128. Reimagine Your Podcast Routines with This ONE Principle | New Year Reset Series - Podcasting for Educators: Podcasting Tips for Online Entrepreneurs

Sara Whittaker 0:01

Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whittaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. Welcome to episode two of our new year reset series. Last week in Episode 127, we spent some time reflecting on your podcast progress this year, and visualized what we want for our shows in the upcoming year. Today, we are reimagining our podcast routines, specifically so that we can save time where we can and create better content that serves us and our audience. As you know, there's so much that goes into a single podcast episode, which is why routines are absolutely crucial. What your routine looks like, doesn't matter as much to me as that you have one in the first place that you are using consistently to make your life easier. I'm going to take a page out of Kendra Dachis book aka the lazy genius, if you've never heard of her, she has a book, she has a podcast, she has so many really great resources. And her whole spiel is that she helps you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And what we're going to talk about specifically in just a minute popped into my mind, because I've recently heard Rebecca and Lauren talk about it on their podcast, Rebecca and Lauren are two of my clients who have podcasts for their business. But then they also have a podcast that's just for fun. It's called bestie business banter, which you should definitely go check out. It's so funny. But they recently talked about it on their podcast, they talked about this concept and and it's Kendra Dachis principle of deciding once. And as I was listening to him talk about this, I was thinking, oh my gosh, we can definitely apply this to podcasters in so many different ways. As I said before, there's lots and lots and lots of things that we do in our podcasts that we have to make decisions for each and every week. When am I going to record my next episode? Or when am I going to reach out to my next guest? When am I going to sit down and look at my podcast stats? How will I share about this new podcast episode. So we are going to embrace this principle of deciding once so that we can relieve some of the decision fatigue that comes with all of these routines. So as you can imagine this deciding once principle is exactly what it sounds like. It's when you have things that you are doing over and over in your life in your business, you can decide once about them so that you don't have to constantly be making decisions for them each and every time. An example of this is I used to stress over getting holiday gifts for my daughter's teachers. And I honestly stress about gift giving in general because I feel like I just have to pick the perfect gift for each person. And it takes up so much not only time but so much mental energy. And I decided a couple of years ago that I'm just going to do a gift card. Because I as a former teacher, I can speak for teachers, when I say I love a good gift card, I can go and pick out something that I like, or treat myself to something when I get a gift card. So I now that's what I do I get a gift card, I put it in some nice wrapping paper with a nice card done. I don't even have to think about it anymore. I've decided once and I'm sticking with it. So when the how not only when the holidays come around, but also when Teacher Appreciation Week comes around, or I like to give a little gift card for the first week of school. When all of those little things pop up throughout the year. It's a gift card. So we are going to use that principle for your podcast routines. I'm going to list out five podcast routines that I recommend you have in place that you can use this decide once principle for. And we're looking at routines because this is, like I said the time of year, that is a great time to really reflect on what's working and what's not. And if we've gotten a little loosey goosey with our routines, how can we really tighten things up going into the new year so that we can really have a fresh start for ourselves for our podcast. So number one, the first routine is for your planning. I recommend that you have some kind of routine for your podcast planning so that you know exactly when you're going to do it and what that's going to look like for you so that you can commit to doing that at the same time. Each month each quarter however you're going to do it so you can use this decide once principle to determine when and you're going to do your planning example would be, I'm going to do my episode topic planning the last week of every quarter for the upcoming quarter. And I'm going to put that on my calendar. And I'm going to decide once about that. And that's what I'm going to do for the next year and see how it goes. So think about what that would look like for you. What can you decide once about when it comes to your podcast planning? Number two, you need a routine for the production of your podcast? When are you actually going to produce your show? When are you gonna sit down and record it, and then do all of the other things that you need to do for your podcast? For example, maybe you'll decide once that you are going to record every Monday. And then there's some additional decisions within that that you can decide once also, like maybe you go back and forth on using video or not using video decide once yes or no? Do I need to get dressed for this podcast recording? Do I need to put on some makeup? Do I need to brush my hair? Or can I be in my sweatpants with my messy bun and it doesn't matter what I look like, decide once. And if you are going to use video, and you always stress about what you're going to wear choose one outfit for every single time that you record your videos, I follow a girl on Instagram who does this. She is like a social media expert. And for every single reel that she creates, she wears the same outfit. And I just think is genius. Because you don't have to go into your closet and decide what you're going to wear and whether or not it's going to look good and whether or not you're going to feel good. You have already made that decision. Other things that you can decide once about when it comes to your podcast production, if you're producing your show by yourself is just the days of the week that you are going to do these things. Like I said, maybe you're going to record every Monday, you're going to edit on Tuesdays, decide once what you want your routine to be what you want your plan to be. And do that don't keep switching it up on yourself. Third routine is all about guests that you have on your show if you have guests on your show. So decide once how often you are going to record guest interviews. Pick one day of the week that you're going to have your calendar open for people to book these interviews, or one day a month, you get to choose what your schedule is going to look like. But decide once so that you have that in your calendar. And you don't have to constantly be checking your calendar and going into your booking system and changing your available times just decide once, pick a day, pick a time slot, that's when you're available for guest episodes.

Sara Whittaker 7:43

You can also decide once about one day of the month or one day of the quarter that you are going to send out your pitches or your invitations to possible guests asking them to come on your show. Have an email template that you put together, decide once on that, decide what you want your email to say, plug and play, depending on who you're sending it to what topic you want for them to talk about. But get it on your calendar decide once I'm the first Monday of every month, I'm going to dedicate 15 minutes to sending out a few pitches for upcoming guest episodes. And then a third thing that you can decide once about when it comes to your guests is just how often you're going to air guest episodes in general. So instead of sprinkling in guest episodes here and there, decide once on an actual schedule, I'm going to air a guest episode once a month, or I'm going to air a guest episode twice a month, but decide once on that because that will trickle down into all of these other things that you're doing when it comes to guest episodes. That will help you determine how many pitches you need to send out, or how many guest spots you need to put on your content calendar. Fourth routine that you can decide once about is the promotion of your episodes. And what I mean by this is decide once on what kind of Instagram content you are going to put out each week to promote your episodes. And I don't mean have the same template that you use every week, but the actual kind of content. So here's an example of that. Maybe you decide once that you are going to have your episodes go live on Wednesdays. Also on Wednesdays you're going to post a carousel about that episode. And you're going to post a face to face video about that episode on your Instagram Stories. You're going to post an audio gram on Thursdays and you're going to post a video clip from the episode on Saturdays. That is your schedule. You're going to decide once about that. And then that's going to eliminate a lot of those decisions in the production process. And then the fifth routine that you can decide once about is your data tracking. Choose a day each month and get it on your calendar. Now that you are going to sit down and look at your podcast data from the previous month, okay, so those five routines that you can make some decisions that you decide once about are your podcast planning, your podcast production, your guests, your episode promotion and your data tracking. Now, it's important to say that this decide once principle applies until it no longer serves you, if it's not working for you, because something changes, which eventually it will, that's fine, then you can change it and decide once about something else. But stick with it until it no longer works. That's how we eliminate decision fatigue. It's how we save time. And it's how we turn all of these tasks into actual routines that we can expect in our schedules. So I want you to think about these five areas where you could have a decide once principle in place, let's put these things in place. Now before we begin a new year. Remember that you have the chance to hit the reset button at any time. And I also want to add that if you are doing some of these things, some of these routines in a way that already serve you and are working for you great, then you don't need to change those. But I'm talking to those of you who have gotten a little wonky with all of the pieces of your podcasts you feel like every single week, your episode goes live and you're just racking your brain like oh, I don't even know how I'm going to share about this episode. And then maybe you end up not sharing at all. Or you are someone who is super scattered with guest episodes and inviting guests onto your show, or whatever it is, there's probably an area that you can identify for yourself that you could really tighten up. I would love for you to send me a message on Instagram and let me know what is a podcast routine that you can decide once about. Or better yet, leave a review on Apple podcasts and leave your decide once principle in your review. Maybe it's something that I mentioned in this episode, or maybe something that I mentioned in this episode sparked an idea for you about something else that you could decide once about. This is all about both eliminating some of that decision fatigue for you, but also having routines in place that are going to save you so much time in the long run. During this reset series. I am ending all of the episodes by referring you back to a few episodes that you may want to revisit or listen to for the first time that are related to today's topic. So some episodes that you might find helpful after listening to this episode are episode 12 Creating a streamline podcast workflow that works for you. Episode 23 using clickup to automate your podcast process, Episode 27 Why Rebecca join are started her podcast and content batching and time management tips. Episode 48 podcast planning six months out my six step process episodes 51 and 52 which are all about show notes, and episode 71. Building your podcast into your routines and maximizing productivity with Sam Holcomb. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode and that you have identified some ways that you can use this decide once principle. Be sure to come back here next week because we are going to be hitting the reset button on your podcast content. I'll see you then. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time

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