If you'd googled you'd have found my post from 2005 on managing directory submissions: http://www.itamer.com/managing-directory-submissions/171/ - a quick read and I think it stands the test of time for newbies at least. As the guys have said, don't worry about the speed, when I use informenter (a firefox extension) I can submit in less than a minute for each site I work with.
I don't know why people worry about speeds, I have myself made about 25 submissions in maximum 2-3 mins in our network. Its the experience and semi-automatic extensions that help you too.