About a month ago, someone on Facebook asked how they could create videos consistently when their schedule was out of control. This person was a student who was juggling classes and work, but this pertains to entrepreneurs too. I gave her a short, simple answer, but I wanted to go into more detail about it here. Here’s how to make time to create YouTube videos when you have a crazy schedule.

How to make time to create YouTube videos when you have a crazy schedule

The easiest way to create videos consistently for YouTube is to have batch days. If you don’t know what batch days are, it’s when you group similar tasks together so that you’ll get things done faster and more efficiently.

Even though I haven’t created videos in a while, I want to share how I batch tasks. This even works for when I’m working on my client’s videos. Pay attention, because if you want to save a lot of time and be more efficient this is for you.

Planning

Before you hit record, plan your videos in advance. If I’m creating a video or even a blog post, I already have a list of titles to choose from. In fact, I have a list of a year’s worth of blog posts and video ideas (I thought I was going to start creating videos, so I already started planning them).

Preparation is the key to everything. Here’s the easiest way to create a list of video content ideas.

01 Braindump everything

If you just start out making a list of ideas, it can be too much. Before you start brain dumping all the things you want to create, first start with categories. Come up with 3 to 6 categories that you want to stick to for your videos. For example, if you’re a coach for entrepreneurs maybe you want to stick to motivation, productivity, and planning. If you’re a fitness vlogger you could create videos that pertain to food, fitness, and motivation.

Once you create your categories, then start listing ideas for each category. Let’s use the fitness vlogger as an example. Under the category of fitness, you can list:

• 5 ways to a smaller waist
• My gym routine
• Get rid of those chicken wings
• How to stretch before you exercise

The fewer categories you have, the more you have to braindump because you’re creating a year’s worth of content. If you only have 3 categories, and you’re making 1 video a week, then you would have to create 13 ideas for each category. 6 categories would make 9 ideas for each category.

02 Create an editorial calendar

Now that your list is ready, you can create an editorial calendar. You can write out which video you want to create for each week. If you don’t have time to plan out too far in advance, then at least do a month. 1 month should equal 4 or 5 videos if you’re creating 1 per week.

You can also look at your schedule and find a 2-hour time block so you can start recording. If you’re creating short videos, you should be able to record 4 videos back to back. I’ll get into this more after we finish planning. Read More “How to make time to create YouTube videos when you have a crazy schedule”