18. Podcasting Planning Tips for Preventing Last-Minute Recording Stress

My podcasting recording schedule has been a bit of a hot mess lately, but I'm committed to getting back on track! In today's episode, I share some lessons learned and some planning tips that I'll be using going forward...and that you can too!

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This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Did you miss me last week? Maybe you didn't even notice that I skipped a week. I have no idea. But I know that I missed an episode last week, and, boy, have I had a challenging time coming to terms with that. I have strongly identified as a perfectionist for so many years. I pride myself on being super organized on top of deadlines and extremely dependable.

And for the most part, I am, especially when it comes to things that other people are a part of. For example, the courses that I teach or the work that I do for my clients. But when it comes to my own stuff, I can really be a hot mess sometimes. And the past couple weeks have been a prime example of that. I knew that I would be undergoing a planned surgery a couple weeks ago, and I had the next week's podcast on my to do list before surgery so that I wouldn't have to worry about it while I was recovering. It was a great plan, but I ran out of time and I didn't get it done. So then I figured, oh, well, I would just have to pull it together during recovery. I've cut it close before, but I've always managed to get it done no matter the challenges.

So I would just pull through like always. But my surgery recovery was a bit more challenging than I expected. I definitely underestimated how tired I would be Levine a full week later. And I also had an unusually severe sore throat from the breathing tube when I was under. It hurt to simply be awake, let alone to try and speak or swallow. And if my voice sounds a little funny today, still the after effects of that. But as Monday night rolled around last week and I found myself trying to pull together a last minute Tuesday podcast episode, it just wasn't going to happen. And I can practically hear some of you saying, Julia, you had surgery.

You couldn't speak without pain. Those are pretty good reasons to skip a podcast episode because that's exactly what my loving, laid back husband said to me. But I know that many of you also identify as perfectionists, and so you can probably understand just how much it crushed me, even though I had a quote unquote good excuse. I feel like I let myself down. I let all my listeners down. And, yes, this is the first time where I've actually missed an episode. But there have been more times than I'd like to admit where I'm scrambling on Monday to plan, record, and edit a podcast for release on Tuesday. Something has to change with my recording routine.

And so what am I trying to say here? First of all, I'm apologizing for missing a week. I've heard from several of you that you depend on this podcast for inspiration and information each week for your own podcasts. And so I am truly sorry that I left you hanging for a week. I'm also here to give you a few tips so that you can avoid falling into this same situation that I experienced. So do as I say, not as I do. I feel like I've said that before. Alright. Let's get into it.

So the first thing is to plan ahead. I know. I know. Thank you, captain obvious. But, seriously, I suggest sitting down at the beginning of each quarter, each month, and mapping out your content. Take note of any life stuff that might get in the way of recording episodes and strategize accordingly. You also wanna take a look at your promotional calendar. If you're going to be launching something or running an event, plan content that will set your audience up to take advantage of whatever you're offering.

Quite often, I've been guilty of not knowing the topic of an episode until I sit down with a blank document to write my script. I do keep a running list of ideas, but more often than not, I seem to just pick one at random rather than strategically thinking about what makes sense for me to cover and in what order. So I really want to get better at creating a strategic content plan, and that's one of my tips for you as well. Once you have your plan, consider batching. Can you manage to record 2 or 3 episodes in one sitting? This works really well for some people and not as well for others. So experiment and figure out what works for you. Maybe your energy levels don't allow for you to record multiple episodes in one sitting, but you can get multiple episodes scripted or outlined in a single block of time. So you're batching the prep.

If batching doesn't work well for you, consider blocking off a regular time each week for podcasting tasks. Schedule all of your other commitments around it. It is a blocked out dedicated hour or 2 or 3, however much time you need on your calendar that you don't schedule anything on top of. That way you don't have to figure out where to fit in the podcasting tasks. You already have that dedicated time on your calendar. Along these same lines, set deadlines for yourself. And I can say from experience that setting your deadline for Monday when your episode releases on Tuesday, it's not a great plan. So I encourage you to set a deadline a minimum of a week before the episodes air date.

And once you've got that down, perhaps move it back to 2, 3 or even 4 weeks. Deadlines are very helpful, but sometimes they're not easy to stick to when you're only accountable to yourself. So consider coordinating with a friend or a biz bestie to help you stick to your self imposed deadlines, or you may want to hire a podcast manager or an editor to help. Paying someone increases the chances that you'll stay on top of a schedule. My clients episodes are due to me 2 weeks prior to their air date, and there's a late fee if they don't turn in their episodes on time. So this system works very well. There are clear deadlines, they're accountable to me, and there's a financial incentive to stay on top of the schedule. At the time of this recording, I don't currently have any openings for new clients.

But if this is a strategy that you would like to try and you're looking to hire someone to help you with your podcast, you can head to hireapodcastmanager.com or steve stewart.me/findaneditor. I'll also leave those links in the description. Those are 2 sources that I'm familiar with that will get you reputable people to help with your podcast. Alright. My last tangible tip is to have a backup plan because no matter how well you plan ahead, life is always gonna throw you some curveballs. And so if you can record a couple of, quote, unquote emergency episodes that you can plug into your schedule whenever you need to. These are content that are not time sensitive and can just be plugged in as needed. If that's not possible, I realized that we're trying to get ourselves back on track and so getting extra work done might not be realistic.

So if that's not possible, you can replay a popular episode to fill a gap. This does work best when you've been podcasting for a minimum of 6 to 12 months, and you have a decent back catalog of episodes to pull from. I briefly contemplated replaying something myself last week when I couldn't get a new episode recorded, but I only had 17 episodes to choose from. And I didn't think that replaying an episode so soon after it originally aired would be super helpful for you, so I chose not to. And I know that many of these tips that I'm giving you may sound obvious, and they are. But knowing what to do and actually doing it are 2 very different things. So I challenge you to commit to just one of these strategies over the next month and see how it goes. For me, I'm committed to sticking to my deadlines.

I have a big vacation coming up soon, and I'm going to have all of my episodes recorded, edited, and scheduled before I leave so that you never even know that I'm gone. Finally, I'll leave you with the reminder to give yourself some grace if you miss an episode. I had this last point written into my script already, and then I just finished a group coaching call with some students in my course. We discussed how it's so easy to tell other people to give themselves grace, but then we often don't do the same thing for ourselves. I know that it helped me to hear it from someone else. So I hope that hearing it from me helps you. We're all only human and we all deserve a little grace. Thanks for understanding my humanness, and I'll talk to you again next week.