Time Hacks for Podcasters: Fitting Podcasting into Your Busy Schedule

I saw this post on a Facebook group.

The person says, while podcasting and content creation aren't new to me, I've never been consistent with posting or recording due to time and energy constraints.

Well, today I've got a solution.

Welcome to youo Podcast Consultant.

Small Lessons with Big Value.

With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands.

Now he wants to work with you.

He's your podcast consultant, Dave Jackson.

Yeah, so I've seen this before.

You know, everybody says it is important to be consistent as it and it is.

When you can publish consistently, you become part of someone's routine.

I listen to a show every Friday night.

This is how I party.

I go to Walmart and do grocery shopping because nobody's in there.

But I have a show that comes out Friday afternoon and I always listen to that show.

It's part of my routine.

That's huge.

And so you want to be consistent.

But I also say I'd rather have a kind of late show that was good, you know, laid in quotation marks than an on time show that was all right, you know, not really great kind of thing.

So keep that in mind.

And so his full question, While podcasting and content creation aren't new to me, I've never been consistent with posting or recording.

Due to time and energy constraints, I'm feeling driven to take my content creation more seriously.

Can you provide guidance on planning recording schedules that work with my Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, full time job?

What are things you all do?

He says, I'm also very active with my church and other things on the weekends as well.

All right, you got a full plate.

So what you want to do is I use a tool called clockify.

I'll put a link in the show notes.

Now, you could just use your phone if you wanted to.

But here is the thing.

You have to track everything.

So if you're doing research on your episode, start the clock.

If you're doing research on a guest, start the clock.

Let's say you do interviews, okay?

Record the time while you're doing the interview, the whole thing.

Because you go, yeah, it's a 20 minute interview.

Yeah.

But you talk to them for an hour.

That hour counts.

When you're editing, you know, start the timer.

When you're writing show notes, start the timer.

Everything you do for your podcast, start that timer.

Then when you hit publish and it's out there, if you wanted to, you could start the timer.

But if you also do Promotion.

Keep that timer going, because that's part of it.

Because otherwise you're just doing a if they build it, they will come kind of thing.

Because you just put it out there.

You have to promote it.

Do everything and have that timer going.

And then when you're done, look at the timer and go, well, how long did that take?

And you might go, wow, that took me 10 hours.

Then I'm just pulling that number out for ease of use.

But it's going to take you longer than you think.

And let's say it's 10 hours and you go, okay, I want to do a weekly show.

Great.

Do you have 10 hours a week to do a show?

And you go, no.

Okay, well, guess what?

You're not doing a weekly show.

You're either going to have to cut the length of the show back or go every other week or once a month or whatever it is.

Now, weekly is a great schedule.

I listen to probably three or four shows that go every other week.

Why?

Because they can't do weekly.

So keep that in mind.

Because then what happens is you pick a schedule that's unrealistic and you start doing things like, oh, well, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Well, that can be arranged.

Or you just cut out your family, your friends, whatever it is.

And there are a lot of things you can cut out, like tv, social media.

You know, there are things you can cut out of your life, but there are times when you cut into things that need to stay in your life, and then it becomes stressful and it creates stress, because especially if you're cutting out a spouse, they're going to start complaining because they don't see you.

And your spouse is more important than a podcast.

So what you need to do is instead of picking a schedule and trying to squeeze a podcast into it.

No, no, no.

Instead, look at your life and see how much time is available to squeeze a podcast into that.

If you need help with this, of course you can go over to schoolofpodcasting.com and sign up.

Use the coupon code listnr when you sign up on either.

And this is new.

We've always had monthly and yearly, and some people wanted a discount and I was like, okay, which is there's a big discount on the yearly, but now there is a quarterly.

You can actually order quarterly now, and that has a discount.

It's all there.

At School of Podcasting Dot com, I'm Dave Jackson.

I help podcasters.

It's what I do.

And I can't wait to see what we're going to do together.