It takes me about two weeks to deliver a reading. I primarily do cards of truth readings mixed with human design. I like to study the charts first and take the time to write up a script of all of my insights on their spread and then audio record the reading. It's an unconventional way of doing things and I don''t think I've seen any other vedic astrologers do it this way but it's how my mind works. I can't really do the live reading thing, which is unfortunate for me because I don't get many clients doing it this way, it takes a lot of time and energy, and I don't make much money lol
I believe this depends a lot on the personality of each reader and also on how much you trust your intuition. But if my memory doesn´t let me down I think Ernst´s recommendation is not to overdo the preparation. Lay a solid ground but not letting the analyzis get in the way of the flow of the moment. I remember one video where talks about a homework in which every pupil made fantastic predicitions and just nailed it, and that on the next one, where he had raised the level of analyzis they just bluntly failed and couldn´t predict a thing. And that in general his approach is that less often is more. The mind is in the bad habit of blind us. Many things are so obvious that only a kid can see it...
I had a discussion the other day with a self proclaimed rune expert working under not so humble name "Ancient Wisdom", and criticized his reading of the rune Laguz, which some people associate with a leek but most read as Lake and carries the symbology of water. He brought up the meaning of the amniotic liquid, crossing the river to the other side and what not, but completely ignored the very strong and obvious - at least to me - meaning of water: the duality between chaos/movement and clarity/stillness, softness and hardness, reflexion, receptivity, dreams, intuition and meditation... He recommended me to "study the Eddas" - as if they had any direct connection to the runes, and as if the runes didn´t carry there own symbology. I believe that exactly the Laguz rune as a symbol for water is an agent for that approach: that in the stillness of the water many things get revealed. That intuition and dreams are at least as important as knowledge when it comes to the occult. And again: Ernst often hails the flag of intuition, even though he´s so cunning about the technical aspects of astrology.