How can I speed the adventure up?

[FallenFallcrest]

I am a new DM with only a couple sessions under my belt and would like some advise from the sage community here at GiantitP. My adventure is going pretty well so far, but I would like some advice on how to manage time. In a little over a year, one of the players will graduate and will no longer be easily available, how can I get these people up to the end of the adventure in time, without sacrificing the story plans that I have in mind?

[Brookshw]

Well for starters, tell us a bit about it. Assume you'll only have 70% of the time you expect to in order to allow to players exploring, goofing etc. Keep games focused and moving. Start on time. Map out the major encounters (note these can easily change over the course of a campaign), budget how long you think each will take and trim to make it fit. Know when something can be glossed over and when its worth roleplaying out. Tell your players your going to hustle certain points and why (i.e., limited time for the campaign) so they don't feel cheated. Drop hints or straight up tell them when they're barking up the wrong tree or something is actually of no consequence. It's a bit tricky because it can feel kinda railroady, but if you explain why they'll probably roll with it.

[Thrudd]

A year is a long time. Things could change long before then, players might come and go, things get in the way and people have to stop playing sometimes.
Keep your story plans flexible, not dependent on any specific character or player.

[Airk]

Identify what parts of the game are the most important. Focus on those. Every couple of minutes, ask yourself, "Is this important? Is this fun?" and unless the answer to both questions is "Yes" then find a way to skip past it. If something is important but not fun, just narrate through it. If it's fun but not important, draw it to a close and move on.

You'll learn to spot times in your sessions where really you're just doing busywork or getting bogged down. Eliminate those bits.

All of this will speed up your sessions, allowing you to get through more stuff.

[Mastikator]

You can speed up fights by introducing the 10 second rule if you haven't. The rule being that if you can't decide what you do during your turn in 10 seconds then you forfeit your turn and just take defensive action.
It makes a huge difference for combat.

[ElenionAncalima]

First, I would take a good look at your adventure and figure out what is absolutely necessary. The fact that you are worried about changing story plans for over a year down the road is a bit of a red flag that you may be over planning. A year from now you will probably find yourself chuckling about where you thought this campaign was going. Having an end goal and a few triggering stages in mind is important...but anything more than that will be difficult to plan for. Keeping your design open ended will also help you with the timing too, because it gives you the freedom to only fill a given section with the amount of content you have time for.

Next, I would reflect upon your sessions and figure out what are the biggest time drains during your sessions...then seek out solutions to those problems.

Common time drains include:
-Starting late
-Food
-Combat
-Rules Lawyering
-Out of Character Discussions
-Off topic discussions
-Players not paying attention
-Split parties/Characters running off on their own.
-Leveling
-Off rails adventures

Finally, you should talk to your players. Keeping everything on track risks leading to some things that players don't like such as railroading, not entertaining rules lawyers, putting a lot of pressure on them to make quick combat decisions and discouraging shenanigans. Make sure that they know you are concerned about finishing the campaign within the time constraints so that you can all work together to keep thing on track, instead of you just feeling like a nazi. Also, keep in mind that everybody having fun may end up being more important that finishing the campaign on time.

[FallenFallcrest]

Thank you guys for all of your advice. I don't think I have to worry about it having too obvious of railroads because the players in my campaign already know what they want to get done and what I am going to offer them, I have talked to them about this without actually revealing any of the story. I now have a pretty good idea about how to set up the larger journey while still giving them freedom of choices along the way. Thanks!