What to do with the result
If you came in over your target, resist the urge to speak faster. Speeding up is the reflex, and it is the wrong fix — it makes the speech harder to follow and strips out the pauses that give jokes room to land.
- Over by 30 seconds: cut one paragraph of setup. Setup is almost always where the excess lives.
- Over by a minute: cut a whole story rather than trimming both. Two stories told properly beats three told at speed.
- Under by 30 seconds: you are fine. Short speeches are never the problem.
- Under by more than a minute: add detail to your best story, not a new story.
How many times should you rehearse?
Three full run-throughs out loud is the point at which most speakers stop stumbling and start sounding like themselves. A fourth adds polish. Beyond about six, speeches tend to become recitations and lose their warmth.
Spread them out: one when you finish the draft, one a few days later, and one the day before. Rehearsing three times in a single sitting is much less effective than three times across a week.