How to Take Time Off from Your Podcast

e together. Yes, we're taking t e best pieces of Prof itt Podcasting, and the commu ity aspect of the party people and basically we're setting it all on fire and coming in a bla ing with a brand new program and I'm so excited. So to learn more go to KrystalProffitt.com/waitl st. I don't have all the detail to share with you just yet. Bu if you want to get notified as oon as the new program is availa le, then you want to get on

our waitlist. So again, g to KrystalProffitt.com/waitlis to find out all the details as oon as they're ready. Okay, l t's get into today's epis

am. And I do want to give you some practical tips on how you can take time off from your podcast, whether it's related to the holidays, or you're going on a vacation or you just simply need a break from content creation. So I am going to look at it from all those different perspectives today. 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 roffitt, and I'm so excited

hat you're here. Thanks for anging out with me today. ecause if you've been trying to igure out the world of odcasting, think of this show s the time saving shortcut ou've been looking for. So et's get right to it, shall we?

audience. Now is that to say that you absolutely have to put out a podcast episode that is the exact same length of time, every single week, forever and ever to all eternity. No, you don't. And to be honest, I don't always do this either. And I know, the way that I show up on this podcast is very consistent. And it's very, like you know, it's I without fail, I put out you know, two episodes every week. But I'm also very intentional on how I'm going to

make that work. And we're going to talk about this when we talk about needing a break.

need to ramp things up. Okay, so I want you to apply this however it works for your business. But if you are looking to take off let's say you put out a podcast episode every Thursday and you're looking at Thanksgiving and saying what I don't even know like should I put out an episode on Thanksgiving? What does that look like? That's kind of awkward because I don't want to put out my bad stuff because what if no one listens to it and

they miss it. But I also don't want to skip a week and then feel like ever, like we're all playing catch up whenever we come back. So whenever it comes to your particular publishing date falling on a holiday, I want you to plan for it right like this is the first and foremost thing that we should

talk about. whenever it comes to holidays is y'all we can plan for them, we can plan for them, we can always plan for whenever a kid gets sick, or there's a family emergency or you know, you have to take care of something right then and right

there. But holidays are the same every single year, you can look at your calendar right now and plan out from 2021 to 2030, if you want to the holidays as they fall on the calendar, so there's no excuse of like, oh, like Christmas crept up on me or I didn't know that Easter was going to happen the same time. You know, like all the things that happened on a regular basis. And I know there's so many holidays around the world that I mean, I can't even keep up with the make believe

holidays. Can we get on that for just a second? Like all the somebody reached out to me on international podcast day, and they're like, well, what are you gonna put out? And I'm like, What? I didn't even know that was the thing, guys. I didn't know that international coffee Day International slippers Day International sons day, daughter's day, Father's Day. I mean, of course knew about Father's Day, but like siblings day, what international Dog Day? I don't plan for that. All That

Jazz. Okay, I'm just gonna tell you like, if I see that kind of stuff, I'm like, okay, that's fantastic. Maybe my kids will resent me and need therapy and a few years, because I didn't recognize them on national census day. But I live in house, the three boys every day is national census day, right? Am I right? Okay, hang on. I'll get off my soapbox now. But the point with the holidays, is that you can plan for them. They are

predictable. So what I'm going to encourage you to do is when you sit down and I actually just recently did this, I was preparing my 2021 calendar. And by that I don't mean going in filling out everything and knowing exactly what I'm going to talk about. But at least laid the template I have my content calendar in a Google Sheet. And so what I did is I went ahead and I put all the dates in there, of when I'm going to publish podcast episodes when I'm going to publish YouTube

videos. And I put all the numbers in there. So I knew episode numbers, air dates, and all that. So my 2021 calendar is set up with like the bones of what I need for it to be the dates, the calendar and the episode numbers. That's basically what it is. It's just a shell of a content calendar. But now what I can do is take that same content calendar, and hold up a regular calendar that

has all the holidays on it. And when I say holidays, I want you to also be thinking about personal like celebrations, whether it's birthdays, anniversaries, you know, if you know that, you're going to have to you know, go to your brother's house to go celebrate something because it's a tradition y'all do every year for your parents or something like that, then put it on the calendar, just like set that

time. Fourth of July, like usually we try to go out of town like Mike just be outside on a lake, try to go to the beach, do something that is out of town. And so I can plan for that accordingly. Because I know it's on the Fourth of July, every single year. So I want us to get better at planning for our content well before it is actually the month of July. And you're like oh my gosh, the Fourth of July crept up on me I don't know what to do. I didn't even know what to say I'm gonna

be out of town. Like those excuses because that's what they are. I'm gonna use air quotes excuses of why you can't put out a content a piece of content that week really could have been avoided if we would have planned better. So I want us to become better planners as well as

better podcasters. So holidays, you can plan for them, I want you to get them on your calendar right now, if you're starting to plan for 2021 just go ahead and create the whole shell of the year instead of just saying okay, I'm just gonna play in the quarter. Go ahead and create the whole thing, right and most of you are just putting out one episode a week, which is fantastic. That's what that's the bare minimum that I want everybody to do anyway is one episode every single week to be

consistent. So I want you to look at that's about four to maybe five episodes a month, depending on how many weeks are in that month. If you have bonus plans, you know, for bonus episodes or anything like that, but I want you to have those holidays already on The calendar. So maybe you could even talk about them, like maybe it's relevant to your business.

Or maybe that's a time like, I mean, I'm imagining someone who talks about finances, maybe you need to talk about taxes in January, or maybe you need to talk about specific deadlines that are coming up in April, have that already on your calendar, as part of your holidays that you want to have notes like, Okay, I need to make sure and talk about these things that are important to my industry, every single year around that same time, okay, so that's number one is holidays.

vacations. Now, I as our family, we usually only take like one or two family trips per year that like, involve everybody leaving the house and everybody, you know, like, just being out of our element for a certain period of time, that could just be visiting family members in a different part of the state taxes, like my husband, Seth, and I, like our families are pretty spread out across taxes, which I mean, if you've ever been here, you know, Texas is huge, like you can drive from

one side of Texas to the other in like 15 hours, and you're still in Texas, like it's, it's massive. And so, when we plan for vacations, we kind of know, okay, we're gonna be out of town for this long, it's gonna take us this long to get there and all the things whenever it comes to vacations. So I know, at least on a quarterly basis, what we're going to be doing in the next few months, so I'll give you an example. So I know that usually in the summer months, I

plan for my kids to be home. And we know we're usually going to be a little bit more leisurely, maybe we're going to we have our pool in our neighborhood. So it's like, okay, maybe we're going to the neighborhood pool, maybe we're gonna, you know, go out of town go fishing go. It's a little bit more of a loose structured schedule, than it would be during school time. And I know, in around the holidays, we usually plan to see my husband's family and my family.

And we kind of switch off yours like, okay, we'll do Thanksgiving with this side this year, then we'll go to the other one next year. And then for Christmas, we kind of do the same thing. So with vacations, you want to look at, like, What are you planning to do? What, what what is something and if you're like a Krystal, it's been 10 years, since I've taken a

vacation? Well, you need to schedule time off, okay, you need to schedule a long weekend, something even if it's just you going to a VR Bo, or an Airbnb in your own city and just exploring like something, you've got to plan for some time off, because we all need it. We all need it. Actually, as me recording this, I'm gonna go on like a girls weekend with my

mom. And we're actually going to do like a weekend planning retreat, where we're going to just plan out our entire 2021 calendars and a lot of other fun things that I'm actually I'm going to do a podcast episode about it whenever we're finished. But, but I'm excited for that. And I planned for me to record this episode today before that trip, because I knew

it needed to happen. I knew I wasn't going to have time to record it any other day, then, right now, because I was looking at my calendar, my personal calendar, my professional calendar. And I knew if I wanted to get this episode done, this one right here that I'm recording right now, I needed to make it happen. And so I want you to be thinking about that.

So looking at your calendar, your content calendar, and your personal and professional calendar on a quarterly basis and kind of mapping it out, will help you. Another thing that can help you plan for vacations is batching. So I like to batch plan. Now, whenever I look at batching. And I've done a few episodes on this. I look more at the batch planning and spending more time there than I do on the batch recording. Because if I plan more for success than it actually happens now, let me

break that down. So instead of just saying, Okay, I'm gonna record six episodes tomorrow. Well, that's not really realistic. Because first I got to plan out well, what am I going to say in those six episodes? Am I going to have a full detailed outline? Am I going to sketch a few notes on a piece of paper? Are they all going to be the same length of time is one going to be a lot longer are they all going to be super short? Like these are the questions that happen in my

mind. Whenever I'm I say I'm gonna record something because I do have a process. There is a system to this madness, but you've got a plan for how you're going to make that work before you go on vacation. I'm actually my husband and I were going to take an anniversary trip at the end of November like mid November. So I'm already planning now like, Okay, I know this vacation this time off is coming up. So I'm planning for it right now. Right? We're at

the beginning of November. And I'm already planning for what I'm going to do, what kind of content I need to have, like, how far do I need to get in the planning process, the recording process, the publication process, before that trip comes, because I don't want it to creep up on me. I don't want it like the day to come and say, Oh, my gosh, I'm so stressed out the whole time, I'm on vacation. And I can't detach from work, because I didn't plan

accordingly. And I don't know about y'all, but I don't like to feel like I'm constantly behind, or that Oh, my gosh, there's 10 other things I need to be doing, instead of sitting right here and relaxing. Now, you've got to make sure that you plan for getting ahead if you're going to take time off, and what that's going to look like when you're actually enjoying your time off, right? Because I mean, I could shut down my computer and walk in the other room and say, Oh,

I'm taking time off. But all that would be swirling around in my head is the 50 things that I need to be doing. So I want you to actually enjoy your time off whenever you're going on vacation going on these holidays, or just taking a break from your content. So the other thing I want you to consider if you are planning on going on vacation, and let's say it was like an extended trip, like not just a weekend getaway, right?

Like you're like, Okay, no, like this is actually going to feed into my regular schedule of you know, answering emails or being on social media or recording your podcast, whatever that looks like. I have a friend she actually she told me she went to her in laws house, you know, in the in laws, were helping her watch her kids and do all these other things. And she was like, Okay, I had planned to get so much work done. And then I find out their internet is crappy, like it is dial up speeds. It's

so terrible. And I just can't even with like, I just I can't get any of the stuff done that I wanted to get done. It made me think of having expectations of what's realistic of what you can get done outside of your home. Versus whenever like like I'm in my home office right now. Right? I have two monitors. I'm super spoiled with a technology husband like he loves to have cool like a cool setup a command center type situation. And I love it too. Oh my gosh, I feel so spoiled to have two monitors

here in our home office. But when we go somewhere, and I'm just on my laptop. Oh, it's a totally different ballgame. I can't get near as many things done because I'm just working on one monitor my first well problem shut up Krystal do not complain about that. But it's true. Oh, Siri thought I was talking to her. Siri, we're not talking to you right now. Oh my gosh, that was funny. But um,

but yeah, I hang on. Let me regroup for a second that totally threw me off and I want to tell you a quick story real fast about Siri. My Siri is Australian. And everyone thinks that's the weirdest thing ever. But for all my Aussies listening and I know we have some Aussies out there. I love the Australian accent. And so that's what my serious she's, she's Australian. So have you heard that? Oh, my gosh, this is so funny. I'm so red. Right now I'm embarrassed. Because I had an Irish one for a

while. And then it just sound it was Irish man. And it sounded really funky. So I switched it back anyway. Okay, we went off on a little tangent, we're coming back full circle. But whenever you go on vacation, and you're planning to work, okay, let's say you're going somewhere and you're like, crap, I have to record my podcast while we're gone. This is why I love not relying solely on the equipment you have in your home office. And it's why I tell people you can record a podcast on your

phone. I don't know why everyone's so terrified to record a podcast on their phone. You can do it. If I can do it. You can do it. You don't have to go and buy a fancy task cam portable recorder like I have. I have it because I teach podcasting. And I love to have cool like tech tools. And it was a gift to myself that I gave myself that last year, you know, and so you don't have to have all the fancy equipment. And if you've got to record when you're on the road, use your phone.

I've done it multiple times. And I will continue to do it. If I can do this. You can too. So that's the second one. We talked about holidays. We've talked about vacations.

And by giving them the right kind of content, I just don't know, if all of this is working, that's when I would recommend you take a step back. And maybe you do some like inner reflections like some journal work I love journaling is like my therapy, where I just like write down, what am I trying to figure out? What are the questions that I need to answer, you know, what questions do I

need to ask of my audience? What questions do I ask of myself, and I just kind of do some of that work that can't be done. Like, in a minute or an hour, like, you've really got to take some time to figure things out. So while I'm going to tell them, this is my caveat, okay, this is my disclaimer, for if you need a break, I do not want you to ghost your audience. Okay, that means you just put out your episode, right? And then you just don't come back for a month. No, we're not doing that.

That's not what we're about. Because if you do that, you're going to lose trust with your audience, you're going to lose traction, and you're going to lose any of the momentum that you already had. Okay, so do not ghost your audience. If you are going to take a break from your podcast, there are two options. And I mean, a full break, like you're not gonna batch and do like, you're just gonna step

away for a while. And when there's two things that I want you to do, one, I want you to put out an episode that says, This is the end of season one, we'll be returning for season two on and give them a specific date that you're coming back. I don't always talk about seasons, because it's not how I run my podcast. But if you're going to take a break from your show, I recommend saying this concludes season one, and we're going to be starting Season Two on whatever date it is. Maybe you

need a month break. Maybe you need a quarter break, maybe you know you just need a week or two to figure out what it is you know that you're working on with your podcast, but don't just ghost your audience. The other option is you could put out a bonus episode, right so let's pretend like you put out your last episode and then after that one aired, that's when you realized Okay, I think I'm going to take a break but you didn't have anything in the episode that mentioned you not coming

back for a while. Then I would put out a bonus episode that states Okay guys, like we are actually going to be reworking. Maybe you can mention like a rebrand if that's something like if you're really working on that intentional rebranding stuff, and I'm actually going to link in the show notes. KrystalProffitt.com/Episode203. I'm going to link to a podcast episode about rebranding. So if you're like, I just need to take some time off and figure things out. I want you to listen to

that episode. If you're feeling like, should I like change my podcast? Do I need to do a big rebrand? Like, is that really what's going on here? Go listen that episode, and it'll help you decide if you need to change things. I've done it. Other people have done it. I've seen multiple people rebrand their podcast. And maybe that's what you need is just to take a step back, and really figure out, you know, where you're having either some issues, or you're feeling a lot of friction in the process.

Because guys, it should not be that hard. If you're showing up every single week, and something is hard about it every single week, I'm not talking about the learning curve stuff, right? Because it's gonna be hard to learn the software and to learn to record with confidence. And like, that's just stuff that

comes naturally over time. But if you show up every week, and you plop down in your chair to record and you're just mad about it, right, like you don't enjoy any of the process, then you're not going to show up right for your audience. I don't want to listen to someone that's mad, I don't want to listen to someone that's not in it. I don't want to listen to someone who's not motivated and energized and like, just on fire to share with

me. So if that's where you find yourself right now, then I want you to say, maybe it's time for me to take a break. And maybe it's time for you to put out that episode that says you know what, we're gonna take a break, I want you to have a date of when you're going to come back. Okay? This is going back to you're not going to ghost your audience. If you need a month. Give yourself a month. If you need a quarter, give yourself a quarter. But I want you to have a date of when you're going to

come back. And who knows. You could say we'll be back at this time. You know, you gave yourself a three month window and you're like, Oh, actually, we came back in a month, right? It only took you a month to figure out which direction you wanted to go with your podcast, but do not go to your audience use seasons if that is something that could really be helpful for

you right now. And then the other thing that I would recommend is if you really truly need a break, but you don't want to stop putting out content then sure In your episodes, I've actually had a few podcasters come to me and say, well, Krystal, I just can't record 45 minute episodes. Like, that's such a long time. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, who told you your episodes need to be 45 minutes? I know you didn't hear that for

me. I know. You, you you watched a YouTube video, someone else teaching you how to podcasts. You need to shut that down right now. Okay, you need to listen, come on, come on to Krystal, I'll tell you the real deal. Because if you are trying to record 45 minutes, solo episodes and you feel stressed out, well, Who wouldn't? I don't record 45 minutes solo episodes. If I do. It's like once in a blue moon. I don't do it very often, because it's a lot of work. And because

it just, it drains you. So think about putting out shorter episodes, think about putting out 15 minute episodes for a while until you start finding your groove again, or putting out even five minute episodes. I don't care how long they are, I just don't want you to stop. I want you to keep going. I mean, we've been through peaks and valleys here at Proffitt Media a d the different things that we'

e created and tried. And t e number one thing that I can te l you that leads to success is n t giving up, not throwing in t e towel. And things get hard. A d I realize sometimes we need o pivot and change things u . Sometimes we need time f r reflection to figure out exact y which direction we want to g . But don't give up. Please don t quit on your podcast, plea e don't quit on those 10 peop e that are showing up for yo

. Because this is what I h d people say is they're lik , well, I don't have a b g audience. And I'm like, if y u have people showing up for y u every single week, then you ne d to figure out how you can ser e the crap out of those peopl . You need to figure out becau e they're they're listenin . They're listening every wee , you have an audience, you' e just complaining that you don t have a big enough like quote , big enough audience. So st p looking at what other people a

e doing. Look at how you can ser e the people that are showing p for you. every single we k already. Whoo, soapbox on i , I'm stepping off. Now we' e coming back down, I feel like I got real heated, I'm looking t my I'm looking at my audio tra k while I'm recording. And I c n see where it's like, oh, y u bounced up real high on th t one. And your you just g t super, super intens

right? But you can plan for holidays, you can plan for days to come around every single year. Because you know that they're gonna happen again next year, maybe you don't know what it's gonna look like, right? You don't know if you're going to be socially distance if you're going to be traveling, you know, across country to see family or what that's going to look like. But you can at least plan for them now. Okay, so holidays is first, then we talked about

vacations. If you haven't been on a vacation in 10 years, you need to take time off period, then that's probably if you're thinking I need to take time off. That's why you haven't taken a vacation, go on a vacation. Even if it's just a long weekend getaway in your hometown, you need to go on a vacation somewhere, go by yourself, if you're like I don't, I don't have anybody go with me go by yourself. Go just go. But you need a vacation. Okay. And I want you to plan for

it. I want you to plan for any vacations, trips going out of town on a quarterly basis. So you know what's coming up within the month within the week. And then you can just plan for it and be better prepared. And then if you are going to go on vacation, and you still need to record have those different recording options. Take your phone, like take, get a set of headphones that you can plug into your phone with a microphone that makes it sound

better, just be prepared. And then the last one is if you need a break, that's fine. It's fine. I have never once said in anything, all like whenever I talk about podcasting that you cannot take a break you absolutely must podcast day in and day out. And yes, ma'am. No, sir. Like I'm imagining a drill sergeant. I've never said that. But I will say time and time again, do not ghost your audience meaning don't just stop

showing up. And then expect them to be there for you whenever you decide to come back because they won't be they won't be if I was listening to your podcast and you just stop showing up. You know, the first week I'd probably say that was weird. I wonder. Maybe they're gonna put it out later. Then the next week comes around and I'm still thinking Hmm, I haven't put anything out in like two weeks. But then a month goes by and I already forgot about your show.

I already forgot about it. I've moved on to other podcasts I've move on to watching YouTube channels or I've moved on to something else. someone that's going to show up for me consistently. So if you need to take a break, make sure you tell people, this is the end of season one or Season Two or whatever, but tell them when you plan to come back, give yourself a date to hold yourself accountable. But let your audience know when you're coming

back. Okay, and if that's not long enough, then tell them again, oh, we plan to come back. But you know, we're actually going to need another month. But don't go to your audience, whatever you do. And there's always the option of creating

shorter episodes. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, start creating shorter episodes, I promise it will alleviate a lot of that stress that you're feeling and you're editing and you're recording and you're planning, create shorter episodes for a while until you get your groove back and figure things out.

off from your podcast. So make sure you go to the show notes. KrystalProffitt.com/Episode203. And I'm sure you've heard by now, but I have a brand new program coming out very soon. That is going to be a combination of my digital course Proffitt Podcasting, and my membership community, the party people so if you want to get notified as soon as we open the doors for enrollment, make sure you go to KrystalProffitt.com/waitlist to get notified as soon as the doors open.

KrystalProffitt.com/waitlist and you'll be notified as soon as it's ready. I'm so excited y'all I just I just I can't wait if you're excited about possibly getting your podcast audited, whether it was your introduction, your music, your script, your outline any of those things, or being able to get some coaching for me one on one, then you're just gonna love this new program. I'm so excited about it. So the show notes again, KrystalProffitt.com/Episode203.

Make sure you get on our waitlist, KrystalProffitt.com/waitlist. And, as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.