How To Find The Time To Launch Your Podcast

14th July 2016

For most people, launching a podcast is a specific strategy to complement an existing business. Unless of course it is done purely just for fun, as a hobby. But even then – the BIGGEST challenge to getting your podcast to the launch pad is actually finding the time to get on and do it. Finding time in an already busy day.

Yup – I know what it’s like 🙂 I struggled for months unable to carve out time in my over-crowded life to make the strategic changes that I had to make in my business. I was great at planning out my client’s work, hitting deadlines and so forth. But for some reason when it came to my own strategic stuff…….. *sigh*.

The 12WeekYear

And then I ‘discovered’ The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington. I absolutely LOVE this book!

It is a brilliant way to help you specify your goals and actually achieve them, within a 12 week timescale. Not just for podcasting – for everything.

So I started using it and set up my first 12 Week Plan. But rapidly realised that I needed something else to help me manage the 12 week year plans, and add in the daily & weekly ‘stuff’ that still has to get done.

Trello

This is where Trello comes in. It’s something else I really love. It is an online visual planning & collaboration tool that is like a virtual whiteboard with sticky notes organised on it in lists. It is simple to use, and very flexible so you can use it for everything in your life – not just work!

Oh and did I say it is FREE!

I’ve used it for a couple of years to manage projects with clients & teams. We can all be talking on Skype for example, and all be ‘in’ Trello discussing the project and moving things around and updating them as needed. Check out the many varied real-life examples of Trello Boards that people have set up to manage just about any activity you could imagine. https://trello.com/inspiration

And at the end of this post I have included a link to a very detailed review of Trello.

Anyway, yes, you guessed it…. tadaaa…

Time to set up a Trello board to help me manage my 12WeekYear.

Surprisingly I couldn’t find much on the internet or YouTube so I set up my own Trello board for the 12WkYr and have worked out a good system for using it. I take it a step further by then putting every task into my Outlook calendar to be done at a specific time & duration. The ONLY notifications that I allow to interrupt me are the ones from Outlook reminding me that it is time to start the next planned strategic task, or appointment.

This has been such a fabulous way for me to make sure I still get my client work done to the timing and deadlines required, but it also means I have made great progress towards making strategic changes to my business. This website is the first major task I have achieved with my ‘new system’. And I am very pleased with it. I am certainly much more mindful of the time thieves, shiny objects and rabbit holes that waste a surprisingly large amount of productive time. And knowing exactly what needs doing next to keep things moving along in the right direction means I spend time doing the things that are needed rather than deciding ‘off spec’ to do stuff as I fancy doing it.

And so will you. Give it a try! Everyone I know who has tried doing this has achieved more, with less stress, and it is so perfect for getting your podcast moving towards the launch pad.

So as my FREE gift to you,

I have copied my 12WkYr Trello board and made it Public so that you can copy it and then tweak it for your strategic goals and weekly routine.

I have also made some videos where I talk you through the Trello board and explain how I use it, particularly how I manage weekly lists and tasks. There is also a short video which explains how to use Trello to get you started with it.

So, why not go ahead and

1. DECIDE that enough is enough and YOU WILL get your podcast & other overdue strategic projects up and running

2. BUY the book

3. READ it several times

4. CREATE your first 12WkYr plan

5. SIGN UP for my FREE Trello Examples Kit. https://podcastprogress.com/trelloexamples/

6. SIGN UP for Trello (ALSO FREE) http://trello.com

7. COPY my Trello board

8. WATCH my videos

9. START using the 12WkYr & Trello to progress your podcast.

And Finally… Please let me know how you got on? I’m excited to hear from you!

A Great Trello Review

If you also want to discover much more detail about Trello than I had time to include here, then why not check out this great Trello review from Lewis Parrott from The Freelance Effect