It is been almost 5 weeks since episode # 8 and that has been quite a break.
Now that break was not planned. It just happened.
What started off with a crashed hard disk on my computer went onto many more things including an emergency in the family and I had to skip episodes.
But that’s fine. At times life gets in your way and you tend to deviate from your course. But what is more important is to not quit.
So far as I am concerned, this isn’t really the first time I came across a situation like this. I have had my share of ups and downs in the last 11 years that I have been online and the one thing that I have learnt is that “you are never done until you call it quits”.
And that’s what it is.
Till you fall out of love for something, don’t quit. Interruptions are ok.
So what’s the agenda for episode 9.
I wanted to share a few learnings from the last 5-6 weeks of mine, which I am sure will help you in your podcast as well.
Let’s start.
Batch Produce
First things first – Batch produce.
Yes. It is always good to batch produce. Not that I did not know about it.
We were batch producing our blog posts and podcast episodes but not at a pace where it gave us a lot of flexibility. That meant that we had a couple of episodes in stock but it wasn’t enough for long term interruptions.
Something that you might want to consider while deciding on how many to produce in the batch will depend upon things like,
- How much time can you spare in a week to record, edit and produce the episodes
- How long do you think you want to plan for as a contingency. Set a recovery time objective which could be a good way to tracking how long is a disruption ok for you.
Prefer a Backup to the Cloud
Ensure that you keep a backup of all your files, preferably online.
Now this is a killer tip if you understand the reasoning behind it.
I had a tonne of files on my computer all as part of the next 3 episodes. Along with it I also had the intro, the outro and a tonne of other files.
All stored on my computer’s hard drive.
I have this habit of taking a backup onto another of my Hard drive (an external one) every 2 months. In hindsight, I feel that this frequency wasn’t really a good one.
When my Hard drive crashed, I lost pretty much everything I had on my HDD. And that was quite a loss.
Now, when something like that happens, it is natural for you to get disappointed. And it takes quite an effort to come out of that.
I have my own ways of pushing myself to do it. I have a “Don’t Quit” poster in front of my desk. And another one just next to my bed, so that whenever I wake up, the words stare at me.
Whatever is your method of pushing yourself, follow that. But don’t quit.
A host that can Schedule Episodes
Prefer a host that can help with storing and not publishing or, help you with scheduling.
An important thing is storing and scheduling. If you have ever blogged on any platform you will know what I mean.
Most bloggers like me schedule, content on our blogs. We can choose to publish it at whatever date we wish to and the system takes care off the rest.
If you produce batch content, then this is an absolutely essential feature.
The flexibility that this offers is incomparable. You can produce all your content for the next 3-4 weeks in about 3-4 days and then schedule it across the next 3-4 weeks.
That ways, even if you are out with something urgent, your content will be published.
And you don’t have to anything including logging into your system.
Audioboom has this nice feature which is something you can definitely try.
A few movable assets that can help you with recording as you travel.
Now this wasn’t something I didn’t have until the last week.
My setup was an on-the-desk setup which included a microphone, a Behringer Mixer and other accessories associated with it. But I had a lavelier microphone which I hadn’t used for a couple of years and hence didn’t even know where it was.
So when I had to go on this urgent travel with minimal luggage, I didn’t really have an option of carrying all of my setup with me. And since there wasn’t really an alternative considering that my laptop had also crashed, I was stuck.
It was at this point that I realized that I need to have a backup solution including a recording setup that could travel with me.
I could have used my mobile phone to record but, that wouldn’t have given me the kind of quality I was producing. And without all of the other assets, it would anyways not work out.
So, a few movable assets is an important piece in your podcasting journey.
And these will include a portable HDD, some space on the cloud to store your files and a simple USB microphone headset that can record your voice well.
Was this helpful?
This episode was something I had been planning on for the last few weeks. Something that was a learning for me and which I thought I should share with you all as well.
I hope these simple tips will help you manage those unforeseen interruptions that you come across in your journey.
Do comment below and let me know if there is a tip you would like to share with me and the podcasting community.
So, what’s next with the show.
I haven’t completely gotten over with what we have been dealing with but hopefully we should be good in the next 3-4 weeks.
But that doesn’t mean I will stop producing. I am planning to be regular during the next 3-4 weeks as well but the possibility of an interruption for a week cannot be ruled out.
Also we will not be moving into a bi-weekly schedule. So our next episode will be about in the week after the next.
Whatever it is, I promise that we will continue on with our journey in podcasting.
I look forward to talking with all of you the next week.
Until then this is goodbye from Dilip.
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