😮 How to Make Videos Consistently

How to YouTube #7

Hey YouTubers,

If you’re like most YouTubers, you struggle with making videos consistently.

Being a YouTuber is like running a never ending TV show. There’s no seasonality, no breaks, no time for the creative cup to refill. This can be draining over a long period of time.

Every creative person ever has struggled with being creative. But the problem when it comes to YouTube is deadlines. Usually, self imposed deadlines. And they never seem to go away.

For lots of us, we decide that we need to post once a week. It will keep our audience engaged, it will force us to get better, and it sounds achievable, right?

Well, again if you’re like most YouTubers, it’s actually super hard.

It’s why burnout is so common amongst YouTubers. They don’t set themselves up to take any breaks.

So, what’s the solution?

Longevity is a complicated thing to solve for.

There’s lots of factors that might be working for or against you. But, if you’re at all serious about being a top YouTuber, you’ll want to leverage this simple productivity tip.

Batching.

It’s as simple as it sounds, but often the best advice is simple.

Batching means doing lots of similar tasks in one session, rather than doing lots of different tasks in one session.

As I’ve spoken to more and more YouTubers, the ones that do the well over the long term (and are the most satisfied), take batching seriously.

We do it unconsciously all the time.

It would seem crazy to wash up one dinner plate, dry that plate, wash up another plate, dry that plate. Obviously, you wash them all, then dry them all (if you don’t you’re a psycho).

Yet when it comes to YouTube, we try to come up with an idea, plan or script the video, and sometimes even film it, all in one fell swoop.

This is a mistake.

Sometimes, it can feel like you’ve been hit with some inspiration and you want to take advantage, that’s fine. But the reason this is a mistake is because it’s not sustainable. It’s not a system you can rely on.

In the How to YouTube newsletter we care about doing YouTube and business sustainably. If you want to make money (which we do here), you have to treat your channel like a business.

This means building a system for making videos.

You can’t rely on always feeling inspired, ready to film, or motivated. You have to create systems that work for you, not against you. And a key part of that is batching.

Batching allows you to get ahead. It means you’re not always working to the deadline. If you take it seriously, it can even mean a relatively stress free creative existence.

Your channel and business can run on auto-pilot because you’re so far ahead with your content.

You can batch writing, idea generation, and most of all filming sessions.

This means you avoid having to set up your filming stuff as often, or having to feel inspired as often, and take advantage of the momentum when you’re in the zone.

For me, what works is picking a time each week when I do a specific part of my YouTube process. This means, every week in each slot, I am doing the same things.

For example, on Monday evenings I always give 2 hours to this newsletter. I write them throughout the week as well, but Monday evening is How to YouTube writing time.

Every channel is different, but batching is something that everyone can leverage.

Maybe choose a day or time of the week, where you do each specific part of your video making process. Trust me, once you start batching stuff and getting ahead, it’s game-changing.

You can finally enjoy breath of fresh air (hopefully filled with views and subscribers, wouldn’t that be nice).

Have an epic week!

Tintin 🧑‍💻

P.s. I’m personally in the process of building up to a batch filming session for my new YouTube channel about YouTube, and I’m so excited to have a bunch of videos in the back log. The link to my channel is down below, let me know if there are things you’d like me to make videos about 🙂 I’ll be building this channel in public here and leveraging all the tips that I’m sharing with you here. Nothing will be hidden :)

The YouTube Tin

🎙️ Podcast: I listened to this episode of The Espresso Hour a few months ago and it had so much wisdom in it. Cole and Dickie are some of my favourite people to learn from.

🗞️ Article: This is a great read analysing the future of the content creator industry, and how it’s threatening traditional media production.

🪓 Tool: Loom is a screen-recording tool that we use basically every single day in our team, both internally and with freelancers. If you have any editors or team members, I’d highly recommend communicating through looms as much as you can.

🔬 My Channel: I make videos (really just screen recordings) about YouTube to help you guys as much as I can and share more of what I learn at my job. Let me know what you’d like me to make videos about. I’ll share as much as possible!