When is the perfect time to start preparing for your next speech? I would recommend right now!
I don’t mean that you have to sit down, roll up your sleeves, and start typing away, doing 20 page drafts. No ones that disciplined to start the second they hear about the opportunity to speak. That is not important. I am not worried about you typing things out word to word. I am interested in you developing interesting ideas on the topic that you want to convey to this audience so it’ll be interesting to them.
What I’ve found in my own experience is that just letting things bounce around in your brain, sleeping on them, and thinking about them will help you find your ideas. It only takes one very interesting idea to make any speech come alive and be memorable and great.
On the other hand, you can write and rewrite a speech and change the thought a thousand times and have 50 people edit and review it, but if it is not an interesting idea, it is going to be a speech that is forgotten.
So do not put pressure on yourself to start typing or making slides immediately. You can put off some time on that. But do think about what the most important and interesting ideas that you can convey are and start jotting down some notes on a piece of paper or your cell phone- whatever is good for you.