191 | How to Find Time for Podcasting: Smart Scheduling & Efficiency Tips

[00:00:00] Ever feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day? I mean, there's work, life, your podcast? Time just seems to disappear. But here's the secret. We all have the same 24 hours. The best podcasters don't have more time. They just use it better. 24-7 in the mix. 24 minutes. 24 minutes. Sound matters. Be heard.

[00:00:29] Welcome to the podcast where you get exclusive behind-the-scenes tips to make your own show sound truly spectacular. This is Podtastic Audio. What's happening? How are you doing today? Thank you so much for being here. I am Chris. And yeah, you clicked on the right show at the right time at the right place. This is Podcasting Audio.

[00:00:55] You know, I designed this show to help you design your amazing podcast. Hey, do you have a podcast? Maybe you do and maybe you don't. And if you do not have a podcast, hey, listen, it's not that hard to do. Listen, if I can make a podcast, then you can make a podcast too. And make sure it sounds amazing. It looks amazing. It delivers amazing content to your own audience. And that's what it's all about. Making podcasting fun for everyone.

[00:01:23] So let me ask you a simple question. How many hours are in the day for every single person on Earth? Well, if you were to guess 24 hours, you would be correct. Yes, there are 24 hours on a Earth day as we live on this planet right now. Maybe you live on a different planet and they have different hours over there. But right here on planet Earth, we only have 24 hours in the day.

[00:01:52] So being that we know we only have 24 hours to use, how do we manage those simple 24 hours? And when it comes to creating a podcast, especially as an indie hobby podcaster, there is a really good chance that you are doing this on the side, including your regular job, including kids, including family, including other projects, other things you have going on.

[00:02:18] There's a really strong chance that this is not the only thing you do within those 24 hours. And I get it. I am in the same exact boat you are. So today we're going to talk about time management. Everybody's favorite topic when it comes to creating a podcast, because one thing I hear a lot of content creators and podcasters, they seem to always say is that, well, I don't have time for my podcast or I don't have time to do this.

[00:02:47] I don't have time to do that. But here's the real thing. We all have those same exact 24 hours in the day. And how you choose to use those 24 hours is really up to you. And before I go any further today, you can do your podcast or your video channel or your YouTube thing or your Instagram channel, your content creation, whatever it is, you can do it however you want. It's your show.

[00:03:16] Have fun. Keep on keeping on. Do the thing that makes you happy with the available time that you have put in place for yourself. But knowing that we all have the exact same 24 hours in the day. Yeah, I get it. I know what it's like to figure out a time and a place and energy and tools. And how do you do this? Make it do that. How do I have time to interview this guest? How do I have time to be on that show?

[00:03:43] How do I have time to physically make a podcast and get it out each and every single week? I know a lot of shows struggle with just getting a weekly episode out. So how do I do it? What do I do? Because I feel personally that I get a lot done with a limited amount of time.

[00:04:06] What I mean by that is being a one man show, I do all the recording, all of the production, all the prep work, post work, all of the graphic work, all the social media marketing, everything for this show. I was doing with the other show, the Chris Christine show. And I also do it for my client show, Ace Relocation Nation.

[00:04:33] All of the recording, editing, production, all that stuff, and some social media marketing. At the same time I do all of that stuff, I also work a 12-hour shift at my normal, regular job. Plus, I go on vacation. I just got back from San Francisco. I was traveling a lot. How am I able to manage all that stuff, keep it all going, and have time to create a simple

[00:05:02] podcast like I am right now? How do I do all that? So today, that is what we're talking about. And today, I'm going to break down how I pull all this off being a one man show. So let's start by understanding the real value of time and how we tend to use it. So when it comes to time and time itself, it's got to be the one thing we all have that is incredibly precious. That and our health.

[00:05:32] Well, yeah, they kind of go hand in hand because if you're not healthy, then time really, really slows down and it becomes incredibly precious. But I think the older I've gotten in life, the longer I've gotten, the more birthdays I have, the more I realize that time is something that we can never get back. We cannot save time. If you have a savings account, if you made $100 today and you didn't spend all $100, you

[00:06:01] spent $50, now you have $50 going into the next day, you'd have $150 and so on and so forth. Time does not work that way. I cannot save five hours from today and bank them into tomorrow. So tomorrow I've got, what is it, 29 hours tomorrow? It doesn't work that way. We always have the exact same 24 hours every single time. So you can make more money. You can get more gear. You can grow your audience.

[00:06:29] You can do all these wonderful things with your podcast. But you can never create more time. Hey, and I know there are a lot of excuses why we may say, you know, like, we don't have enough time. I don't have time for that. I don't got time. But what the real meaning is when someone says, I don't have time for that, they're really saying is, this isn't really a priority for me.

[00:06:55] So let's just say you're busy watching the latest, you know, Marvel TV show on Disney Plus, or maybe even Netflix, binge watching whatever series on Netflix. There's tons of movies on there watching whatever the fix is. It could be YouTube. It could be social media, whatever it is that takes your time. If you can fit doing that into your schedule, then you probably can spend a little bit of time on your podcast too.

[00:07:25] You see, it's all about priorities. But even with priorities, sometimes we get confused on what is making us look busy versus actually being productive. Have you ever feel like you're doing a lot, like you're doing a lot of stuff, but you're not really going anywhere? Being busy is doing things like checking emails, tweaking your logo on your podcast for hours

[00:07:50] on end, maybe scrolling through social media for quote unquote research. But if you want to be productive and actually move the needle towards getting things actually done, being productive means actually recording your podcast. Editing your podcast, uploading the physical podcast to your media host, and then possibly engaging with your audience.

[00:08:16] Those are things that are going to move the needle forward in the productive column versus just being busy for busy sake. Okay, so just imagine what you did yesterday. Now, where did all the time go? What did you do? Were you productive yesterday? Did you get things done? If you spent two hours on social media, what if you spent just one of those hours working on your podcast?

[00:08:44] Just imagine the amazing things you can do by taking just one of those hours away from social media and applying it to creating your podcast. But one thing I've seen as a indie hobby podcaster going from the content consumer, like everybody starts as a content consumer. So you go from a content consumer side into the creator side.

[00:09:10] There are unique challenges, different challenges, new things that most of us are not aware of being a content consumer. Okay, so I know that some of you may not know the difference between being a content consumer and being a content creator. So I'm going to break it down right now because your time is very valuable. Everyone's time is very valuable.

[00:09:33] And if you know the differences between being one versus the other, this will definitely help you out when it comes to creating your podcast. So first things first, we all start off as content consumers, right? We go to the movies, we consume the content. We watch things on television. We listen to other podcasts. We listen to music, listen to radio. We are physically consuming content from somewhere else.

[00:10:01] So when you are a actual content consumer, time just disappears. Have you ever opened up Instagram? In fact, before I got into recording this podcast right now, I was sitting on the couch and I was opening up Instagram. And before I know it, I kid you not, I just spent like 45 minutes just doom scrolling reel after reel after reel. And I'm like, I got to get moving here. I got a podcast to do.

[00:10:30] So time literally disappears when you go onto things like Instagram. And the reason why they do these social media platforms are very good at making sure they get you to stay on the platform. But as a content creator, we see things completely differently. So as a creator, all of your time must be structured. See, the difference is this. A podcaster who succeeds isn't just consuming content. They're creating it.

[00:11:00] Every single minute of the day, you're thinking, how am I going to create something for somebody else? How am I going to create the content? Whether it's a podcast, social media post, newsletter, whatever it is, you are going to create something with that time you have available. Now, that is why a content creator does things differently than a content consumer. So like I said earlier, there is a serious trap when it comes to social media.

[00:11:30] These social media platforms are designed to keep you on there for hours and hours at a time. If they could, they keep you there all day long. So many indie podcasters feel pressured to be everywhere, like on TikTok, on Twitter, X, on Instagram, on Facebook, on Blue Sky, on Threads, all of them. But here's the thing. Is that really even necessary?

[00:11:57] If you are limited on time and you don't have time for all of those, just pick one. If Facebook is your thing, stick with Facebook. Do everything there. If LinkedIn is your thing, I know a lot of you guys are on LinkedIn. You love the LinkedIn stuff, especially in the business space of things, then just stick there and do your thing right there.

[00:12:18] And if creating content, whether it's a video for YouTube or a podcast or whatever it is, for me, podcasting works best. I like to call it podcasting classic, the RSS audio feed. So if podcasting is your strength like it is my strength, why not focus on that instead of trying to master five different platforms with five different algorithms with all kinds of different audiences on each one?

[00:12:47] Why not just stick with the thing you do best? And I know as an indie hobby podcaster who has a life outside of podcasting, a busy life outside of podcasting, it's very difficult to try to be everywhere all at once on all these different platforms. So focus on the thing that you know how to do very well. Don't worry about the other things. Maybe if you have time later, you'll do them. Maybe you'll hire somebody later to take care of those things for you if you want.

[00:13:16] But for right now, as an indie hobby podcaster, as a solo person doing everything themselves, then do what you can. Focus on the one thing. And if you're doing a podcast, I would say focus on doing the podcast. Hey, and don't even worry about having to be every single place all over the world all at once. Don't feel guilty to be everywhere. Instead, why don't you try to just, you know, do what you do best?

[00:13:45] And only you know what you do best. Okay, so how do we actually manage our time better? Now, this is a question as old as time, it seems like. But let's get into some strategies that I personally use to manage my time to get all these things done being a one-man team.

[00:14:07] Okay, so here are five simple, really easy tips that you can put in place right now for your podcast to help you manage your time as an indie podcaster. Because I do know we do not have a lot of time in the day. In fact, I have a 12-hour regular shift I do every day. Now, there's 24 hours in the day. Taking away 12 of those leaves another 12. And I get it. Yes, you got to sleep for some of that.

[00:14:36] And you got to eat and shower and do things like that. Yes, I get all of that. But it does leave you some time to get things done. So one cool little thing you can do right now to manage your time better as an indie podcaster is that you can batch recording and you can schedule times to record. So one of my biggest time savers I have is batch recording, especially when I go on vacation.

[00:15:00] I went on vacation last week and I did not record the regular podcast episode on the day that I normally do. I normally record on Fridays. It's Friday night right now, which means I'll record this tonight and I'll put it together and I'll have it ready for Monday. But when I was on vacation, I recorded the episode. I think it was Wednesday or Thursday I recorded the episode. Maybe it was Wednesday. I don't know.

[00:15:27] All I know is that I did it in advance on a different day and that was scheduling things out because I knew I was going to be gone. I knew I wasn't going to be here in town to actually do this. And when I was out of town on for Christmas of 2024, I was in New York City and I knew I was going to be gone for like three weeks or whatever it was to do the podcast stuff. So I knew I had to record like three or four episodes in advance. I think I did them all in the course of like one weekend.

[00:15:57] It wore me out, but I got it all done and I was able to batch record all of those and schedule them all out in advance. So instead of possibly recording, editing and uploading one episode at a time, maybe sit down and do a few in a batch. That way it takes the pressure of having to create content when you don't have much time to do it, especially if you're traveling or out of town. So this gives me content for those times when I'm out of town.

[00:16:27] Now, I know some people, they will enjoy creating batch recording of content for months on end, like maybe they'll record four weeks of episodes. So a whole entire month of episodes on like one Saturday. An entire Saturday is completely filled up with doing recording. Great. If that's your thing, go ahead and do that. That does help you buy some time and get you things ready for the weeks in advance.

[00:16:53] That way you can still have your podcast ready to go and you're still freeing up some time. And speaking of time, the second tip you can use right now is actually blocking out time to record your podcast. So for me, for example, right now being that it's Friday night, I know and everybody knows that Friday night, I come in here and I record the podcast. So it's just like being at work.

[00:17:20] So if you have a regular day job, job, a normal job, like a nine to five, a place you go to, and actually they pay you a paycheck and you come home, that kind of stuff. You got to be there at a certain time of the day, right? You go there when you go there, just like creating a podcast. So for example, if maybe for you, you know, Monday nights might be your recording night. And then maybe you do your editing on Wednesday night.

[00:17:46] And then maybe Friday, you do some social media posting, whatever it is, mix or match, however you do it. If you can find time, blocks of time, days of time that help you create the thing you want to create, it'll make things so much easier. So when you plan things in advance, it eliminates all the stress of, what am I going to fit all this stuff in? Oh my goodness, I'm so stressed out. I got so many things I'm working on. Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?

[00:18:14] But if you find specific times of the day or specific days of the week to create the things, it'll help you out tremendously. Okay, moving on to the third tip on how you as an indie podcast can help you free up some time to create your amazing podcast is that you should avoid, ready for it? Avoid multitasking.

[00:18:37] And I know I might be the king of multitasking, but multitasking sometimes will feel like it's productive. But in reality, it actually slows you down. So if you're ever writing like show notes while maybe editing the audio, while maybe checking Instagram, and you're on Facebook, and you're texting your friend all at the same time, well, chances are not a single one of those you're going to do extremely well.

[00:19:05] You may get them kind of done, but not really, really well. So maybe, here's a tip, try focusing on just one of those tasks at a time. Record your podcast audio. Record it. Do an amazing job with that. Set that aside. Then move into the editing part. Great. Focus on that. Get that done extremely well. Then when that's all done, focus on doing the publishing part, the production part.

[00:19:35] Putting it on your social media, putting it on your podcast media host, all the usual things when it comes to publishing a podcast. So one task at a time. Okay, moving on to the fourth tip that you can put in place right now to make sure that you have more time for your Indie Hobby Podcast.

[00:19:55] Is that maybe if you use these cool little easy to use templates, or maybe you put in some automation to help streamline the production process, the creation process. You know, if you have, say, show notes that are fairly the same every single episode, for example. Instead of like writing those out every single episode.

[00:20:20] I know that on the Chris Christine Show, I realized that I could copy and paste things from Google Docs into the show notes. So on the early days of the podcast, I had a ton of show notes that were already like pre-written. There were things like links to our website, links to our social media. And for one hot minute, I don't know why I did this. Maybe because I saw this on YouTube. I started putting like all the gear, like a gear section at the bottom of the podcast.

[00:20:45] Like what kind of microphones we use and what kind of audio interface we're using or computer, all this kind of stuff. So I put it all in the bottom of the podcast. And what I did was, is I put this into a Google Doc, typed it all up. And that way, every single time I created the podcast, I would just copy and paste and move it over to the show notes. So it was all done. So all I had really had to do was just type in a few things at the intro and the rest of the stuff was already put in there.

[00:21:14] So if you have ways to do this, I know a lot of podcast media hosts have this kind of feature built in already. So if they do, and the podcast media host you use right now has something like this, take advantage of it. And the same thing can work for email replies. It can work for maybe social media posts that you create. I know these are simple little things that we all take for granted. We can use these right now.

[00:21:40] We can do these things right now and make sure you can save some serious time by actually have everything kind of ready to roll with each and every single post you make and episode you create. Okay, and the final fifth thing you can do right now to make sure you have enough time to create the thing that you want to create to make your amazing podcast. Because there's only 24 hours in the day. What do we do? How do we prioritize the things that are important?

[00:22:09] Well, you got to prioritize those things. So ask yourself, is what I'm doing right now actually helping my podcast grow? Or is it just keeping me busy? Like scrolling on social media? Are you just doom scrolling away? Doom scroll forever. Go ahead. Is that really helping you make your podcast better? Is it growing your podcast? Probably not.

[00:22:34] So for example, let's just say that you are spending hours upon hours tweaking your podcast logo for your podcast artwork. And I know everyone does that because they want to make sure their podcast stands out in all the sea of all those many other podcasts out there. Trust me, I get it. But if you're spending hours on it, that won't help your show nearly as much as putting in consistent episodes.

[00:23:03] Just imagine how many episodes you could create in the hours you spent working on your podcast artwork. Okay. And I know you're probably thinking, hey, Chris, how do you do it all? How do you manage a 12-hour shift job and handle the client's podcast and your own podcast and everything else and traveling? How do you handle it all? Well, I want to break it down for you right now. Well, do you want my easy answer?

[00:23:32] The easy thing I do? Well, I'll tell you. Well, here it is. Are you ready? Take notes. I stick to a routine and I eliminate time that is wasted. What? Did that just blow your mind? Sounds pretty easy to do, really. So if you think about this, everything I do, every hour, every minute of the day for the most part has to be accounted for.

[00:23:56] Meaning that I do not have a lot of free time to just throw away. Remember, we only have 24 hours in the day and I pretty much account for most of it. So I have to stick to a routine. So I know that on this time of the day, I have time to do this or that. And on this time of the day, I have time to create the podcast. And on this time of the day, I may have two hours. I'm going to work on my client's podcast, get that figured out and done.

[00:24:25] Oh, I have an extra half hour that just popped up right now. I'm going to spend it on maybe creating some cool social media posting because I do know that you have to figure out time for all these things. And all these things can't happen at the exact same time. So when some time does come available to me, I take advantage of it. So using tools like your calendar on your Apple device or maybe Google Calendar, whatever calendar device you have.

[00:24:54] iPhone's got the calendar app and it syncs between all my computers. I've got two Mac computers and an iPhone. It syncs through all of them. I got multiple calendars. I use Calendly to book all of my appointments with my clients, any podcast guests I have on this show, things of that sort. You have to look at your calendar and keep a very close look at your calendar and all the times that you are available.

[00:25:20] Just like going to work, you go there at a certain time, you clock in at a certain time, you know what time you leave, roughly, for the most part. You know how long it takes to get home, roughly. I get that. So you kind of have to look at your own personal time kind of the same way you would if you were employed by a company. Because your podcast does take up some time. I will give you that. It takes up time to do a podcast.

[00:25:47] But understanding what kind of time you have available will help you in the long run. It will help you free up time because you realize I may only have 30 minutes right now to work on the podcast or work on something productive. Or I can spend that 30 minutes just doom scrolling social media. And I know that sometimes I've gone to the ladder and I've doom scrolled, you know, social media.

[00:26:16] And then I realize, oh, crap, I got to get that one thing done. I wasted that 30 minutes on something that wasn't productive. It may have been busy, but it wasn't busy in the right direction. It wasn't getting anything done. So if I have 30 minutes free, I'm going to use it. And I don't wait for that, quote, like, perfect moment that we all wait for.

[00:26:42] And so when it comes to making sure you have enough time, if you're struggling with time management, just ask yourself, is the thing I'm doing right now productive at all? Does it need to happen right now? Now, you watching the latest whatever TV show or any old movie that you've seen 100 times before, do you have to be watching it right now? Is it a mandatory thing? Chances are it's not.

[00:27:11] And I know it could possibly be something you really enjoy doing. And if you really enjoy watching that movie, then it's your thing. I get it. But I don't want to hear, oh, man, I wish I had more time to do the podcast, but I don't have time for a podcast. Well, I don't want to hear it because you wasted that time doing something that was unproductive. That's one thing I always hear growing up was that how are you spending your time? Are you being productive?

[00:27:41] Are you just wasting time? And the older you get, the longer you go in life, the more you realize that time is very, very precious. We are all gifted the same amount of time. But as we get older, that time seems to get shorter and faster and quicker. They always say that the older you get, the faster time goes. It's like from age 1 to 10 feels like it takes forever. But that's only 10 years if you think about it.

[00:28:09] I remember 10 years ago as if it happened yesterday. It seems like things happen so fast. So to recap today, time itself is your most valuable asset. Use it very wisely. Imagine it was drinking water on a deserted island and you only had a small amount of it. What would you do? Would you just throw it in the air and throw water fights at each other? Or would you save it and ration it out? Probably you'd ration it out, I would think.

[00:28:38] Focus, focus, focus, focus on what you do best. Instead of trying to do everything all at once, that is a big time suck. It'll suck away all your time if you try to do everything, especially when you're good at just one of the things. And also, when it comes to social media, because we all love social media. Trust me, I love social media. I'm probably addicted to social media. It's probably one fix I have. I should go to social media as anonymous. Is that even a thing? I don't know. It probably should be if there isn't one already.

[00:29:07] But when it comes to social media, be intentional with your social media and your content consumption. Because the more content you consume takes away time from you actually creating content. Hey, so if you have some tips or tricks or maybe some cool little tools that you use right now to help you manage time and get time available for you to create your podcast in your busy day, I'd love to hear about it. You can message me directly on my website.

[00:29:36] That is podtasticaudio.com. And on there, of course, there are social media things. Speaking of social media, all my links are right there. And all kinds of cool stuff, including every single episode is right there on my website. That is podtasticaudio.com. And I want to say thank you once again for listening. I appreciate you and your time. Because I know time is very valuable. We talked about it all today. And your time is very precious. And I appreciate you spending your time with me today.

[00:30:05] This has been so awesome. I hope you learned something amazing. If you did, please, you know, give me a shout out or give me a review or whatever you got to do. Just let me know how much you appreciate this podcast right here. I do it for you so you can make your amazing, fun, awesome podcast of your very own. And I love to hear all about it. You can ship me a message once again on my website directly. That is podtasticaudio.com. And you have an amazing week with your amazing podcast.

[00:30:34] And happy podcasting to you.