How the Best Podcasters Do Their Jobs Faster

My goal here is to help you create a podcast as soon as possible.

And I'm not just talking about any old podcast. I mean an excellent podcast. Your best podcast possible!

Because that's where so many people get caught. This is where the shows go to die. The podcaster spends too much time doing each episode. So much so that it just doesn't fit into their week or even into their life. At this point, it drains all the fun and value from the whole show!

Of course, it's worth noting that different types of shows take time to produce (go ask an audio drama producer how much time they spend on dialogue editing alone!). And sometimes spending more time on your show can improve the quality or what you get out of it. But that's only if you spend that time on the right things. And I believe it is possible to do these good things in much less time than you think.

So that's what I'm going to do in this article: show you the best of those "good things" and help you create the best possible product in the least amount of time.

Who I am and what you will learn

As a quick "who the hell is this guy?" : My name is Colin Gray, and I'm a podcaster, writer, teacher, and general dogbody at The Podcast Host. We create a network of our own shows and help thousands of others produce theirs through our content.

In addition, we run a podcast creation tool called Alitu. Alitu's goal is to offer recording, editing and publishing tools that automate and simplify, making creating your show much faster and easier. And a lot of it is based on the "good manners" I'm going to talk about here.

Over the past ten years, I've gone from adapting a podcast to doing a completely different normal job (teaching teachers how to teach - meta, huh?) to trying to adapt as many podcasts as possible to my current work and design tools to help others do it faster!

It was all about stripping out the essentials and figuring out what was really worth creating a successful, high-quality show. I'll cover all of this information here, including:

How to plan content in a minimum of time and in a way that facilitates its distribution How to Make the Most of Everything You Do Create Recording and editing tips to save time How to find and learn the tools that reduce processing time

So let's go. It's time to apply some lightning to your podcast!

Why Seasons are Rocketfuel for You and Your Audience

Season-based podcasting is the most underrated workflow hack in the industry. And, best of all, it's also a huge driver of success, loyalty, and audience growth.

How? Well, there are three reasons.

planning nirvana

You know when you show up at your desk for taping time and think, "Okay...it's podcast time. I've got an hour to tap this baby!" Soooo…what am I going to talk about…”

An hour later, you're only halfway through planning the episode. Or even worse, you're still staring at a blank screen, trying to think of an idea.

Well, here's a new approach: take an hour of your life and think about your next season instead.

Take a question you often get from your listeners or a topic you want to cover, then break it down. One of the biggest mistakes we make as podcasters is trying to fit too much into an episode. We do it because we care. We want to give a lot of value, but in reality it misleads your listeners, often misses details, or gives them too much to think about at once. Instead, break this topic down into its component parts.

I did a season on podcast gear a while back. I could have easily covered it in one episode but it's better to break it down. One episode on microphones, one on mixers, one on recording software and one on editing software.

Normally, I can solve this problem in less than ten minutes for a subject that I know well. Maybe 20-30 if I need to do a little research. I'll end up with a list of six or seven episodes, sometimes up to 15 or 20.

Then I'll take another 20 minutes to put some meat on the bones and do a series of five to ten bullet points in each main topic, outlining what I'm going to cover.

At the end of the hour (or less!), I have a plan for an entire season of content, often two or three months, maybe longer.

So now, instead of the usual, "Oh no! What am I talking about with...