158. Podcasting Through the Holidays: Stay Consistent Without Burnout

Want a real break this holiday season without pausing your podcast? In this episode, I’ll show you how to stay consistent with your podcasting through the holidays by planning ahead, using quick-win episode formats, and batching like a pro. It’s all about keeping your show running without burning out.

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

Transcript

If you don't start prepping your podcast for the holidays now, you're risking burnout, a chaotic December, or even worse, your show going dark. Yes, it's still October, but you and I both know that December always creeps up faster than we expect. Whatever your December looks like busy or blissfully quiet, you deserve a break without your podcast skipping a beat. And today, I'll show you exactly how to make that happen. Hey there. I'm Julia Levine, AKA the Podcast Teacher, and you're listening to Podcasting for Solopreneurs, the show that helps online business owners grow their podcast, get more listeners, leads, and sales. In this episode, you'll learn smart ways to keep your podcast going through the holiday season without breaking your streak, and without without burning yourself out. Whether you are traveling, juggling kids, or just need a breather, this plan will help you stay consistent and take a real break.

Consistency is one of the most powerful tools that you have as a podcaster. It builds trust with your audience, it signals professionalism, and it keeps your show top of mind. When listeners know that they can count on you, they're more likely to keep tuning in and take that next step and become a client or customer. But I've seen so many podcasters decide to take a short break in December, and they fully intend to come back in January. But then they don't. Life takes over, momentum slips away, and before they know it, the their show quietly pod fades. So to avoid this, first and foremost, plan ahead. I know that sounds super obvious, but it's a whole lot easier said than done.

I'm guilty of not planning ahead myself, and it comes back to bite me. So seriously, plan ahead like your December depends on it. Because it kind of does. I am intentionally releasing this episode in mid October because now is the time to get ahead before things get wild. Go ahead and pull up your calendar and pinpoint exactly when you want to take time off from your podcast. Tasks like planning, recording, editing, all of the things. Then reverse engineer your schedule. So figure out how many episodes you'll need based on the time you want to take off, and then pull up your calendar and identify some spots where you could work on those podcast episodes in advance.

Block off that time now, seriously, you and I both know that something else will come up to fill those spots if you don't block them off. Now, let's say that you want to take three weeks off. That's three episodes for most people. And if it takes you four hours to plan, record, edit, and schedule a single episode, that's a total of 12 hours for all three episodes. Block off smaller chunks on your calendar or whole days, depending on how you prefer to work. I've got some tips coming up that can help you make your episodes faster, but still go ahead and give yourself the full time. If you finish early, that's great. You've got bonus time for other things and worst case, you've scheduled exactly the amount of time that you need.

Once your time is blocked off, we need to make it count. So I have some strategies that will help you produce some smart time saving episodes. But before we get into those, if this information is helping you feel more prepared and less stressed about your podcast, I would love to support you further inside the Podcast Growth Collective. That is where you'll get lessons, templates and personalized feedback to plan strategic episodes, stay consistent and grow your show on all without the overwhelm. Just head to thepodcastteacher.com collective to check it out. Okay, so one of the easiest ways to lighten your podcast workload is by creating Quick Tip episodes. These work for any podcaster, but it's an especially helpful strategy if you usually do interviews. Interview interviews are a ton of work to prepare, schedule, record and edit, so for now I suggest that you take a break from interviews and swap out a few of those slots for Quick Tip solo episodes.

Keep these short and punchy. It is totally fine if they're not your usual length. While I do normally recommend keeping episodes roughly around the same length, trimming things down for the holidays is a smart trade off if it means that you can keep publishing consistently without the stress. Quick Tip episodes are efficient, they're valuable, and they're easy to produce. Another winning format is the FAQ episode. Just pick a question that your audience asks often and dedicate an episode to answering it. These are perfect for casual off the cuff recordings and if you usually script everything like I do, you can take this opportunity to loosen up a little. This will save you time if you just work from an outline and your audience will appreciate the relaxed conversational vibe because it will feel like a chat where you're just simply answering their question.

Another great option is to create a holiday themed miniseries. Think of this like a Quick Tip series, but tied together with a focused theme, especially one that feels timely. So let's say that your podcast is about weight loss. You could do a four part series on staying healthy during the holidays. Maybe One episode is on handling sugary treats at parties, another episode is about sticking to workout routines during especially busy times, and so on. Each episode stays short and actionable, but together, these episodes give your audience a helpful roadmap to tackle the season without falling off track. And finally, one other strategy is to replay a past episode, but I only endorse this if you've been podcasting for over a year. Replaying something from just a few months ago doesn't really make sense.

It's still relatively fresh in your audience's memory, and most of your listeners will probably have already heard it. But if you've got a solid back catalog from a year or more ago, chances are that many of your newer listeners may have missed one of those old episodes, or it's just been long enough that it feels fresh again. Make sure to pick a great episode, one that delivered real value and of course still feels relevant, something that is worth a second listen, even for your longtime followers. Then record a short, custom intro. Let your audience know that you're taking a bit of time off to enjoy the holidays and that you're choosing to replay this specific episode because it had great feedback or because the content is especially relevant. Whatever the reason is, this replay is a useful strategy to save your sanity, but you want to be sure to use it sparingly. I don't recommend running replays for four straight weeks in December one replay, maybe two tops, and then fill in the rest with quick tip episodes, FAQ episodes, or a mini series. Used conservatively, this is a smart way to stay consistent and free up some time without sacrificing value for your audience.

So now that you have a toolkit of strategies, I urge you to block time on your calendar right now to batch out a few episodes, get them planned, recorded and edited and scheduled before your holiday chaos kicks in. That way you get to enjoy some well deserved time off while your podcast doesn't miss a beat. And if you want deeper support with your podcast, I invite you to join us in the Podcast Growth Collective. You can learn more@thepodcastteacher.com Collective. Until next time. Happy podcasting.