The first time I had to prepare a speech, I did not know where to start. I had a lot of ideas, but I could not put them together into a meaningful form.  It took me days to compose my speech and I had to revise it many times until I was satisfied. 

Over the years, I came up with a format that allowed me to prepare my speech in a shorter period of time. Over the years, I tweaked it many times until I came up with this final form.

Below is the template I use for preparing a speech.

1.  Start with a theme
2.  What’s the message or story that you want to share?
3.  Start with a brain dump of ideas. 
   1. Write down as many ideas as possible.  
   2. Avoid organizing your ideas
4.  Group ideas into categories
   1. Use fishbone diagram to identify linkage
   2. Process of association
   3. Find a common thread
5.  Pick categories that resonate with the theme
6.  Sort categories in sequence
7.  Start putting things together
8.  Expand each of the sections
9.  Organize and review
10. Edit…edit….edit
11. Start rehearsing your presentation
12. Practice….practice… practice
13. Stay in the moment
14. Time to deliver and make it happen

I used this to coach my mentee. This template has been very useful. Try using it and let me know.