How to Be More Organized with Your Podcast

and a lot of coffee. So energy is one of those things I just have a ton of. And since I took several days off, I was really inspired to just tackle some projects around my house that let's just be honest, I've been ignoring for a long time. I laugh only because it's really bad. It's really, really bad. Like, our, like, our closet, in our bedroom just got totally out

of hand. I know. You've heard me talk about laundry before, if you've listened to this podcast, you've heard me talk about my hate of laundry, and how there would just be piles of it in the floor in my closet. And I just got to a point where I'm like, Oh, my gosh, is this is enough. I'm taking time off of work. I'm going to organize my house. And I was introduced to the home edit. Okay, if you've never heard of this show, it is on Netflix. And it is like my new

guilty pleasure. 100%. But it's so funny because I did like the Marie Kondo like konmari your life find joy spark joy, like all those things. I did that several years ago. And and I got really good at getting rid of a lot of things. But I didn't really create a system after I would do everything. So what why the long story? Why this long explanation of me and my own personal issues in my house?

Well, it inspired today's episode, because I wanted to talk about ways that you Yes, you podcast listener can be more organized with your podcast. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out

with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?

get to it, I'll get to it. Um, it finally got to a point where I was like, I have no other excuse. Like I took time off work, I'm not working. There's no fires to be put out anywhere. Right now, no one else is working, because it's the holidays. So all of my excuses were gone. I really needed to kind of face the facts and look at the things that I've been ignoring. Well, this has also happened to me and my podcast.

Now I'm going to dive into four different ways that you can be more organized with your podcast, right? Because we're going into a new year. And I know, a lot of people are looking for new habits to start, or maybe they're looking for a way to like really hit the ground running in the new year. And being super organized with your podcast is a way to make that happen to where you sit down to record and you just feel good about it. You know where

everything is. You don't have to look around for files on your computer or in your software, like whatever the case may be. So I'm gonna give you four tips for how you can be more organized. But I also want to like tell you a little bit about my new year's resolution, mostly for accountability. Right? I really just want someone to hold me accountable and say Krystal, I remember what said have you been cleaning up your act because you told us that you

were gonna do it. So one of my biggest goals in the new year is to be more digitally organized. Now, I recently did a big overhaul of like, I use Google Drive, me and my project manager, like we're in and out of there all the time. And, and then I share files with other contractors, or maybe someone, they send me their bio, and then I get it that way. So I really wanted to get more organized. So I kind of cleaned up my act

there. But there are some other places where I just need to streamline and make it all flow a lot better. So I say that because you are not alone. If you have just a total mess with your files right now. It's okay, but we need to face this together, right? We need to look at what we have that we we can make it better and clean up our act a little bit, right? Because if you're like me, and if you've been ignoring things for a while, then it's time to get

more organized. So here we are, we're gonna dive into the four ways that you can be more organized with your podcast.

make fun of me. But I did an Asana project plan for my home organization. I like took pictures and uploaded them. And I did all the the shelving measurements for my closet. Yeah, I just I totally nerd it out on all the home organization stuff. And I did that in a sauna. But I don't love it for my content calendars. I really don't, I don't know what it is about it. But I just it doesn't flow as naturally for me for my content, I literally use a Google Sheet. That is what I

use. If you want to use Excel do that. But I use a simple spreadsheet. It's not fancy, I'm actually looking at it here now. And I do it. My brain thinks best in quarters of the year. So I like to know what's going on. Because usually when I'm planning my promotional calendar, like if I'm going to talk about my core, so I'm going to talk about my membership or have another affiliate thing going on, then I will plan how I'm going to promote that on my podcast in my podcast content

calendar. So I like to look at it three months at a time. So I'm actually going to open it up right here. And I'm going to tell you, so for my three months, quarter one of 2021 I'm looking at it and this is exactly how it is laid out. It is the day of the week, like when it's gonna air so either be Tuesday or Thursday, because that's when these episodes are published, then it has the

published date. So I know exactly when this episode is going to go live, then I have the topic or title, sometimes I'll put both in there, then I have the episode number. Now this is really important because whenever I'm planning all these episodes, I open this right before I start recording, and I make sure I have the right episode number because then it just makes it easier for me to tell you the show notes. I literally looked at my content calendar before I started

recording. And I was like, Okay, what episode number is this because I need to make sure and say that so I can tell them where to go for the show notes. And then I have a column that says notes. And I'll throw little things in there. Like if I have an idea. And I'll just put the topic or the title in there. Well, if I need something to reference because y'all like quarter one is done. quarter one of 2021 is totally planned out, I'm actually throwing ideas into quarter two, because that's how

far ahead I work. And I get ideas all the time. So whenever I get an idea, and I'm like, Am I going to remember what that's about. I'll go over to the notes column, and put some notes in there on what I'm actually going to talk about. And then I have another column that has opt ins or promotional stuff, so I know Oh, that's what I'm gonna be launching this thing. So I want to make sure and promote that. So a content calendar is a must to stay organized like a bare

minimum. This is the number one thing that you should have in 2021 if you do not already have this, okay, so you must have a content calendar because if you're just flying by the seat of your pants every single week, it's gonna catch up to you And you're eventually going to be like, Oh my gosh, like it's one of the things that leads to burnout, not having a plan, not knowing what you're talking about, or it just leads to you not publishing on a regular basis, which also can lead to

burnout eventually, because you're like, what's the point? Why am I doing this? No one's listening to my show. Well, a lot of people aren't listening to your show, because you're not very organized and you don't like you're not in it, right? Like you're not, you're just like, I guess I'll throw something up there. I just, I don't even care about this podcast anymore, I should throw it up there. And that makes my

heart hurt. Okay, I want you to be excited about your podcast, I want you to say, Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited because I have everything planned out. Okay, I'm gonna stop talking about content calendars, because I could just keep going and going. But go to the show notes, you can check out the videos that I've already done. Again,

there's a video on Asana. But for those of you that are in profit podcasting, because I know several of my students listen to this podcast, I want you to go to the brand new tech library that we recently did. And it has some videos on file organization, and all kinds of things like that, too. So I wanted to make sure to throw that out there.

is more of a visual thing. But I have very specific files and folders created for my podcast. Now, whenever what when I was first doing the rookie life, right? When I first started podcasting, my files looked a lot different. They were just files, and I dropped all my audio files in there. And as you can imagine, I started creating more files. And then I started doing interviews and I had multiple audio things that I had to deal with. And I didn't have

a great naming system. So eventually, just like my closet, it became a very, an organized mess of chaos. Like it just was so crazy. And so now, I have gotten better about keeping things in their proper folders. Even like, as I'm recording this podcast, I already have it like the work in progress saved in the folder that it's supposed to go to, eventually whenever we're done, because I don't want to just create a random file, and then say, oh, where was it? Did I save it to my desktop? Is it

in my Documents folder? Where did that file go? So here's like a little extra quick tip life hack podcast hack is once you start creating your podcast episode, like let's say you record a piece of the intro, go ahead and save it where you know, you want it to be in the future. Because it will just make your life so much easier when you go to find it in the future to upload it to your

hosting site. Or if you're going to use it for creating a soundbite or transcripts, whatever reason you would need to use your podcast after it's created. You want to have it in the folder it's supposed to be. So let's go on a quick tour. Okay. Hi, I'm Krystal, I will be your tour guide for the remainder of the podcast audio files. Okay, that was a little weird, but you know, just just bear with me. So I have 14

folders. And like I said, I knew that was gonna be a lot and you're like, Oh my gosh, this lady is crazy. That's It's okay, I take it, you can judge me, you could not judge me whatever. But I have 14 files. And one of those files is all of my archived files that I have for the rookie life. I don't know that I need these. But I kind of got to the point or I was like, I didn't want to delete them just yet. I have a little bit of like an attachment to them. But I also don't need them right

now. Like as I'm working on this podcast. So I just put them in archive folder. They're just they're there in case I need them. But I'm gonna start from the top down and I'm just gonna read through them real fast. That way you can get some ideas on what what kind of folders you would need in your podcast audio files. So number one, at the very top, I have a folder. That is for podcast episodes. All like these are all of my podcast episodes. This is the profit

podcast party report. Now there are sub folders like nested in here, but any kind of audio file goes into this one folder. And then under there I have podcast content plan. Which is where my content calendar lives. Then I have graphics, which are logos and pictures that guests sent to me like their headshots, I'll put them in there. Then I have lead magnets, which is where I will put my actual PDFs or graphics, videos, anything like that I have all of my podcast lead magnets that I will promote

on this show live all here. So if I ever need to grab that file really quickly, I will go there. The fifth folder is the podcast main theme. That's the Welcome to the Prophet podcast. And I put that specifically in its own folder. So whatever I'm editing, I can just drop it in there very easily. Then the next folder is my podcast music that lives all on its own. So again, I can grab it very easily. Then my next

folder is ads. Now my ads folder is made up of my self sponsored ads, right, the ones that I create myself. And then I also have a space for affiliates in sponsored ads. Now, I don't do a lot of sponsored ads right now. But I want to have a placeholder for those because I do see those as an opportunity in the next year. So I want to have a space for them that way. I know. Okay, as soon as I record these, that's exactly where they go.

And then as far as my affiliate ads, I like to have those there because I will participate in different affiliates throughout the year. And I want to be able to listen to it and see like, Oh, is that the right one? Do I still want to use that message? Or do I want to archive that and create a new one. So that's my ads folder. Then I have guest

interview information. That is for other people when they some people will send me like their Google Sheet, a Google Doc with their bio, and other information on guesting. So I'll drop that into that folder. The next folder is my podcast show guidelines. And this is what I send to all of my guests. It's like, Hey, this is who the our podcast is like I'm the host if we've never met, this is who our audiences This is a little bit

about how our interviews go. And I'm gonna link to I did an episode about podcast show guidelines and how that kind of works. And I want you to check that out. So again, the Show Notes for this episode are KrystalProffitt.com/Episode215. And then the next folder that we have is our podcast Facebook group. So that is the profit podcast online community. So I have graphics in there that I use on a regular basis in any other information about the

Facebook group is in there. And then we have podcast guest appearances that's for whenever I'm on someone else's show, whether it's a graphic, or I keep my bio in that folder, then I have kind of like an aspirational folder. It's for podcast Pinterest stuff that I want to start doing more of. So that one's kind of a placeholder. I don't really have a ton of Pinterest on there. But it's it's aspirational, right?

Like, we all have hopes and dreams to all be on all the platforms one day, and I am not, I'm not exempt from that either. So Pinterest is one of my big goals in the next year as well. And then I have podcast sound bites, so I will save my sound bites to my Google Drive. That way I can share them easily on my phone to Instagram stories. So once I've created a soundbite and buzzsprout I'll download it, drop it into this file, and then I can access this folder on my phone. Then I upload it to

Instagram. And then again, I already talked about my archive folder. So I know that that sounds like a lot and you're like oh my god crystal, you've gone off the deep end well this was actually before I like I'm looking at these. I created all these folders in like five months ago. So this was way before the home edit ever in entered my life. But it has made all the difference, all the difference because before I think I had like six folders,

and I thought that was a lot. I thought oh my gosh, who needs six folders? No more than double that. And it really makes editing easier. It makes finding information whenever I find a guest you know that wants to come on my show. I can say okay, let me send them a show guidelines. I know exactly where they are. Or if I need to do some planning. I know exactly where my content calendar is. I know where my lead magnets are.

I know where my music is. So I highly recommend getting organized with your podcast files so you know where everything is in the future and it just makes your life so much easier. Okay, so that's number two. Remember I told you we have four things to talk about today. That's number two. We talked about your content calendar first, then your podcast files.

you on how I create my show. And then you can kind of go from there. But one of the things that I do, like I said, when I sit down to record, I will look at my content calendar, make sure I have every all the information in there, I know what episode number it is, I look at my notes, whether I created notes in one of my notebooks, I created it in a Google Doc, wherever my notes are to record, I will have all those sketched out, I'll have the working title of the

episode. And then I will actually sit down, do a test clip. If you've heard my mic, check 1212. I do that every single time before I start recording, and then I will start recording. And then after we're done, I will save it and export it as an mp3 or a WAV file. Once it's all finished, then from there. And I know this sounds like a lot, but I'm just kind of mentally walking you through. Like what everything looks like on my end. And maybe this can

help you. But from there I upload, this episode will go after it's exported as a WAV file or mp3, it will be uploaded to buzzsprout as well as otter.ai, which is the platform I use to help me with my transcripts. And I'm actually going to link to a YouTube video that I did about otter and it will show you how it works. And

I think it's fantastic. If you're a buzzsprout user, they actually have a discount, I don't remember how much it was if it was like 20% off of the year, or what it was, but they have a discount for you to try otter. But you can also use the free plan and get a ton a ton out of there. You can always try it for free. But I do my transcripts. And then I usually take a break. Like I don't do the full production of this

podcast in one sitting. But I do like after I'm done recording, go ahead, you know, do any little quick edits that I do move stuff around, mix the tracks together, and then export it and then immediately upload it that way I don't forget to do that. Because I use my transcripts to help me create my show notes. Like that is a huge, huge thing for me, it saves me so so much time. And we'll get into that in another episode because that's something that I get asked about a lot. But

that's a system. So you've got to create systems. So and this can be something you already do. But write it down, write it down, like whatever you do. That way you have a checklist for yourself. And you can say what do I do whenever I record my podcast because I want to make sure and do it the same every single time because it makes your life so much easier.

interviews. Oh my gosh, this is such a time saver that I wish I would have had whenever I first started my podcast because I was going back and forth with the people I was going to interview. And it was so frustrating. So frustrating. For one I hate email anyway. And for two, it was just like, oh, Wednesday at 12 doesn't work for you. Okay, what about Thursday? Oh, no, that doesn't work. It was just this back and forth. That was absolutely unnecessary. And I highly recommend calendly to

help you automate that. So you're not thinking about it. You can even set up when you want to do interviews if you want to do them on certain days of the week or at certain times. So make your life easier by automating parts of your podcast.

too over. That's okay. But like, come up to my level just a little bit in your organization because it will help you just run your show the production of it a lot smoother. So number one, you got to have a content calendar, too. You got to organize your podcast files, three have systems in place that you can duplicate every single time you go to record, and for set up some automations for your show to make it that much easier for you to create every single week. But that's all I have for

you. So again, check out the show notes. KrystalProffitt.com/Episode215. Check them out if this is your first time tuning in. I'm so happy that you're listening and I hope that you're a subscriber to the show. If you've never listened to the show, and this is your very first time I would love for you to subscribe, leave us a rating and a review wherever you're listening to the podcast and I'm gonna sign off like I always do and let you know that you got to keep it up.

Because we all have to start somewhere.