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How to plan your podcast episodes
Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
There’s one more step before you get ready to record your first episode: planning.
This can look different depending on how you work best. Some people like to keep it simple (hi, it’s me) and just create a Google doc for each episode. Although, I’ll admit that after a while, probably over 100 episodes, I did that less and less. Should I have? Probably not, but you can at least learn from my missteps.
If you want to get a little more in-depth with it, you can make a spreadsheet and link to your notes document to have that one place where you can see your upcoming schedule, which episodes have notes already, what’s been recorded, etc. I did something along these lines for my show Chat Sematary. I had every book, TV show, and movie that I planned to cover listed out in a spreadsheet with information such as who my guest was for each episode, what the recording date was, and when the episode would be published. When I tried to do the same for Welcome to Geekdom, it didn’t stick quite as well. There’s something about doing something from the start that just makes it easier to keep up with. But hey, at least I learned from my mistake.
What I’d recommend is splitting your episode up by each segment of your episode. For example, if you’re talking about a movie, maybe you’ll have an intro, first impressions, a deep dive into the plot, ratings, and recommendations. Have your document reflect that and your life will be much easier. I can’t count how many times I said to myself “no it’s fine, I know what I want to talk about” and proceeded to forget one thing I did want to talk about because I didn’t lay it all out.
You may already know what type of note-taking and organizational systems work for you, so just use what you’re most comfortable and familiar with. There are no rules here since this part is just for you (and your co-host/guests). The planning is the important part, not the how.
So, what now? You have your idea and your gear, now you have to actually record the show! We’ll cover that next week.
If you have any quick questions, feel free to contact me here or schedule a consultation call if you need some more in-depth help with your podcast.