I just dropped a video diving into being “camera-ready”, and one of the points I mentioned was BATCH filming your videos so that you don’t have to film every single day or every single week. It helps so much with the forever daunting problem of STAYING CONSISTENT.
I’ll say it. Other Youtubers will say it. Consistency is KEY whether it’s filming videos, posting reels, or reaching out to clients. If you aren’t consistent, you will be forgotten in this digital world. Not because you aren’t good, but just because people will forget why they followed you. And for the ones who don’t know you? What’s the point if you are rarely providing value, entertainment, or inspiration. You want to be a stable place where your viewers etc can come to expect some sort of minimum content from you. It could be daily, weekly, or monthly. Just keep going. Peter Mckinnon has a great video on it here.
Batching will help.
So what exactly is batching? Batching is filming multiple videos in one sitting.
Sometimes the hardest part about staying consistent and filming videos, in general, is finding the time to get ready, set up, and press record. And some days we just don’t “feel” like it. Batching helps to eliminate any excuses or reasons we tend to come up with that prolong our creative process. If we can just find one day a month to film, we can knock out a minimum of 4 videos in a day and have content for a whole month.
Four things have to happen for you to get your content out there. You have to have the ideas for content, organize the content, script the content, and film the content. In order for batching to be a success, especially for Youtube, I find it best to be as organized as possible to keep up with those four things. For me, I do most of this inside of Notion.
Notion defines themselves as a project management and note-taking software. designed to help members coordinate deadlines, objectives, and assignments for the sake of efficiency and productivity.
I’ve been searching for the perfect project management software for me as a creative entrepreneur, and honestly, I think I’ve struck gold with Notion. I’ve tried AirTable, Asana, Trello, ClickUp, and more. They were all great, but Notion seems to be perfect for the writer in me, especially as a solo creator.
Every idea that pops into my head I write down in either my notes app or Notion IMMEDIATELY. If you think you can keep all of your ideas in your head, you are most likely wrong. Just jot down a rough thought so you don’t forget!! In my early 20’s, I forgot many an idea just because I was like “no way I will forget!”. Welp!
Whenever I have an idea, I organize them in Notion. Check the video for the specifics.
I created a board for my content calendar with different sections categorized by “type” of content. When I’m leaning towards filming something next, I just move it to the In Queue section using emojis to further organize.
I start with a rough few words like “canva 2022” for example, but as I get close to wanting to flesh out the idea, I use Tube Buddy. Tube Buddy helps you find high-performing, searchable video topics, and then craft the perfect titles and tags. It’s pretty cool how it works and super affordable. You can join at the link above for free (but it does have a paid version).
Whatever keyword/title combination that Tube Buddy says is best for good results is what I rename the tab to. So for the “Canva 2022” example, I would most likely change my keyword to something like “canva thumbnail tutorial 2022” which not only helps me to sharpen my video idea, but also gives me hope for the algorithm to promote it.
Inside each keyword/idea tab in Notion, I have a few to-dos, links, and dates that help me to stay organized. Notion has different views so when I want to look at my schedule, I just change to the calendar view which is super convenient. It’s nice to just be able to have everything associated with the video in this tab. I can put images, videos, sources, anything. It’s beautiful.
Notion is very intuitive and powerful, but sometimes I like to write my scripts in Medium because… well , it looks prettier.
Scripting videos is probably different for every creator, but for me, how I script completely depends on what I’m writing. My two main “categories” would be storytelling and teaching.
If I’m teaching something, I almost always start with an outline of all of the main points, and then I break them down one by one. For stories, I just start at the beginning and pour on the page, crossing my fingers that it makes sense. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t.
After a script is finished, it’s always best to read through it a few times before getting in front of the camera. Occasionally, what you thought made sense, doesn’t quite make sense when you say it aloud.
My current filming strategy is shooting 2–4 videos per filming session. This requires me to come to each session with 2 or 3 scripts prepared. After the scripted videos, I’ll jump into some reaction videos or an unscripted podcast. I always take a mini “quick 5” break in between videos as well so that I can attempt to come back fresh and start again fresh. Oh! And if you’re struggling with getting in front of the camera in general make sure to check out my video on my getting camera-ready tips here.
I’ve seen some YouTubers plan and batch content up to three months in advance, but I personally don’t like to plan more than 2–4 weeks. So much can change in that time, and I have a hard time editing things when I don’t feel inspired. I would hate to be working on videos for 3 months when I lost motivation in month 1.
2–4 weeks allow my ADD to thrive.
As far as the details of my scripting — you really just need to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. An intro, middle points, and an outro. Always remind people how they can support or give them a call to action to places that can give them value or inspire them.
Success in filming consistently etc. really is dependent upon YOU learning what helps YOU to work best. You will definitely have to A/B test and determine your optimal skillset. This is what this game is about!! Find the joy in testing and figure out your top-notch productivity. I’m just here to give you my personal roadmap in hopes that it gives you some ideas. No need to follow it to a tea.
Now, let’s batch. Hope this helps. 🤙
