Thursday, February 10, 2011

Waffle

The trouble is I've been trained to do it. Literally. One of the tasks I has to do to pass a number of exams involved impromptu speeches. I'd get a couple of minutes (or less) to prepare a speech on a topic that had practically been pulled out of a hat, and I had to speak convincingly about that topic as if I had at least five minutes of prepared material in front of me.

It's a very useful skill, but it has lead to some very bad habits. I have a nasty habit of underpreparing presentations, confident in my ability to pad out my scanty notes on the spot. I also have a habit of padding when I don't need to - I'll talk for 10 minutes when I should be talking for 5, or for over an hour when I'm only supposed to take 50 minutes.

Time management. I have issues with it generally (what with the fact that I have almost no concpet of linear time), but when you've actually been trained to waffle... Well, let's just say I have some trouble with brevity.

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