This episode might come across as a bit weird
to you, mostly because it contains truth.
Inconvenient truth for some.
There's a moment almost every podcaster has.
It usually happens a few episodes in. You look at your
calendar, you feel your energy, you look at the
microphone and you think, oh, I
might have slightly over committed here. Because somewhere
early on, you decided this podcast was going to be weekly.
Not because weekly made sense, but because weekly
seemed serious. Like the podcast equivalent of
buying a planner in January, most indie podcasters lock
in their publishing schedule far too early in the process.
Weekly feels like the default. It feels professional.
It feels like what real podcasters do.
But it's usually a decision made before you know what the show actually
wants to be, how much energy it's going to take out of you,
or whether you even enjoy recording
yet more content. So what starts as
excitement slowly turns into obligation. And
obligation is where podcasts
quietly lose their spark. Let's talk about the
guilt loop, and this is going to feel quite familiar.
Here's the pattern I see all the time, and yes,
I've done this myself. You miss a week, you feel
guilty. You record something quickly to make up for it. The
episode is fine. You feel a bit worse, though,
so you promise yourself, I'm gonna be more consistent
from now on. Which usually just ends up with you
feeling more tired. There's a very specific type of episode
you record when you're doing it out of guilt, and listeners
can hear it instantly. Your words carry
energy. It's the podcast version of when someone
asks you, you okay? And you reply with, yeah,
all good. When absolutely nothing is all good.
Here's a recent, very real example that I can share with you.
This actually happened to me a couple of months ago
during the November December period. I
oversubscribed myself to my own recording schedule.
I didn't factor in getting sick. I didn't factor in needing to
rest my voice. I definitely didn't factor in
being a human being who needs Christmas. I
ended up about four episodes behind, if you look at it through the lens of
a strict weekly schedule. And yeah, there was a little
flicker of guilt, that voice inside that says, people
are going to notice. People are going to wonder where you've gone. But
then I realized something slightly awkward.
I'd literally just recorded episodes telling people
not to do exactly what I was doing. So I took my own
advice. I rested. I didn't record with a knackered voice
and a bad mood, and the world didn't end.
No angry emails from listeners going, where The F are your episodes.
No dramatic drop off. No one sitting around thinking, I
can't believe he's abandoned us. When the episode eventually
did publish, the response was basically, oh, there he is again.
Which is exactly how I react when
podcasts that I enjoy take their breaks. What
I was really suffering from there was the spotlight effect.
I've talked about this before in this podcast. It's that feeling that
everyone is paying far more attention to what you're doing
than they actually are. We think listeners are tracking our
schedules. They're not. They're busy. They got their own lives.
They press play when something shows up in their library and it sounds
interesting. They don't sit around moping because you missed a
week. They just get on with things.
Look, here's the truth that a lot of podcast gurus won't
want you to hear. Frequency doesn't build trust.
Intent does. Nobody's really ever thought,
I wasn't sure about this podcast, but then I noticed
they religiously publish every Tuesday, and suddenly
I felt emotionally invested. That doesn't happen. What
builds trust is knowing why your episode exists
and how it helps them, feeling like the host
actually wanted to be there for you, and sensing
that your time wasn't just treated casually.
Here's the truth. I would much rather
listen to a podcaster who goes quiet
occasionally than one who never stops talking. At
least the silence is honest.
Consistency doesn't mean weakly
never missing, pushing through. Regardless,
consistency is a recognizable voice
showing up, a familiar pace, a sense
of you care. You can be consistent
without being frequent. And you can be frequent and
not be consistent. And only one of those makes people stick
around. And honestly, recording less doesn't
mean disappearing. It means giving you
time to finish off your ideas, letting
episodes earn their existence.
Stopping when your thought is done, not when the clock says so.
Now, some podcasts genuinely thrive weekly,
others don't. And forcing yourself into that
regular schedule just because others are doing it,
even though it flies against everything you believe,
everything you're capable of, and everything you desire, well, that's just
dumb. And it makes you quietly resentful, which is not
what any one of your listeners wants from your podcast.
Now, here's the kinder way to decide your schedule on your
terms. Instead of asking, how often should I
publish? Try asking, how often
do I actually have something to say? And that
answer may well change. And that's allowed. You're not
signing a blood oath here. The podcasting gods are not
going to suddenly turn up with a contract signed in your blood
saying you signed the contract in your own blood. Eliza,
you owe me Weekly episodes Do not disappoint
me. You're learning what this thing needs to be.
And if you're worried that recording less will make people forget about
you, here's the promise they won't. People
don't forget podcasts because they miss a week. They
forget them because they're and nothing
sticks. And the episodes people remember are almost
never the rushed ones. I hope you found this helpful,
and if you did, please do share it with another podcaster that you
think might find it useful to hear or watch. Followed the
podcast yet? If not, make sure you click Follow or
subscribe in your favorite podcast app. I've been Neil Velio, the
Podmaster. This is Podcasting Insights. And until the next
episode, good luck with your continuing journey
towards podmastery Podcasting
Insight
Podcasting Insight.