So how much is that

welcome to the podcast?

Editors mastermind the podcast for podcast editors and professional

podcast service providers that want to focus on the business side

of podcast editing and providing that service to your clients today.

We've got a topic that we think is going to be really valuable

because it's something that we've struggled with from time to time.

And it's all about making sure that.

As you're editing, you don't allow the editing to take over your life

that you have a business and a life and a family, and you don't look back

20 years from now and have your kids or your cats hate you forever because

you didn't spend any time with them.

Before we get to that, though, we are going to take just a

second and introduce ourselves.

I'm Brian at Springer, you can find me@toptieraudio.com and to my side is.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I'm Carrie Caulfield.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Eric, you can find

Daniel Abendroth:

me@yayapodcastingdotcomoroninstagramatcarrieericandiamdanielabendrothandyoucanfindmeatroughmedia.audio.

Yeah.

And like the thing says, uh, on the screen, we are talking

about time management tonight.

I would like to mention that there are only three of us tonight, as we

shared on the last episode, Jennifer's had to take a step back right now.

And so.

Interested in being a guest co-host for this show, we would love to

talk to you about that opportunity.

You can go to podcast editors, mastermind.com/be a guest,

fill out that magical form.

And assuming that the thing doesn't go to Daniel's spam email, then

we'll get back to you and see if we can get you on the show.

So this week's topic is one that actually came up as we were talking on the last

episode, as we were recording, we were talking about some of the challenges

and one of the things was around imposter syndrome and feeling like.

Always have to be working so that you can in quotes, kind of crush it,

but then not having a healthy life.

And so we had a little bit of an interesting discussion.

We think this is something that a lot of people struggle with.

We're wondering maybe if this will be valuable to you as well.

So I think as we kick this off, I think Daniel, you were the one that shared

in the last episode first about like how imposter syndrome has you kind of

wondering about this and, um, like some of the struggles that you have, do you

mind taking just a minute to kind of talk about what you I shared before?

I don't even remember what I shared before.

Uh, perfect.

Yeah.

So, um, A lot of the time, like you see other people like doing things

like they're releasing courses or you see them active on social media.

And then it's like, I look back and it's like, I'm not doing anything.

Or it feels that way.

At least I'm like, I'm just so focused on like doing the business,

but then I'm not doing things.

So one of my goals is to like build the business, but also build my brand.

So I'm seen as like an authority in the podcasting space, as well as the authority

on using Reaper for podcasts editing.

But a part of that is like being active on social media and I'm just not doing that.

And so it just feels like I'm missing out as I watch other people

like completely kill it, at least on the outside, on social media.

Whereas like I'm over here just like looking at my Instagram that

I haven't posted in like two years and just feeling guilty about that.

So that's why, that's why I don't share my Instagram handle because there's nothing.

Well, so to me, what it sounds like you're saying is

that aside from all the client work, there are all these other like marketing

tasks that you feel like you need to be doing to build your reputation, build

your sanding, and then these kinds of, um, networking things and, you know,

uh, parallel products that you yeah.

Or like I'll be

scrolling through Facebook and I'll see an ad of

somebody that's promoting, like their podcast editing service or whatever.

It's like, oh, why am I not doing it?

Oh

yeah.

I know exactly.

That feeling gets me all the time.

And I have to, it's really hard because I have to take a step

back and be like, it's okay.

But I also want to just hide when I'm like, I'm not kidding.

Like, it makes me want to go.

Away and hide and not look at anything and not interact with anybody because

really you see, I see people doing all this cool stuff all the time and

I'm like, why am I not doing that?

And I, you know, so I can totally relate to that.

And it's, it's a challenge.

And like what I, one thing I've done, I kind of deal with it.

Like one, like I don't need to compete with them because like, my business is

doing well, just doing what I'm doing.

So like, I don't need to be active on social media to find clients, like,

I don't need to do these other things because like, I'm doing fine without them.

And if like, I don't get joy out of it.

And it's a struggle then, like, is it really serving me?

Like, I don't like posting on Instagram because like, it's

not really my strong suit.

So like I could force myself to do it, but then it's just like a chore.

And now, like I'm very resistant to.

Everything.

And I think part of this maybe goes back to the thing that a lot of people

don't talk about, the difference between being an employee or working for

someone versus having your own business.

Because if you work for someone, there's sort of an understanding

that there's a certain amount of work for a certain amount of pay.

And of course your job is to get the job done with the resources that you have.

But at the end of the day, if you know, you have to decide along with the

person that you work for, you report to, Hey, this is what I can get done.

And so these are the expectations to be met.

So for example, for my day job, I have a certain amount of work

that I'm expected to accomplish.

And we stay in con in conversation about how I'm progressing against that.

But there's, there's no guard rails as an entrepreneur.

You know, 40 hours or 50 hours or 60 hours and you're done.

And on the one hand, that's sort of true in the sense that you'll probably always

be thinking about and working on your business in your head, even if you're not

like sitting at a computer doing stuff, but if you'll let it, it will take over

your life and it'll be, instead of having a business, the business will have you.

And I think that's something that I've, I've noticed.

And I try to be careful about as I'm balancing work and family,

and also owning a business.

And for me, it's, it's a real challenge.

I know that I've for some time, for some times I've occasionally

maybe often gotten it wrong.

And so like early on a Saturday morning, the kids are up and.

A deadline that I want to get done and I'll have, you know, one of the kids

will come in and want to talk to me and I'll be like, okay, we can talk for a

minute, but I need to get this done.

And like, why dad?

Why are you always working?

And I don't want to model an unhealthy lifestyle for my kids, but at the

same time, there is a reality.

There's an, there's an amount of work that needs to be done with what I'm doing.

And I've, I've got some strategies that I apply.

And we'll probably talk about those later, but I'm wondering, like, do you

guys have similar experiences as well?

Like w how, what does it look like?

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Uh, oh, absolutely.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Um, that's one of the, my son's big complaints and he said that tonight to

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

me, like you're always working and I really do try to like, keep that balance.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Part of it is I really enjoy what I do.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So like a lot of times I'm doing things and it doesn't feel like work.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And that may be part of what you're saying.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Like, does the business have you, or do you have the business, but also.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I have to stop and remember to spend time with my family make and not

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

just any time, but like quality time.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So I've really been trying to put on those guard rails and it's

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

been a challenge, but like my, my husband even has said it to me.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I mean, we had a whole thing.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Um, the other moms, you know, full disclosure about how I was always working.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And sometimes it's hard because.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

What are you going to do?

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I mean, ultimately the job you're the boss, right.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And stuff needs to get done.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And if, and, you know, even if you have a team or whatever, just

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

things have to get done and they have to get done in a timely manner.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So sometimes you do need to work like a 16 hour day and you can't help it.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Um, sometimes that kind of dog piles on each other, you know, and

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I have been finding this a challenge and I kind of like had this dream

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

of not being an entrepreneur.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Um, but I think that's because I go, when I go through these periods, it's

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

where I'm at, I'm working long hours.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

It's it's like, wouldn't it be nice to not have all the responsibility.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Right.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to like leave work at work?

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So, you know, that is something that I've kind of.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I don't know if it's strugglings is the right word, but I feel like that's kind

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

of where I am in my business right now.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Like I'm trying to put all these things in place, so we don't have to work as

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

much, but that's also time consuming.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So it's, it is, it's a juggling act act.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And I wouldn't say work life balance.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

I would just say constant, Brittany, Felix introduced me to this

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

like constant course correction.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

It is.

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you had what

looked like a great opportunity, but you just didn't have the time resources to

pursue it and you had to turn it down.

Oh, all the time.

Like, I mean, what am I always say?

I've said for the past, like three years, no new work.

I don't want any more, any more clients, I wouldn't do any more work.

And I kind of, you know, had to deal with this.

Recently.

I had to ask myself with this new project, like, do I have the bandwidth to do this?

And I really had to consider it.

And my, you know, I wanted to do it so much.

I was like, well, if, if it becomes a bandwidth issue,

then I will fire somebody.

Right.

I will fire a client to do it because I do want my, my own time

and want to be able to, you know, from my own health and my family.

Um,

it's tough.

How about you, Daniel?

Have you ever had to turn something down?

Um, I don't think I've turned down a concrete, like

offer or anything, but just more like the idea, like I was wanting to do the

Reaper course and that ended up being.

Like I was getting everything prepared and it's just like the

idea of recording, like 50 videos.

Yeah.

It's just, then you got to edit them too

or pay somebody.

Yeah.

And like, come up with a text to go along with it and like the titles.

And it's just a lot of time there.

And then, then they're just like the opportunities I think

I need to do like being active on Instagram and Facebook ads.

Like other things like that, or like, I really don't need to.

The gurus tell you, you do so you feel like you need to, does that make sense?

Oh yeah.

Especially if they have a course for $27 to get you started on.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Wait, I'm sorry.

47.

It's 2021.

Yeah.

And

that,

so that's another piece of the pie.

I think that we're talking about is because there's like work

life and, you know, family life.

And then there's also this kind of like continuing your education life.

Yeah.

Because there's always something to learn in what we do.

Like we like any entrepreneur, most of us didn't go to business school.

Right.

We're learning this on the fly.

And there's a lot of stuff, especially in our work that you can't

necessarily go take a course on.

Either.

So it's a lot of like, you know, having to research and having to ask

people and figure it out on your own.

But like yeah, like that, you know, like, do I need a Facebook ad course?

Right.

Do I need to take one?

Or, you know, I just invested in, in a year's worth of podcasting and

education really helpful, but it was really, I mean, I, I did turn

down work during that time and I, it was a challenge to get it all done.

Yeah, it really was.

So do you have like a structure that you look at the say,

okay, you know, a certain amount of my time, let's say 10%, I'm making up a

number of goes to continuing education and then the rest goes to something else.

Like, how do you, no,

that's, I'm not that organized, Brian.

Um, either I'm working on it, that's why I'm asking,

like, this is, this is as much learning for me as anybody else.

You know, something that I, I started therapy

and things, um, to address, like I actually went to see a therapist to

help address what these like, problems that come up in entrepreneurship, like

conflict to create with the family and the, um, work-life balance thing.

Cause it is eight.

It is that much of a challenge.

Right.

And I don't want it, I'm getting older.

So like, my health is very important.

One of the things that I realized, and I kind of knew this in the back of

my head is that I just I'm very late.

Spur of the moment.

I just be like, oh, this is really cool.

And here's the opportunity and I'm going to do it right.

I don't necessarily think it all the way through and how much time it's going to

take and, and what that's gonna look like.

And then I always underestimate how, how much time?

I'm not like good at time.

Well, I mean, you're the only person that

never estimates time, right?

Correct.

Oh, wait.

No, that's me

too.

So, um, it is definitely a challenge

for me.

So like having clear structure has been helpful.

I haven't done that per se, but one thing that we've have done is so like Michelle

is my wife slash business partner.

We run the company.

But I'm more involved in the finances of the company and she wants to be

more, at least aware of what's going on.

She doesn't want to be in the dark.

And so we've set aside time every week to have a financial meeting and

we're going to be treating it just the same as if this was a meeting

with a client just as important.

We haven't booked like have a recurring thing in my schedule.

So that way nobody can book that time.

And it's just the point as a client.

So that way, like we are committed to having this meeting every week.

And the same thing, one thing I used to do that I fallen out of is like, I

know, um, My client work has a deadline.

And so I know I'm going to do that no matter what.

So I can afford to like, push that off later in the day and focus like

earlier in the day to other things.

So like, one thing I tried to do while back was like the morning time,

like the first couple hours was on reading, like certain emails that

helped me with my business, or like just focusing on the business in the

morning and then doing client work later.

So

can we talk about this a little bit?

Because it's something I've been thinking about, and that is when

am I the most productive and what should I be working on at that time?

I mean, you said Daniel, that you can push.

You know, until later in the day?

Well, I can't like if I wake up early and I can get a lot of stuff

done before, like, you know, from like nine to two, I can take care

of all the, all the client work.

And, and I, I edit faster.

I have less interruptions.

Like I think that's something really important that you should pay attention

to is like, when are you most productive?

What do you want to spend doing during that time?

When are the least interruptions?

Because like afternoon, till evening, you know, especially

with our family, you know, Brian,

no idea,

never heard of it.

Um, it's just so much easier to when things are quiet and

you're focused to, you know, because I.

We've been talking about this with my family is that, Hey, when you interrupt

me, it takes me about 30 minutes for me to get back onto a task as well.

So, you know, that is one thing I have been trying to pay attention to.

So one of the things that you guys have talked about, I

think is something that we probably need to bring up because as a podcast

service provider, there's a tendency to think that what I do is edit, right.

But that's only one out of five or six big things that you do in your business.

Right?

So there's current client, client work.

There's the potential to build something for the future coursework

or things that could be recurring, uh, giveaways, there's business development,

there's general administration.

And ideally, then there's that ongoing learning.

Right?

So for me, because I've got roughly.

Call it 15 ish, maybe 20 hours a week.

That's my workweek for business because I've got morning and night

work day in the middle, and then some time on, on Saturdays, try and take

the full day off on Sunday, spend time with family, try and keep the

at least some semblance of balance.

And so for me, I tend to focus almost entirely on those immediate

client deadlines, the things that are generating revenue today, and

the things that I fail on are largely the things that generate revenue

tomorrow or continue to up-skill me.

So, as an example, I bought a couple of courses at the beginning of the year.

One of them on podcast management, one on filling your pipeline, your

sales pipeline, that kind of stuff.

When the client work started coming back about March, April, all of that

personal development stuff fell off.

It's not that I don't care, but I'm out of hours to do that.

And I find that I try to put too much stuff on my plate.

And, and I would encourage those of you that are listening.

If you're thinking that the only thing you do is client work and you're going well,

I can do 20 hours of client work a week.

That's great.

But if you've only got 20 hours a week, do better than I did figure out how to

fit those other pieces in there as well.

And allocate your time between those four or five or six big buckets of

things to do that better than I am.

Because frankly, if, if you do business development better than

I do, unless you really suck as an editor, you're going to pass me.

It's going to happen because business development is what grows your business.

And that's one of the things I'm not doing.

Yeah.

And I am currently in the process of setting up like all the automation

redoing my website completely and.

It is a time investment upfront.

And I just, like I said to my stepdaughter today, I was like pleased.

And next time it's tax season.

Don't tell me not to do this,

having, I guess, having an awareness and, you know, being aware of how much

time you have, and actually sitting down with a calendar, I think in hindsight,

I think would be helpful for me.

And last year I was much better at this as your, it I've kind of fallen

off the wagon, but I used to sit down in the, you know, every morning, every

Monday morning and kind of plan out my week and then try to be, I was

tried to be more realistic about it.

And so I had been failing at that lately.

Oh, total, total fail.

And I keep telling myself this because I don't, I re my notebook ran out of pages

and I can't find another pretty notebook to do it in, but I think that's BS.

I don't know what is, what is preventing me from doing it.

But yeah, I really do need to get back to doing that because, uh, You

know, that I found really helpful.

So,

so two thoughts have popped up one kind of talking about kind

of, I think a little bit, what you're talking about Carrie is like properly

estimating how long something takes.

And so what's something I used to do is show you, so if you are watching

the audio, I'll, I'll put a picture in the show notes, so you can see

what I'm talking about, but this is kind of how I used to schedule my day.

So this is like a seven week planner and on one side would be like my to-do list.

And I would estimate how long each task would take me.

And then on the right side, I would actually document what I

actually did in that timeframe.

And so if I think this show is going to take me an hour and

that's what I budget for, but ends up taking me an hour and a half.

I know next time, like make sure to give myself more time when I'm planning my day.

So I found that to be quite helpful.

Do you still do that?

I don't.

Is that because you have now have a better

idea of how much time things

take?

I think so.

Not necessarily, like, I know this show's going to take me 30 minutes.

I know this show is pretty much like on Wednesday.

I edit the shows and on Thursday at, at these shows in order to

keep up with my deadline schedule.

That's kind of how I do it.

So wait, I have,

so it's just on this thread, like when your clients

though, because they are the unpredictable thing in the business and not every

client is going to be consistent.

So what do you do when they're like, like I had a client who was sick

this week and he's like, oh, I can't get to the episode till tomorrow.

So how do you deal with that if you had scheduled to do it on like

Wednesday and tomorrow's Friday?

Um, so at least for this is true for me, my.

The clients that are inconsistent are very consistent about it.

I know which clients are the ones.

And for some reason, there's one day like the, my clients that

release on Thursdays seem to be the ones that struggle the most.

I don't know why it's that particular day, but I know which clients are the

ones that's going to be struggling.

So I know like they released on Thursday, then I can schedule like Wednesday.

Like I set aside set time aside Wednesday for their show.

And if they don't get it to me in time, then like they get it to me like late.

It's like, well, I can't do it this day.

Thursday is when I'll get to it to release on Friday.

Ha so the comment from see Mojica or Gado, I'm sorry if I butchered that haha.

Client are the unpredictable thing, Carrie.

Yes.

And so I know I can set aside time, Wednesday and if they don't get it to

me now, I have free time on Wednesday.

And I don't have any clients that released Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

So like, I don't have any major deadlines on Thursday, so my

Thursdays are pretty free.

It's just kinda like working into the schedule based on their inconsistency.

I think the hack that I use is I commit to seven day turnaround,

but I can do much better than that.

Right.

And so if things come in.

All at the same time, I may have to prioritize things.

So if I had say three different clients, I'll drop on the same day

and ask for a short turnaround time.

In that instance, I might have to say, sorry, I can't do it all.

But in general, if somebody is, if I need to be a little bit flexible, I have that

built in, and then that's something that I can offer them and say, Hey, you know,

I could, I could go ahead and do this.

Um, because I mean, assuming that it's not a terrible interview with

like five people on it, right.

I can generally, well, I don't know that I've ever had five, four, probably.

Yeah.

But yeah, those kinds of things I can do.

And the other thing that I do, and I was talking to somebody this week,

because I feel like there's a way that we should be able to reverse

engineer this and make it predictive.

But I track for every episode that I edit, I track.

How, what was the duration of the raw audio?

How many participants were there and how long did it take me to do the various

parts of the editing so that if I get.

A single track from one person where it's a monologue and it's 30 minutes.

I know that that might take me an hour, hour and 15 minutes.

If I get a monologue from another person who's not quite as well

spoken, that might take an hour and a half to two hours to process.

So it just, I do that kind of thing.

And in my mind, I think there's gotta be a way to turn this into somewhat

predictive math to say, you know, this client typically takes this

long for this duration of audio.

How long do these things that seemed like they would take?

I just haven't figured out how to do that yet.

Why am I not surprised that you track?

Um,

I'm a nerd.

I, that actually take you to enter that in because.

I do it while it's mixing down.

Right.

So, so I use a time tracker, that's built into my project management tool.

So when I go to editing, I just hit the timer and say, I'm editing.

And then when I finished editing the timer's done.

When I move on to mix and master than, or T to mastering, then I just

put that stuff in the spreadsheet.

And the only thing that's left when I'm done is to track what

was the final length of the audio?

When did I finally deliver the thing?

And how long did it take for the mastering?

So in general, it doesn't take that much more time.

It takes more time to zip an archive of the files and it does to track

the, the administrative portion.

But what happens when you're getting

interrupted?

I kill people.

No.

So this is where I generally, we have an advantage over you because I

edit between six and 7:00 AM when the kids are getting ready for school.

And I edit typically between eight 30 and 10 30 at night, when the

kids are supposed to be in bed.

And generally I don't have a lot of interruptions.

And if I do, I just pause the timer.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Well, are you using it?

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And so

I use click up for tax task management and it

has a built-in timer if you pay for the paid version, which I do.

And so I just start the timer on the task that I'm working on.

And then when I'm done, I just drop the little, I dropped the time

information into a Google sheet.

So you want to, so let's go with the Tim Ferriss thing, right?

If there's something that needs to happen, eliminate what doesn't need to

happen, automate what you can delegate.

What's not important for you to do.

And then you only do the rest, right?

So for clients, I have as much set up to automate through Zapier or whatever.

So I have a client that uses Trello as soon as she drops a card on the,

the thing that says this is for Brian to do it creates a task for

me and clip, click up and it creates a record for me in Google sheets.

And so then between those two, I can use, click up to track the stuff.

And then Google sheets is where I then, uh, archive the information.

Is that right?

Yes.

Yeah.

But speaking of time management and things that need to be done, I think

that you should release like, uh, or sell all these spreadsheets you

talk about, because I couldn't even begin to imagine how to make them.

Yeah.

I mean, sadly, it's nothing special, but, um, maybe

I think it's very special.

Okay.

I am not, it's not special to you

because you take the knowledge

you are.

Uh, we, we, we are, uh, not spreadsheet gifted, like you are.

Yeah.

And then Kareem says I stopped using click up because of the unbearable starting

loading times it happened randomly.

Okay.

But let's talk about that for a second, because I mean, he's talking

about click up in this particular instance, but what are those predict

productivity like time management killers?

Right.

So I'm thinking like when I was dealing with the latest windows update, right.

It was absolutely horrible because my sound would go out every,

every five minutes or every time I put a plugin in audition,

I think probably the worst time management killer

for me is when a client decides they want to reorder their episodes.

Oh, they want to insert something in.

So I have a client who's typically a couple of months ahead and every

once in a while, he'll want to drop an, an episode mid cycle, right?

So it's not just, it's not necessarily change the dates,

although it could be, but it's also like re reordering everything.

And because I have tracking and click up and tracking in Google

sheets, and then I also have the project folders on my computer.

I have to go back through and make sure that everything is renamed

properly, or there's about an a hundred percent chance I'll be editing

the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Right.

Cause the, I set the system up so that as long as I do a little bit of management

of the system, the system can manage me.

So I know that I'm on episode 52 because that's what's click, click up says, so

I go to folder for episode number 52, all the files are there and ready to go

because they've just been sitting there, hanging out, waiting for me to work.

If I don't keep that stuff aligned.

I mean, that's like easy 30 to 45 minutes to reorder stuff and make

sure that it all stays in order.

And that's, that's where my system breaks down.

Right.

Is when, when something's in there and it has to be updated.

And I don't have a fix for that because it's not all sync there's, I don't know

of a way to update a task and click up and have it update a specific record in

Google sheets, because there's nothing in Zapier or any other tool that says, this

is the one that you need to monkey with.

Right.

It can create a new one, but it doesn't know what to do with the other stuff.

Right.

Yeah.

What about you, Daniel?

What's your,

it used to be.

The interruptions.

So my wife and I worked together, like I mentioned earlier, and if she had a

question about something by a client or whatever, she would just like ask me.

And like you were saying earlier care, whenever you get those

interruptions, that's like 30 minutes to get back on track.

So we actually it's the most ridiculous thing, but we

started using slack together.

So like, like this is my desk, she's literally three feet over there.

We just high-five and we'll be slacking each other back and forth.

That way she can send me, ask me the questions and I can get to it whenever

I have the time to devote to them.

I,

I, my husband does, you know, he helps me, but he

doesn't do well with new technology.

Um, and I, cause I tried slack and that's kinda what I was hoping for it,

but that didn't quite work out that way.

So, you know, kudos to you.

Yeah.

And the other thing for me is burnout.

Uh, so like I don't have kids and I work with my wife.

So there's the work-life balance.

Like doesn't exist because I don't really have a separate life outside of work

because my family is part of my work.

And so it's easy for me to just get sucked into work all day, every day and

not take time for like, just for myself.

So that's, for me, it's like in the middle of the day, it's just like, I get

caught up, like watching a video or doing something else because like, I just can't

like mentally focus on the task at hand.

Yeah.

I think that's important, right?

To plan in some kind of breaks.

If you, if you worked in an office or on a production line,

there are built in breaks.

Yeah, you can't focus for eight hours straight on the same thing.

Like say you worked at a bomb factory, right?

Like the worst idea is to have somebody working 12 hour, four twelves at a

bomb factory and not having a break because somebody's going to die.

Right.

You're going to lose focus.

Thankfully.

It's nothing that critical for us, but yeah, it's a, it's a big deal,

super consistent about it, but I try very hard to

make sure I take off every Friday.

Like no work, no nothing.

I just do what I want to do.

Yeah.

That I, even though I'm not so well organized, I will plan if I know

that, um, a client's gonna be late or something's gonna need to be done on the

weekend, then I'll take a weekday off.

Right.

Like today I did a couple of hours of work and then.

You know, play or call of duty because that's my new thing.

And then I showed up here, right.

Because I know that there are things I'm going to need to be doing on Saturday.

And I have like coaching on, I, you know, I do coaching on

the weekends and you know, so I make sure that I have that time.

Um, because that avoid, if you work seven days a week for like,

I dunno, seven days or 14 days, you're just going to hate your job.

You're going to hate what you do.

And you're just going to want to hide from it because that

doesn't help you make money.

It doesn't help you feel good about anything.

So it doesn't help your health.

It doesn't help you.

So I think that burnout thing is really important to like, And taking breaks.

Yeah.

To make sure that you have, um, some self-care going on, not even just

with your family, but with yourself.

Right.

Get out, go take a walk, go outside to the flowers, go outside.

And that was it position I was in, it was like seven days a week

for months and being self-employed, you know, I set my own schedule so I

can take, like, if I want to take a three hour lunch and just kind of like

chill and watch YouTube for a while.

Like I can.

So I was kind of getting through by just taking like a little bit of

time throughout the day and like late at night I would do my own thing.

But yeah, I can only do that.

I feel guilty

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

about taking breaks.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So I'm curious if

you guys absolutely taking an entire day

off preposterous is very painful.

Yeah.

Because.

And like our strategic about it.

So like I take Fridays off because no shows of mine release on Friday.

So I don't have to worry about like checking to make sure

everything released correctly.

I don't have any issues that way.

And nothing happens on Saturday and Sunday.

So I don't have to worry about like, I'm not struggling to meet a deadline.

So Friday is like the perfect day to take off.

But even still it's.

I'm doing this thing for myself, but I could be working ahead on these

shows that are coming out next week.

I could be fixing issues on my website.

I could be doing this, this and this.

Like, it's really hard.

And especially whenever like emails don't stop just because you take a day off.

But,

so, okay.

But that's another great question because those boundaries, um, what

I find is like, I am not wanting when I'm like taking time off.

I do not want my phone near me.

Right.

That's not great for like my family, um, because I don't get their like messages

or phone calls, but because I see those emails coming in the notifications and I

don't know how to use my iPhone very well.

I'm going to need some late, but I get, I just, I get like sucked back in so easily.

So what do y'all do for that?

I mean, one thing that gets me in trouble is my phone spends

about, uh, about 99.7% of its time in, on vibrate and not always near me.

And that gets me in trouble when my wife texts me.

And I don't answer because I didn't hear it vibrate.

Um, but also, and then also I've turned off a lot of the notifications

that would normally interrupt you.

So I don't get email notifications on my phone.

I don't get Facebook messenger notifications on my phone.

I get some of the normal annoyances that come through because it like some of the

apps won't let you turn one thing off.

You have to turn the whole thing off.

And so, because of one value added haptic, I have to leave all the crap on.

Thank you Twitter.

But, but that stuff not withstanding.

That's one thing is I just, I leave it on vibrate and then if

I really need to focus, I may put it in do not disturb mode.

I don't really like the whole power it off power backup thing.

That for me is just a pain in the can.

Um, I don't know.

What about you, Daniel?

Um, I don't know if this is the right answer, but

I've just because sometimes there are fires to put out on my day off and I

do want to like still be connected.

So if like a client comes back saying like, Hey, there's

an issue with this episode.

Part of my customer service, I like the value I offer to my clients is like

being able to take care of those things.

I do keep my phone and keep my emails, but I feel like I've gotten

better was that you have a VA, right?

I do, because she doesn't handle that kind of thing.

I haven't gotten to the point where I can trust a third party

with the login credentials to my clients, like share via host.

So I thought I'd take care of all that.

I

guess I was thinking like, if you could have your VA as is

male or female, I don't know female.

Okay.

Is her, I just wanted to use the right pronoun.

Um, so if, if she could take those communications and pass on to you,

the things that are urgent based on like issue with the client's episode,

something like that, and have her be that contact, then maybe you don't

have to have your phone available.

You could have a way set up for her to contact you if it's critical.

Um, the issue with that would be I don't set her hours because

she is a contractor mainly like she works.

Before me in the day.

So that way, like she can verify, um, so she checks like all my episodes,

like I scheduled for release in the morning, she listens through and check,

make sure I didn't leave a long pause.

There's any kind of just like quality, final quality check.

And she does that before I start my day.

So that way whenever I get going, and then she also goes through my email and

like source through what's important.

What's not.

So like she works early in the morning and wouldn't, isn't

always around later in the day.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

And she's not like on call.

Yeah, well, that's one of the things my

husband does is, um, he'll check.

He gets up, oh, so early in the morning earlier than Brian.

And so he will check the inbox and if there's something important, he will

wake me up and I will deal with it.

But, um, Kareem says during work, I turn off all phone notifications and only

check my email once every two hours or so.

And I try to, okay.

So I honestly don't know I've turned my notifications off and I don't know how

to make my phone make sound again for any kind of alert except for the alarms.

I do not know what I'm doing.

Yeah.

So it's, it's always wrong.

It's never, you know, a sound when I want it and no sound when I don't want it.

Also, I have started besides my husband checking emails.

So I will check my email, like at the beginning of my day before lunch.

And then at the end of the day, because it's so distracting because

we're when we're flipping time, we're constantly transitioning from

tasks to tasks as entrepreneur.

And it really does take you a while to like, shift your focus like that.

Like,

yeah.

And that's, that's a definite hack.

So when I, when I say I get up and I work from six to seven,

I don't have my email open.

Right.

And it's not.

And, and honestly it's become such a habit now that I don't

even think about it early on.

I had to remember not to do that, but once you get used to it, like, it can

be really nice to get that first hour ish in and have that part knocked out.

Um, I think one of the things that we're kind of talking around and

maybe just haven't said expressly.

As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, it can feel like

everybody's in charge of your time.

And there's always somebody wanting to sell you something else that you can do

for them or that they can help you do for like, there's always another opportunity.

The job, a big part of the job is deciding how big a playing field you

want to have, and then figuring out how to fit the game onto that field.

If that makes sense, I'm using a sport and sports analogy, because I hear understand

other people understand sports things.

So I'm S I'm assuming like fo uh, football, either American or European

football, the other, the rest of the world's football, the field is a

certain size and everybody, every part of the game has to fit on that field

or something is called out of bounds.

And I think as business owners, it's our job to decide how big our field is.

So in my case, right now, my field is three hours a day in some time on

Saturday, that's the size of the field.

And so everything has to fit on that or something has to go or

has to be delegated, or like some, something has to go off my plate

because my field is only that big.

I can't take time for my daytime employer.

My business, because not only would they get really upset, but that's kind

of a crappy way to treat my employer.

Who's making this all possible.

Just quit.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Uh, football editing.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Uh, okay, so Daniel, I think you had something you wanted to share or bring

up.

Yeah, kind of in that vein, it's something you mentioned earlier, Brian

was just the thought I had about that is being conscious of what your capacity

is and making arrangements beforehand.

So like right now, like I'm looking to hire a couple editors because

like I've reached my capacity.

The problem with that is I'm at my capacity and the process of

finding contractors takes time.

Yeah.

So there's that struggle.

So, and Carrie mentioned wanting to get her automations in place and

Brian, you have wonderful automations.

It's just like having all your systems in place as you're building, when you

still, before we reached capacity, because once you reach capacity.

Oh, it's so hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Trying to find a contractor, trying to build a system that they can fit

into all while you're at capacity.

So just like, be aware and make arrangements like

before you get to that point.

Yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

You know, if you are just starting out, please, you know, set this up first or

start talking, thinking about this first, before you start getting all your clients,

like if you can start at zero and kind of think through these systems and this

time management thing, because doing it in hindsight and backtracking is tough.

I mean, like hiring contractors, you know, I said, I'm getting my systems in place.

Well, I hired somebody to get my systems in place and it's even hard to like manage

that piece and being able to like check up on the work he's done because everything,

you know, occasionally just gets crazy.

I think.

So this is something that I've done in the past, in my work

life, as well as my business.

Because I have found myself at capacity and still needing to do more.

And in those instances, I feel like there's like three things you,

well, four things you can do, right?

One is you can just not do something.

Another is, you can just try and push through, but if you really

want to make a change, you either try and find the highest leverage

thing to make progress on.

So in your case, getting your business systems in place or whatever, or.

Finding the one thing that will deliver you a little bit of time every day,

that doesn't take long to knock out.

And my, my recommendation is actually to do the one little thing a day.

So maybe you can't automate your entire thing, but there's a portion

that you can automate, or there's a portion that you can pass off.

Maybe you don't have time to bring in a full VA, but your spouse or a kid or

a friend can help you with some portion of that, get that five or 10 or 15

minutes back a day and use that time to then move on to the next biggest thing.

Because what you'll find is that ultimately you can snowball that to

where at some point you're able to start tackling those bigger things.

But if you've got like, Carrie's got this thing where she had to hire

somebody to come in and set up those systems, if she couldn't hire somebody,

this could be a month or a year long.

Thing trying to get that in place all the while she's still floundering,

you know, trying to, trying to tread water and get all this stuff set up.

So like, if you can't, if you can't bring somebody in, find a way to do something

small and get that something small off.

Yeah, I think the baby steps really do add up.

Um, in, in anything you do.

So like with Instagram, for Daniel, one story a week, you know, I feel

like if Instagram envy, because he brought it up a couple of times, but

Daniel, let me go a

little bit.

And it also doesn't help that we're like, we've been in the process of rebranding.

And so like, it doesn't make sense to like post on Instagram, like everything's

going to change at some point.

Right?

Yeah.

And that, and that at least back to the, kind of the seen other people do it.

And that's the other thing is, is giving yourself some grace, because we are

juggling so many things and everybody has different priorities, right?

I mean, there's some people like they only want like two editing clients, but

they want to like do all these courses.

Right.

Or they want to work on some of them.

Business type things for, you know, whatever.

I don't know what people do.

Honestly.

I don't have a lot of time to pay attention these days.

Um, but like everybody's priorities, everybody's goals are different.

And I think that not comparing yourself and just giving yourself

some grace to just, you know, if you get overwhelmed, just go watch some

Netflix for a little while appeal.

All right.

And that's kind of like, what I've learned is

like, Instagram is not for me.

Like Facebook ads are not for me.

Like these other things.

Like, they're just not for me.

And I don't need to put my hand in everything just because

somebody else's doing it

and it's good to let other people.

Oh at what they're great at too, you know, I, you know, sometimes I'm like, I

tell myself, thank goodness they're doing that because I don't have time for it.

Touch on Kareem's question.

Cause I think it just kind of keyed into what you were talking about.

Kareem asks, is it easy to transfer your editing style

to new subcontracted editors?

And I think we've all got, I think at this point, some experience with

that, my experience, the subcontractor, the editor that I've worked with.

I started talking to him, partly because we had both been through Chris

Curran's podcast engineering school.

And so now I knew that he had a similar foundation in terms of

the approach to audio processing.

And then the way I talked with him about it was we went through a

couple of rounds where I would say, okay, here's what I'm looking for.

Send me back and then I'll send you revisions.

Right?

And so it took a couple of passes the first couple of times until he got an

understanding, because it's really easy to say, I want you to cut 85 to 90% of

the ums and leave in the breasts, but shorten the silences, but not too much,

like that starts to get really weird.

But as you start doing it and you stop me coming back and saying,

I'm sorry, you got this wrong.

It's me saying, I probably didn't explain this well, or this is what I meant.

And that, you know, you start to develop a field because it isn't easy

to say this is specifically what I do.

What, what about you guys?

I

would say in a lot of ways, no, it's not.

Right because everybody, you know, unless you are in a situation where

you're learning together or you've been trained to do it the same way, I

think everybody has a different style.

They have a different ear.

And there's actually a lot of conversation that has to go on

about how you like things done, how your clients, like things done.

Cause even that's an added layer because your clients have their own style.

And then it is, I think it's just a process, you know, managing

people is also time-consuming.

So there's actually, it does make your life easier and then went wrong long run.

But there is work that goes along with contracting out people.

So I wouldn't say it was easy.

I'd say it's helpful, but not how about

you Daniel?

I would say I haven't actually hired a editor yet,

but, but you've interviewed some people, right.

Or at least talk to some people have

started the process.

I've got an applicant.

And then I haven't had the time or bandwidth to move forward too much with

that.

Okay.

Well go ahead, Carrie,

add that, like when you find those right people,

it's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Like I trust my, my editors with everything.

I know they'll ask questions.

I know they'll give good feedback.

You know, I know they're gonna, you know, get things done, be timely, be dependent.

Like that's amazing where I can just be like, I know Ella Honduras, you

know, I don't have to worry about this because Alejandro has got it.

Right.

And I can take the day off because Alejandro and my, you know, so yeah.

It's absolutely wonderful.

Thank you for chiming in Jennifer.

Who's saying I'm too busy to keep up, but too lazy to manage other people.

It is some work.

It is some work.

It is,

but that's also a point going back to what your capacity is.

Just keeping in mind that before you reach your capacity, not like hiring

an editor is great to take it out, load off your plate, but you're adding more

to your plate while you bring while they go through the onboarding process.

Yeah.

And I guess I'll kind of recall back to our episode with Brittany, Felix.

I don't remember which episode number it was.

Uh, but she talked about like her process of, she will like get on a call, like

on a video chat or so I think so, and like edit with her new contractor so

the contractor can see her process.

That's actually, yeah, I remember that.

That's really smart.

Yeah.

I don't remember

that one.

That is, that is good.

Well, it's Brittany, Felix.

I think she mentioned on this show.

Somewhere else, like, no, it was,

I remember, well, I'm going to hope it was

our chest.

She, no matter what she's on, she's always dropping gyms.

So it's hard to keep them all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We just need to put her in a bottle.

Uh, so Kareem says that his experience has been with graphics and illustrations

and he wasn't even able to start to subcontract his own style.

And I think that's true of any client work.

You always got to follow the boss's style,

even when they're wrong, but also keep in mind that

there's not one way to do anything.

And just because like a subcontractor isn't doing it the

same, exactly what you would do.

It doesn't mean that it's wrong or inferior.

And I would add to that.

I think there's, it's a little bit different with editing somebody else's

content as opposed to creating your own.

Right.

So.

The way I understand graphic design is I'm starting with a, maybe a design

brief or something, and I've got to create something out of nothing it's

different too, to approach the editing portion and say, so if you think about

like developing film or something, there are different ways you can develop

film, but the photos already been taken.

It's just a matter of drawing out what you want.

And there is definitely a creative process to that, but it's not like trying to

create something literally out of nothing.

And I think there's probably a little bit more can't think of the

word grace that goes with that.

Right?

So it doesn't have to be, it's a little, it's a little bit different in my mind.

Maybe I'm wrong.

I don't know.

I feel like this whole business requires a lot

of grace and a lot of prayers now.

I'm, I'm, I'm being silly just cause I've been, yeah, this, this episode is very

timely for me because I have been having.

A lot of time management issues, for whatever reasons the, I find I'm finding

this personally helpful and enlightening.

Awesome.

So you're coming off of a year of really intense

learning and trying not to take on new business to now building business.

And it's a challenge to keep everything.

Rolling.

Yes.

And I don't know, I, I went to my mother's last week or the

week before and everything had been in the business had been nice and calm and

going steady and, you know, even keel.

And so I didn't like make a big deal.

I was like, oh, is this working while I'm there?

Every, I swear, every single client, everybody who's ever worked with me in

the past sent me an email that week.

It's like, the universe was like, oh, she's ready.

And, um, just went boom.

And then I was, you know, started redesigning my systems and

all, you know, so much stuff.

So yeah.

Now I'm just like, okay, all right, I'm good.

I'm good.

You bring up a good thought exercise, right?

If you think through your typical work week, if you were

to try and take some time off.

What are the things that would need to continue to have attention or have the

probability to break while you're, and maybe this is a topic for a new episode.

I don't know.

What are the things that have a probability to break or to need

attention if you were to take a day or a week or a month off, because

then those become the things that long-term you need to think about.

Okay.

How can I build that out so that it doesn't depend on me and

this again, is thinking like, I want to be the business owner.

Not saying I don't want to work in the business.

I still do.

But like, if, if I was a doctor and I have a practice of one, if I'm

out the whole practice shuts down.

Yes.

And some doctors are like, which is highly inconvenient.

It is, that is a fabulous, um, thought exercise.

I had never really thought about it before.

Definitely somebody simply to watch the email that just, it just has to be done.

And then.

Having that team of editors in case something does come up,

something needs to be revised.

I can throw it to them and be like, you know, oh, can you fix this?

And then having, um, somebody just inspect for quality.

So it just makes it easier.

So things don't come back.

Yeah.

And then billing, right.

Billing takes up a lot of time for me.

Um, which is not a bad problem, but making sure that the invoices

go out in a timely manner

and that they're right.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

And that they're right.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Yes.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

So the last thing you want to do is have an incorrect invoice that is, yeah.

Not fun in business.

There's two things you don't mess with.

People's time off and people's money.

Those are the things you don't want.

Well, I feel like we're getting down to the end, so we should probably hit

the pod decks question of the day.

Are you guys all right with that?

Of course.

Okay.

So for those of you, yeah, in the chat, we'd like to have your answers as well.

If you're listening to the replay, we'd love to have you

stop by and give your answer.

This is a pod deck that I just chose randomly out of the deck of pod deck and

it's, and I'm going to alter it just a tiny bit to make it podcast relevant.

What's something about podcasting that people are obsessed with, but you

don't, you just don't get the point of, so what's something about podcasting

that people are obsessed with, that you just don't get the point of.

And it's a hard one for me, because I can, like, there are things,

people are obsessed with that.

I kind of get the point of, even though I don't think they're valuable.

So like ratings and reviews, they're actually not that

important, but I kind of liked them.

So I kind of get it.

Um, I dunno what, uh, I'll ask you guys.

What, what are things about podcasting that people are

obsessed that you just don't know?

The obsession with how long an episode needs to be.

Ooh.

Yeah, because people like are really concerned to make sure they have like

the right length and the answer is like, it depends on so many different things.

Like, and there is no right answer.

Yeah.

Kareem set the base and I would, I would kind

of agree with that because I feel like everybody wants to be more

warm and Boomi, but you know what?

That's not how it

sounds.

No, I actually, I want to be less warm and boomy, especially when I've

got nasal things going on like today.

Yeah.

And like, if I'm competing against, you know, the wind through my car window too,

that's going to make you harder to hear.

I would say money and sponsorships and advertising and, um, you know, all those

things.

Yeah.

If you're on episode five, you probably don't need to worry about monetizing

yeah.

Or download numbers.

Right.

I think that kind of goes hand in hand.

Um, but yeah, 99% of people don't make money podcasting.

Right.

So, and they just never will.

And if you're, if you're going to start worrying about

sponsorships by episode five, you really need to start worrying about

that before episode one, because you need to design your show for that.

Um, that that's my view on that.

I will, I will take the obsession with.

If I change podcast hosts, will my downloads increase?

That's a weird

question

because I've seen people

like, well, well, that's not entirely true.

If you switch to SoundCloud, chances are your downloads are

going to drastically increase.

Well, not real down stats numbers.

All right.

Cool.

Well, that's, that's a, that's a fun one.

Yeah, we'll go ahead and draw it to a close for those

of you that joined us live.

Thank you for your comments and for being here.

Daniel, do you want to tell everybody how to be a guest

do is go to podcast editors, mastermind.com/b guests, fill

out the form and then we'll be in touch.

We do have a number in the queue right now.

So I will, if you have submitted, um, just be patient, we are getting to them.

And now that I've realized to look at my spam folder, so we do, and we actually

had some really cool plans coming up with the guests that we have in queue now.

So be sure to subscribe and follow the page and do all the things

because here's going to be really fun when it comes to the show.

Really excited about it.

Yeah.

We got

a lot of cool things planned,

actually share a little bit more about sort of

high level what we were thinking.

Cause we, we were strategizing last week.

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

Oh, do I want to share?

Carrie Caulfield Arick:

No, I want them to guess,

guess

yeah, no, we are going to focus on things

that y'all keep asking about.

And one of the things is how do I get clients?

Like where do I get clients?

So we're going to do like a series of, of these topics that are going to help

you get clients, make money, whatever.

I don't, I'm not saying this real well, all of a sudden, I

know Daniel wrote the plans down.

Maybe he should

write them down.

Oh, okay.

So, but we are going to help you get clients.

We're going to help you with the marketing piece.

We're going to have a seasoned editor on.

And a new editor on to kind of workshop them through these things too, so

that I'm really looking forward

to.

Yeah.

I've got a couple of ideas that I thought about today that I'll share with the two

of you the next time we get together.

Cause I think they might be some really cool ways that we can take this show

and, and make it even more valuable and to serve people more deeply.

So more to come on that.

Cause I haven't talked to the other Yeti, so I'm not going to say anything

publicly, cause I'm not that dumb.

So Brian is vague podcasting right now.

We apologize for

it.

I heard from Eric K.

Johnson that you're supposed to tease the next topic.

And while this isn't the next topic, I think we've got some good stuff anyway.

Well we'll let that one go discussion about how to balance your life

with your podcast production.

If you haven't noticed, we've definitely got it all figured out

or else we're still figuring it out.

And I am Brian Ensminger.

You can find me@toptieraudio.com beside me is.

Um, Carrie Caulfield, Eric, you can find

me@yayapodcasting.com or on Instagram at

Carrie air I'm Daniel Abendroth.

And you can find me@rothmedia.audio.

And if you're oh, wait, I'm gonna say one more thing.

If you are not a member of our Facebook group, come and join in.

Facebook.com/groups/podcast editors mastermind.

Uh, there've been a lot of great conversations in there and you'll

get the skinny on what's happening and also subscribe to our newsletter.

It's found on our website podcast, editors, mastermind.com.

So thanks everybody for being here.

We appreciate you in the comments and also look forward to hearing

from you more in the group.