Prepare for your reading
The first thing in preparing for your tarot reading is to be clear minded, centered, and focused on your main concern or concerns for the reading. I know this may sound difficult at times, especially if you feel for some reason you are headed toward a major shift and you just don't know where to turn. But this is all the more reason to take slow breaths and recognize that time is so fluid, so pliable to our needs, there's no need to panic and assume everything has to come to us in a snap.
It really is best to know in advance why you are calling for a tarot reading. Although it is not impossible to provide "general readings" for a question of no particular focus and sometimes just for the heck of it - "general readings" prove to take a bit longer to conduct and sometimes the "details" come out somewhat fuzzy. And this brings up the next point: direction.
This is definitely your tarot reading. If you find something I say strikes you as very important, feel free to suggest we explore it. But if I'm talking with the cards about your best friend's girlfriend who you have a crush on, don't ask me if maybe I'm describing your ex-fiancé from 5 years ago because you aren't sure I'm describing the woman you wanted to know about. Since I never knew you had an ex-fiancé, or her name or anything, I'm confident she didn't come up in my reading. If my description doesn't seem to match at first - give it time. It isn't surprising when a client says, "No, Rob would never be the kind of person to mask his feelings," only to discover four minutes later the client says, "it hurts me When he won't tell his ex how much it is hurting us to be intruded on like that..." Sometimes we don't even hear our own words, so I'm rarely startled when someone doesn't think the tarot got it right. I hope you remember, you came seeking the tarot for a reason, a reason you didn't already understand - so be prepared to give it a minute, trust it, and see what it means.
Don't seek instant answers and instant gratification. Even if the first words out of my mouth are "It looks good, this is going to work," I haven't told you everything you need to know. First off, even if it looks very positive, nothing is concretely written in stone. Even King Midas had to live under conditions... too bad he didn't see that part coming.
It's best if we don't attempt to focus on "timing" so much. Sometimes, and I'd say infrequently due to my limited understanding of how to get timing out of the cards, I do get ranges of dates. But most typically, because time in the context of most life's questions is about conditions and preconditions, the answers we get about "when" and "where" tend toward a sequence of events or specific matters that get first addressed. "Do you see a sense when?" is a good question to remind me of, even though I'm usually trying to get a sense of when - it's just a good question during your reading.
You might want to keep a note pad. Sometimes seekers might want to interrupt me with a question or something, but they don't because they are getting what I'm offering. Then maybe they forget the exact question (or, of course, waiting may have answered the question). Some people do interrupt me, and on occasion I have stumbled as a result away from the flow. In any case - if you have a question, I want you to ask it. So instead... write it on a note pad. Ask me when you feel comfortable in the conversation asking it. And it's good to take notes - even if you are an Internet client and receive a transcript. It's a good idea to write your ideas and impressions on parts.