Airpods won't connect even though it's paired to my phone

How do I get my Airpods to connect faster? It's connected to my phone and everything but when I put them in my ear, it takes forever or just doesn't connect. They used to work wonderfully before but now I'm getting sick of waiting for it to connect... I've tried restarting my phone multiple times and reconnecting the Airpods too. Sometimes it says connection failed