"I should start a podcast" is the 2026 version of the How I Met Your Mother "we should buy a bar" running joke — it sounds easy until you actually try to ship a show every week.
That's why solo podcasters need a good system that works for you So instead of just handing you a system that. you may or may not use, in this episode I walk through the ten questions you need to answer before episode ten — how you capture ideas, outline, record, store files, edit, track status, upload, write copy, stay ahead of the calendar, and promote — and share what I do on each one so you can borrow what fits.
Answer these once and you'll have a setup that survives a sick week, a vacation, or a slow idea day.
Show Notes
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 There's a running joke in one of my favorite
00:00:07 --> 00:00:10 TV shows, How I Met Your Mother, that Ted and
00:00:10 --> 00:00:14 Barney and the gang say something that every
00:00:14 --> 00:00:17 man says at some point in his life. We should
00:00:17 --> 00:00:21 buy a bar. But spoiler alert, when they actually
00:00:21 --> 00:00:27 buy the bar, when they actually offer bar like
00:00:27 --> 00:00:30 services in their apartment one night, they realize
00:00:30 --> 00:00:37 how hard it is. to actually run a bar. I feel
00:00:37 --> 00:00:42 like the 2026 analog of that could be, I should
00:00:42 --> 00:00:46 start a podcast. It seems fun. You just have
00:00:46 --> 00:00:48 conversations. It's really easy. I can do it
00:00:48 --> 00:00:51 better than the other guy that's doing it. And
00:00:51 --> 00:00:57 then you dive in to starting a podcast and you
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 realize it's a lot harder than you thought it
00:01:00 --> 00:01:03 would. Everything feels disjointed and weird.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:07 How can you make it so that you can continue
00:01:07 --> 00:01:12 this podcast without it taking up all of your
00:01:12 --> 00:01:16 time? Well, that's where you need a good system.
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 And that's what I want to talk to you about today.
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 I'm not going to give you the system. That's
00:01:22 --> 00:01:26 a really personal thing. And I have some ideas
00:01:26 --> 00:01:28 for how that can help if you are interested.
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 You can click the link in the description to
00:01:31 --> 00:01:34 get in touch with me. It's something that I help
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 solo printers and solo podcasters do is build
00:01:37 --> 00:01:41 systems. But these are the 10 things that you
00:01:41 --> 00:01:45 should consider when building your system so
00:01:45 --> 00:01:49 that you can build a system. And so I think you
00:01:49 --> 00:01:52 need to do this before you have 10 episodes.
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 You might not know in the beginning, right? No
00:01:56 --> 00:01:57 one really knows how they do something until
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 they get in there and do it. So I'm giving you
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 a 10 episode buffer. But as you create those
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 10 episodes, if you haven't done it already,
00:02:05 --> 00:02:09 and if you have, think about this now. These
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 are the 10 questions you should consider. Question
00:02:12 --> 00:02:16 number one, how do you log ideas? When you sit
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 down to record, do you sit down and say, what
00:02:19 --> 00:02:24 should I talk about today? Or do you have a place
00:02:24 --> 00:02:28 where you can go for episode ideas? If you do
00:02:28 --> 00:02:33 the former, that makes podcasting so much harder,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:36 because if you don't have an idea in you that
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 day, you feel pressure and you come up with something
00:02:39 --> 00:02:44 crappy. But if you log ideas for you to reference
00:02:44 --> 00:02:46 and organize and sort, in fact, I just did that
00:02:46 --> 00:02:50 before this episode. I have a planner in Notion.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:56 where I have dozens of episode ideas. Dozens
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 of episode ideas. And I reordered them because
00:02:58 --> 00:03:01 I felt like, oh, I already talked about this
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 within the last few weeks and I don't want to
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 do that again. So I bumped this episode to the
00:03:06 --> 00:03:10 top of the queue. So how do you log ideas? That's
00:03:10 --> 00:03:13 the first question you should answer. Number
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 two, how do you flesh out outlines or scripts?
00:03:17 --> 00:03:19 This is important because if you fully script
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 your show, this is something that you need to
00:03:22 --> 00:03:25 build into your system. Where are the notes for
00:03:25 --> 00:03:28 the scripts? Where do you get the story beats?
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 How do you turn an idea into a script? If you
00:03:31 --> 00:03:35 don't, maybe you flesh out outlines. Maybe you
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 just go off the cuff. I don't recommend that.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:42 I talk off the cuff a lot, but I always have
00:03:42 --> 00:03:45 an outline. in front of me. I'm not just coming
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 up with these 10 questions off the top of my
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 head. I spent some time and I took some notes
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 and I ordered these questions in a way that makes
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 sense for this episode. So how do you flesh out
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 your outlines? Because you need to think about
00:03:58 --> 00:04:02 that as you build your system. Where do you record?
00:04:02 --> 00:04:06 Not physically. Maybe you are recording in different
00:04:06 --> 00:04:09 physical places all the time. But I mean, what
00:04:09 --> 00:04:11 app do you record in? I record this in Logic
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 Pro, so that's going to be different from an
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 interview show where I'm recording in Riverside
00:04:16 --> 00:04:20 or Descript or Zencaster. So where do you record
00:04:20 --> 00:04:22 your episodes? And then where do those files
00:04:22 --> 00:04:27 go, right? Where are the episodes stored? So
00:04:27 --> 00:04:30 that is a one -two punch of questions. That was
00:04:30 --> 00:04:35 three and four. So the first two are the pre
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 -planning things. How do you log your ideas?
00:04:38 --> 00:04:42 How do you flesh out outlines? Three and four
00:04:42 --> 00:04:47 are around recording. Where do you record? Where
00:04:47 --> 00:04:51 do you store episodes once they are recorded?
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 Number five is how do you edit? Do you send the
00:04:58 --> 00:05:00 files to an editor? Do you edit yourself? Do
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 you not edit and you just do live to drive or
00:05:03 --> 00:05:05 record to tape? Again, something I would not
00:05:05 --> 00:05:08 recommend. I think you should edit. The way I
00:05:08 --> 00:05:12 edit this show is actually in kind of real time.
00:05:12 --> 00:05:14 If I mess up, I stop recording, I delete and
00:05:14 --> 00:05:19 I try again. Maybe that's not the best, but it's
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 easiest for me. These are short episodes and
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 I don't have to take notes as I'm recording.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:28 Maybe you edit a different way. Maybe you use
00:05:28 --> 00:05:30 a transcript editing app, which is what I would
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 generally recommend. But since I like recording
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 in Logic Pro. I don't feel like exporting this
00:05:36 --> 00:05:40 to a separate, you know, transcript app. So how
00:05:40 --> 00:05:41 do you edit? That's going to be part of your
00:05:41 --> 00:05:47 system. And as we're thinking about this question
00:05:47 --> 00:05:52 six, right, because now we have ideas and outlines
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 and recorded and edited. How do you track the
00:05:55 --> 00:05:58 status of your episodes? How do you track where
00:05:58 --> 00:06:02 each episode is in the pipeline? Because the
00:06:02 --> 00:06:06 worst position you can put yourself in as a solo
00:06:06 --> 00:06:11 podcaster, especially is just recording an episode
00:06:11 --> 00:06:13 every week and uploading it and then moving on
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 to the next one. Because what happens if you
00:06:16 --> 00:06:21 get sick? What happens if you forget one week?
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 What happens if you go on vacation? Are you going
00:06:25 --> 00:06:29 to record an episode from vacation? So you want
00:06:29 --> 00:06:35 to have I try to have. four to six episodes in
00:06:35 --> 00:06:39 the tank. And sometimes that'll get down to two,
00:06:39 --> 00:06:41 right? But it means I've had a month off, basically,
00:06:42 --> 00:06:44 of not recording. So I try to record my episodes
00:06:44 --> 00:06:48 once a month, twice a month, depending on how
00:06:48 --> 00:06:51 my schedule shakes out and how inspired I'm feeling.
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 But I always have multiple episodes ready to
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 go. The week I am recording this episode is very
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 different from the week that you are hearing
00:07:01 --> 00:07:06 it. And I can do that because I don't have a
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 current events show. I don't talk about the news
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 on this podcast. But also you might notice that
00:07:12 --> 00:07:18 most news based podcasts have co -hosts so that
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 one can cover for the other. Or they'll pre -record
00:07:21 --> 00:07:25 a couple that are less news related, less hot
00:07:25 --> 00:07:28 take related. And that is part of their system.
00:07:28 --> 00:07:30 So if you do have a news based show and you're
00:07:30 --> 00:07:34 a solo podcaster, how are you going to handle
00:07:34 --> 00:07:39 getting ahead or weeks where you're off? So that's
00:07:39 --> 00:07:42 how do you track status? Number six. OK, I'll
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 have these questions in order in this show notes
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 as well. So you don't have to take notes if you
00:07:46 --> 00:07:50 don't want to. Number seven is how do you upload
00:07:50 --> 00:07:53 your episodes and where do you upload your episodes?
00:07:53 --> 00:07:58 Right. I for this show. Wildly enough, I can't
00:07:58 --> 00:08:01 believe this worked, but RSS .com has a great
00:08:01 --> 00:08:05 API. And so I actually have a Claude skill that
00:08:05 --> 00:08:07 takes everything I put in Notion and uploads
00:08:07 --> 00:08:11 it to RSS .com once a week. So anything that
00:08:11 --> 00:08:14 has the status of ready for scheduling, Claude
00:08:14 --> 00:08:18 will do for me automatically. For my other show,
00:08:18 --> 00:08:21 Streamline Solopreneur, it's a little bit more
00:08:21 --> 00:08:25 nuanced. And I have my VA do the uploading, the
00:08:25 --> 00:08:27 reviewing of assets, creating the custom artwork.
00:08:28 --> 00:08:31 So that can vary show to show. And if you do
00:08:31 --> 00:08:34 it yourself, how do you do it? Do you have documentation
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 so you don't forget anything? Do you have an
00:08:37 --> 00:08:42 SOP for publishing your podcast episodes? Do
00:08:42 --> 00:08:44 you check the status to see what's ready to upload?
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 Or do you go, what have I recorded this week?
00:08:48 --> 00:08:49 So that's how do you upload your episodes of
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 Summer 7. Number eight. How do you come up with
00:08:52 --> 00:08:54 a description in show notes? This is something
00:08:54 --> 00:08:57 where generative AI can be helpful, especially
00:08:57 --> 00:09:03 for the show notes part kind of I have like a
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 Memory file for Claude where it's like if I reference
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 these like map the links I mentioned to this
00:09:08 --> 00:09:12 and it's okay or like, you know a database of
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 my affiliate links that I prefer it uses or my
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 Amazon tag, which I prefer it uses when I reference
00:09:17 --> 00:09:21 an Amazon product so That still works. Okay,
00:09:21 --> 00:09:24 and I still need to go in and edit and read and
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 make sure it's actually like good But how do
00:09:27 --> 00:09:29 you come up with your description and show notes
00:09:29 --> 00:09:34 that is part of your system? Sometimes I will
00:09:34 --> 00:09:37 write the intros to these shows ahead of time
00:09:37 --> 00:09:41 and that becomes the description This time I
00:09:41 --> 00:09:43 kind of thought of it off the cuff to be honest
00:09:43 --> 00:09:44 with you I couldn't think of a good story until
00:09:44 --> 00:09:47 right before I started recording but How do you
00:09:47 --> 00:09:49 come up with your description and show notes?
00:09:49 --> 00:09:51 Because you want them to be consistent and you
00:09:51 --> 00:09:53 want it to be as easy as possible. Number nine,
00:09:53 --> 00:09:55 we talked about this already. How many episodes
00:09:55 --> 00:09:59 ahead are you? And number 10, how do you promote?
00:10:00 --> 00:10:04 Those are the 10 questions that you should ask
00:10:04 --> 00:10:08 yourself as you are building a system. So just
00:10:08 --> 00:10:12 to run through them one more time. How do you
00:10:12 --> 00:10:16 log ideas? How do you flesh out outlines or scripts?
00:10:16 --> 00:10:19 Where do you record? Where are episodes stored?
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 How do you edit? Where do you track the status
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 of each episode? How do you upload your episodes?
00:10:27 --> 00:10:28 How do you come up with a description and show
00:10:28 --> 00:10:32 notes? How many episodes ahead are you? And how
00:10:32 --> 00:10:36 do you promote? Answer these questions and you
00:10:36 --> 00:10:39 will have the foundation for a system. Whether
00:10:39 --> 00:10:44 that is a Notion database or a Trello board or
00:10:44 --> 00:10:49 just a Google Doc. I know podcasts who have had
00:10:49 --> 00:10:51 hundreds of episodes that they just tracked in
00:10:51 --> 00:10:55 a Google Doc. I don't recommend it. Notion, I
00:10:55 --> 00:10:57 think, is really good for this. Trello is also
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 really good for this. Google Sheets, if you're
00:10:59 --> 00:11:04 comfortable with Google Sheets. I talk about
00:11:04 --> 00:11:07 planners in a previous episode, but a planner
00:11:07 --> 00:11:10 is the linchpin of an entire system because it
00:11:10 --> 00:11:16 gives you the overall view of your podcast. So
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 that's it for this episode. If you want to get
00:11:18 --> 00:11:23 these episodes ad free, by the way, you can subscribe
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 in Apple Podcasts. So if you're listening in
00:11:25 --> 00:11:28 Apple Podcasts, you can subscribe to this show
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 for a few bucks a month or, you know, I think
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 it's like five or six bucks off for the year.
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 And you'll get these episodes ad free. You'll
00:11:36 --> 00:11:38 get early access and you'll get the occasional
00:11:38 --> 00:11:43 bonus episode as well. That's only an Apple podcast
00:11:43 --> 00:11:45 right now. If you don't use Apple podcast and
00:11:45 --> 00:11:49 you think, hey, I want that right in at streamlinedfeedback
00:11:49 --> 00:11:52 .com and let me know. Because the more people
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 I hear from, the more likely I will be to put
00:11:55 --> 00:11:57 this on Patreon or Substack or something like
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 that. I'm doing Apple podcast right now because
00:11:59 --> 00:12:01 my hosting provider and the company that I am
00:12:01 --> 00:12:05 a content creator for RSS .com makes it extremely
00:12:05 --> 00:12:09 easy to have free ad supported versions. and
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 then ad -free Apple Podcast subscriber versions.
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 That's why I do it. That's part of my system.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:17 They make it really easy to do that. If you want
00:12:17 --> 00:12:19 to check out RSS .com, I'll have a link in the
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 description below as well. Thanks so much for
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 listening to this episode of The Streamlined
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 Podcaster. I'm your host, Joe Casabona, and until
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 next time, I hope you find some space in your
00:12:30 --> 00:12:30 week.