My accountant once turned pale white when I told him I was keeping my business records in a shoebox. Lucky for him, I was just joking.
A shoebox isn't a system.
I see the same thing happen with podcasters all the time. When I ask how they're keeping track of their episodes, the most common answers are "I don't" or "I use a notebook."
And just like that shoebox, it works — until it really, really doesn't.
If you've ever sat down on a Sunday night, realized you publish Monday morning, and had absolutely no idea what you were going to talk about, this one's for you.
I'm breaking down the three reasons why a podcast planner is the most important system a solopreneur podcaster can have. If you're overwhelmed, behind, and tired of your podcast feeling like a second job, this is the episode that changes that.
Grab my free Notion podcast planner template at streamlined.fm/planner — no email required.
Links
- Free Notion Podcast Planner Template — streamlined.fm/planner
00:00:01 --> 00:00:05 I remember the first time I went to my accountant.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 We sat down and he was asking me a bunch of questions.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:15 And then he said, so how are you keeping records of your income and your expenses?
00:00:16 --> 00:00:19 Are you like using a spreadsheet or some accounting software?
00:00:20 --> 00:00:27 And I looked him dead in the face and I said, oh, no, I'm just using a shoebox.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:32 And he turned pale white before I told him I was joking.
00:00:33 --> 00:00:37 And I had a pretty extensive spreadsheet that I was using at the time.
00:00:38 --> 00:00:45 And the reason that he turned pale white is because a shoebox is a terrible accounting method.
00:00:45 --> 00:00:47 It's just a pile of papers.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:58 You can't possibly understand the health of your business when you just shove all of your receipts and invoices.
00:00:59 --> 00:00:59 into a shoebox.
00:01:01 --> 00:01:08 And it's kind of the same with a podcast that lacks an actual planner.
00:01:08 --> 00:01:12 I've talked to dozens of podcasters
00:01:14 --> 00:01:18 and the worst answer that they can give me when I say,
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 how are you keeping track of your episodes,
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 is, oh, I don't.
00:01:24 --> 00:01:26 I just record them and release them.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:34 followed only by, oh, I use a notebook or whatever scrap of paper is near me.
00:01:35 --> 00:01:42 The reason this is bad is because you can't possibly have a strategy or get ahead
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 if you are not using a podcast planner.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:52 You don't know without referencing your published episodes
00:01:53 --> 00:01:56 what you've talked about and what you haven't,
00:01:56 --> 00:02:00 and you don't have a place to keep track of ideas.
00:02:01 --> 00:02:04 So today, I'm going to tell you all the reason
00:02:05 --> 00:02:12 do you need a podcast planner if you want to streamline your podcast.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:17 If you want to get it to a place where you're not feeling constantly overwhelmed
00:02:18 --> 00:02:26 and constantly behind and feeling under the gun to get an episode out
00:02:26 --> 00:02:31 because you always publish on Mondays, and it is Sunday night.
00:02:33 --> 00:02:37 And if you are thinking, this is great, I just don't know where to start.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:39 I need a podcast planner.
00:02:40 --> 00:02:47 You can go to streamlined.fm slash planner, and you can get my Notion template totally for free.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:49 You don't even have to put in your email address.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:51 This is just yours.
00:02:51 --> 00:02:56 You can join my email list on that page, and I will talk about building systems.
00:02:56 --> 00:03:02 and automation, but if you just want the planner, totally free, no strings attached, just go and download it.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 That's at streamlined.fm slash planner.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:15 So, let's give you three reasons why you need a podcast planner.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:21 Number one, it helps you stay organized.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:32 By having a podcast planner, you can look at all of your published and upcoming episodes.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:34 You can order them the right way.
00:03:34 --> 00:03:38 You can see when you're going to run out of ideas.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:44 And you can keep track of the episodes you've published and the ideas you're thinking about publishing.
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 And maybe the ones that just don't do very well.
00:03:48 --> 00:04:12 This is especially important if you have guests on your podcast because you need to keep track of even more, not just your ideas, but have you booked the guest? Have you recorded with them? Is the episode out for edit? You can't keep all of this in your head. Things will fall through the cracks.
00:04:14 --> 00:04:16 Which brings me to my second point.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:38 Having a planner that helps you stay organized also helps you get ahead because now, instead of just working on the next episode and publishing the next episode, you can plan multiple episodes all at the same time and know how much runway you have.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:48 at any given time, I know what I have in the tank. And usually I am four to five weeks
00:04:49 --> 00:04:58 ahead of schedule with my podcast. And knowing that means that I can batch record a bunch of episodes
00:04:58 --> 00:05:06 in a day, schedule them, react to what my audience is saying and asking, and then plan
00:05:06 --> 00:05:07 the next batch of episodes.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:15 In fact, I was looking over my planner recently, and I had made a mistake not in the
00:05:16 --> 00:05:21 numbering of the episodes or the number of episodes that I had in the tank, but in the
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 date, I had skipped a date.
00:05:25 --> 00:05:30 But because I was so far ahead, I just bumped everything up an extra date.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:32 And so no panic on my part.
00:05:33 --> 00:05:36 No worrying that, oh my gosh, I don't have an episode for the next.
00:05:36 --> 00:05:42 this week. Just moving some things around to get the schedule back on track.
00:05:44 --> 00:05:51 So having this will give you more time and space. It will make you panic less and it will
00:05:51 --> 00:05:58 increase the quality of your episodes because instead of sitting down on a Sunday night or
00:05:58 --> 00:06:03 a Monday afternoon to get an episode out the next day and going, what should I talk about today?
00:06:04 --> 00:06:14 and then throwing something together, or even worse, asking chat GPT or some LLM what you should talk about and then having it come up with an outline for you,
00:06:15 --> 00:06:20 you can actually think about the problems you're trying to solve for your audience.
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 So those are the first two things.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:28 A planner will help you stay organized and it will help you get ahead.
00:06:30 --> 00:06:33 But you might be thinking, okay, Joe, I can do that with a paper plan.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:40 like why is a notebook so bad? Well, it's really because of the third reason, and that is
00:06:41 --> 00:06:51 using an online planner or a digital planner helps you build a system and automations around
00:06:51 --> 00:06:59 your podcast so that you don't have to do as much. The reason that I use Notion is really
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 twofold. The first is that it is really easy for me to
00:07:04 --> 00:07:11 share my planner with my team, so my VA and my editor, and when I'm releasing a video for a
00:07:11 --> 00:07:17 particular episode, my thumbnail designer. And the other reason is there are lots of automations.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:27 Notion has built in automations and both make and Zapier work with Notion, which means that I can
00:07:28 --> 00:07:33 easily use automation to put things in the planner, update the planner, send email,
00:07:34 --> 00:07:41 based on status changes inside the planner and assets to the planner and more.
00:07:42 --> 00:07:54 And as we move into an increasingly sophisticated version of AI, something that people are calling
00:07:54 --> 00:08:03 AI agents, having a digital planner will allow those agents,
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 to work directly with the planner without us.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:10 Something I haven't tried yet,
00:08:10 --> 00:08:12 but I plan to do in the very near future
00:08:13 --> 00:08:16 is see how Claude Co-work
00:08:18 --> 00:08:23 can help me manage the files for my podcast
00:08:24 --> 00:08:26 without me having to touch a thing.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:30 So the way that I record my solo episodes
00:08:31 --> 00:08:37 is I open up Logic Pro, I have an outline or some notes that I've scribbled on a note card
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 of the things I want to talk about.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:44 This is the one right there for this episode.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 I just have a few notes here, some talking points.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:58 When I'm done recording, I will save this episode to the streamlined podcaster folder in Google Drive.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:06 From there, I will take the file and drop it into Mac Whisper, which is my transcription app.
00:09:08 --> 00:09:16 I will take the transcript and paste it into my podcast project in Claude,
00:09:17 --> 00:09:23 which will pull out the show notes, make sure that I stayed on track the whole time,
00:09:23 --> 00:09:28 recommend edits, which I might take or not take, recommend some titles and descriptions,
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 based on the keywords I want to rank for,
00:09:32 --> 00:09:35 which I, again, will take or not take.
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 I usually end up changing those pretty heavily.
00:09:38 --> 00:09:41 But then I will take all of that
00:09:41 --> 00:09:46 and paste it back into my planner in Notion to make the changes.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:52 That's a lot of moving between apps.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:57 My understanding is that Claude Co-work
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 can do all of that for me.
00:10:01 --> 00:10:03 I finish recording
00:10:04 --> 00:10:06 and then it takes the file from the folder,
00:10:06 --> 00:10:08 drops it into Mac Whisper,
00:10:08 --> 00:10:09 copies the transcript,
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 drops it into the Claude Project,
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 and then takes the results
00:10:15 --> 00:10:19 and pasts it into Notion for me to review.
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 This is the sort of
00:10:24 --> 00:10:25 automation
00:10:26 --> 00:10:27 that can save
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 you hours per week.
00:10:31 --> 00:10:39 It takes me, depending on the length of the episode, anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, to do all of
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 that post-production stuff.
00:10:43 --> 00:10:50 Imagine if I could just record a bunch of episodes, have Claude Co-Work do its thing, and then
00:10:50 --> 00:10:57 when I'm ready to review the copy, I sit down and do it, I've saved, let's say, conservatively,
00:10:58 --> 00:10:58 an hour.
00:11:00 --> 00:11:12 An hour that gives me more time to either record more episodes or create better content or do billable work or reach out to a potential sponsor.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:18 This is the real power of having a good podcast planner.
00:11:19 --> 00:11:27 And yes, mine is in Notion and again you can get it at streamlined.fm slash planner, but you don't have to use Notion.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 and in fact, if you don't like Notion, you shouldn't use Notion.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:40 You should use the one that works best for you, whether that is a Google sheet or clickup or airtable or whatever.
00:11:42 --> 00:11:50 It should be something that is digital so that you can make a system around it.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:55 All right, that's it for this episode of the streamlined podcaster.
00:11:56 --> 00:11:57 I hope you enjoyed it.
00:11:57 --> 00:12:05 If you have questions, comments, concerns, you can send feedback over at streamlinedfeedback.com.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:12 If you're interested in what my podcast planner looks like, you can head over to streamlined.fm slash planner.
00:12:13 --> 00:12:17 And until next time, I hope you find some space in your week.