presentation?
• 00:10 If this is a problem, let's look at the source of the problem.
• 00:13 Quite often.
• 00:14 The biggest source of the problem is you didn't give thought to time
• 00:18 when creating your presentation.
• 00:20 What most people do is they spend all their time gathering more facts,
• 00:24 gathering more data points, building more slides, more bullet points per slide.
• 00:30 Figuring, if they just tell people everything they know about the subject,
• 00:34 they will cover their, you know what, and no one can criticize them.
• 00:39 That's a profoundly negative, defensive mentality when going into a presentation.
• 00:45 And it almost guarantees you're going to have timing problems,
• 00:48 because you're gonna look at the clock or someone is gonna hold up a sign and you're
• 00:53 going to have two minutes left and you're only half way through your presentation,
• 00:56 or a third of the way, and then it's panic and
• 00:59 it sets off a negative chain reaction where you start speaking faster and
• 01:03 faster and wasting time apologizing that you don't have that much time.
• 01:09 Big problem.
• 01:11 Now as you remember from our initial discussions in this course,
• 01:16 I recommend you narrow your points down to literally a handful.
• 01:22 Even if you have a two hour time slot for your presentation.
• 01:26 Use the rest of your time for examples, case studies,
• 01:30 stories, pictures, images to drive home those points.
• 01:36 But the next thing you've got to do to make sure your timing is right is you have
• 01:40 to practice out loud on video, and then you can see what the time is.
• 01:46 What most people do is they read their speech silently, and
• 01:51 they say, oh, wow, that only took seven minutes, and I have ten minutes.
• 01:56 And then they get up and give the presentation in real life and
• 01:59 12 minutes in, they're a third of the way through.
• 02:02 It takes a lot longer to talk to people than it does to read in your own head.
• 02:08 So never, ever get your timing by how long it takes to read in your head.
• 02:13 You must speak it out loud.
• 02:15 You've gotta put the pauses in.
• 02:19 You have to allow for time to move around a little, for people to ask questions.
• 02:25 So you gotta practice on video, and
• 02:27 make sure the length of the video is the time that you want to be speaking.
• 02:32 Now in many presentations, you want to allot time for
• 02:36 questions at the end, or throughout.
• 02:41 The bigger issue is you have to be comfortable enough with your material.
• 02:44 You have to know your material enough, so that if all of a sudden you've got more
• 02:49 time than you planned, or less time than you planned, you can react accordingly.
• 02:55 Not by speaking faster than usual, but
• 02:58 by focusing on what's most important.
• 03:03 So if all of a sudden, the CEO or the most important person asks
• 03:08 a very detailed question that has nothing to do with your presentation, which you've
• 03:13 got to give them ten minutes on that, and now you've lost half of your time,
• 03:19 in your own head you have to figure out what's most important, what can I cut out?
• 03:24 You're far better off,
• 03:26 using the remaining ten minutes to really nail those two points.
• 03:31 With example case studies and stories,
• 03:34 they're trying to quickly cover ten points and nobody remembering anything.
• 03:40 Other tips for timing, what I do,
• 03:43 when I'm giving a presentation, if there's not a big clock visible on the room.
• 03:47 I'll just take my watch off and I'll put it on a table or
• 03:52 a lectern, and that way I can be aware of it.
• 03:54 Some of you, some of you think I'm old cuz I have a watch, you can also use your
• 03:58 cellphone and put the timer function on it, so you can be aware of it.
• 04:04 These are all tips that will help you with timing but
• 04:07 also realize if you've realized if you've covered all the points and
• 04:11 you're interesting and you we're memorable and you answer people's questions,
• 04:17 there's nothing wrong with finished ahead of schedule.
• 04:20 No one ever complains about that.
• 04:24 And if everyone is on the edge of their seat, and there's not an immediate speaker
• 04:29 coming right after you, and there's not a hard, hard deadline like five o'clock,
• 04:34 and you know people have to catch trains, then going a few minutes longer typically
• 04:40 isn't the end of the world when it's your own meeting, your own organization.
• 04:43 Obviously respect time limits if you're a part someone else structure,
• 04:49 conference or meeting.
• 04:51 Follow these tips and your timing of your presentation will be just right.

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