If you’ve been around my channel for very long you may remember the days when I was uploading 5 videos a week (well 4, one was a livestream) plus the patreon videos. I worked NON STOP! Then I landed in the hospital. It took 3 surgeries and 6 months to be sort of back to normal. I completely got off my schedule of videos during this time and never got back to it.
There are two huge lessons to learn from this.
First, make a schedule if you want to get more done!! I HATE, like with a fiery passion normally reserved for tailgaters, HATE schedules. I want to be all free and not have to do what my boss tells me to do. The thing is, and I KNOW THIS so I don’t know why I hate them so much, is that a schedule gives you MORE free time. I spend half my day wondering around thinking “wait, what was I supposed to be doing? Meh, I will play warcraft till I figure it out”.
I finally sat down Monday night and wrote out a list of everything I want to get done in a week which includes two edited videos per week on top of the livestream and patreon lessons YAY!! There are things I’m ALWAYS behind on like patreon postcards and group challenges. I figured out how to include that into the schedule to keep myself on time moving forward (once I get these last three months shipped out that is).
This schedule is going to allow me to have one full day off a week which I currently on my “free plan” NEVER have! Yet I’m going to accomplish far far more than I was!
Second, stop being such a perfectionist that you get nothing accomplished!! One of the reasons I’ve not had much edited on youtube is that during these past two years I found ways to have better looking videos for my vlogs. I don’t have the right camera/lights to make that work for this room so I got creative. A creative set up that includes tape, a belt, 3 or 4 tests to see if I’m in camera frame and in focus plus about an hour of work JUST to get the initial set up. Then another hour or so of recording the video. You know what that resulted in? Great looking videos that I avoided recording because I didn’t have time for that much set up (see lesson #1 above).
I was being such a perfectionist on what I wanted the video to look like that I was producing almost nothing at all!
I’ve talked about this concept before. My friend Christian who lead the band I used to be in was like this. He was so worked up over every little element of the recordings that he never finished anything. Crazy amazing musician/singer/songwriter with very few recordings of his work to show for it.
Artists do this all the time. They don’t finish their paintings because they can’t make it perfect. Forget about perfection and just create!! Obviously do your best but if “perfection” means creating nothing then what is the point?!?!
Another thing I’ve found myself guilty of that I see artists do all the time is the idea of “When (fill in the blank) happens, I will start doing (fill in the blank)”.
- When I have a better camera I will start making videos.
- When I move into a bigger place I will have room to start making more paintings/videos.
- When I have more time I will start painting.
- When I have money for better supplies I will start painting.
- When I have money for a better easel I will paint more.
Stop waiting for other things to happen. Do the best with what you have and get to work! I’m going to be taking my own advice, sticking to this schedule and start creating more, even if it’s not as perfect as I want it to be, at least I will be creating something that others will hopefully find helpful!