E4- Why Creators That crush have Deadlines for content creation
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Shawn Buttner: You do not create enough to be excellent. this is not a dig, this is a challenge, and it's true for every creator, including myself. Creators that crush are prolific, and often have a rhythm or cadence, or deadline, to their work. So think of your favorite musician, your favorite podcast, TV show, book series, even in business.
They all are on a rhythm. So it's marketing content for sales, Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Valentine's Day, those types of holidays, drive, marketing content. and for Apple, there's an iPhone and software release schedule when the new phones will come, when the new software will be implemented.
What if you were able to implement deadlines that sustainably worked for you that helped you excel in your content creation, release higher quality content and grow your business? [00:01:00] What if you could produce more and more consistently without feeling like you were exhausting yourself in the process?
And what if it was fun? along the way. In today's episode of Creators that Crush, you'll learn how deadlines drive excellence, growth, and quality. We'll learn how deadlines help creators with their creative process, how deadlines impact their content quality, how deadlines and content rhythm impact your quality of life, and how deadlines provide structure and help you make decisions.
At the end, we'll have all of the components for you to create your sustainable content creation rhythm so that you can effectively use these deadlines in a way that supports your mental health, supports the things that you create and your business. Welcome to Creators that Crush, the show that helps creators go from crushed to crushing it.
I'm your certified high performance coach and host, [00:02:00] Sean Butner.
So, how do deadlines help you crush it as a creator? So my wife and I were recently watching the SNL 50 documentary. So it's like a forward episode series. The second one was on what it takes each week to produce an episode of Saturday Night Live.
So very quickly, the process is they go in and do a light Pitching and brainstorming on Monday. Tuesday is the start of the grueling week where they often don't sleep and they write skits. They will then pitch on Wednesday. We'll sit, get everyone in a room. They sit around a table with Lauren and You know, pitch the things that they wrote the previous night on Thursday and Friday up to Saturday when the show goes live.
They're building [00:03:00] sets, they're creating costumes, they're getting everything ready for the skits, they're going through some dry runs, they're getting in front of an audience to see how the audience reacts. And then before the show goes live, they pick the skits that make the show that week. And out it goes.
And through that process, it's intense. People are not sleeping. People are always worried about if their thing's going to get on, if they're going to do a whole week's full of work with an army of people. The amount of work that goes into these episodes is incredible. Are they about this?
amount of work that just at the last minute gets the rug gets pulled and they have to start again next week. Uh, so it's high pressure again and it could really hit your mental health, especially if you're not getting skits on. But this is. The deadline, right? Saturday Night Live is the name of the show, but it's also the deadline for the [00:04:00] production of the thing that helps organize the team, organize the writers, the staff and all of the support to this is the event where it's do or die,
So good or bad, Your show is going to go live every Saturday night, And it prevents rampant perfectionism, so there's no such thing as perfect art.
And if you have that that string of perfectionism in your blood in your DNA. Having a deadline can help you get around it because you have to produce. You have to show up. Like, this show goes live every Thursday, and I have to show up every week to make sure that that happens. You know? Uh, even when I am feeling sleepy or something in my life happens, like, the Thursday show has to happen each time.
Some will be great, some will be less than [00:05:00] great. But that variability is very human, and I think people really connect with that.
The first part of sustainable deadlines
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Shawn Buttner: So, that's the first part of creating a sustainable content creation rhythm.
And it's that. You have to define the deadline or cadence of your content release, your content rhythm. So whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly, once a day, it's different for everyone, but this is the first component towards that sustainable process.
Now, how do deadlines help your creative process?
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Shawn Buttner: Now, how do deadlines help your creative process,
Well, they force you to define and refine the Your creative process and your work. So I'm a student of Brendan Burchard. He had a marketing training that he did a couple of months back from the recording of this episode on how to create an amazing episode. Episode in this training was podcast episode, [00:06:00] YouTube.
episode, chapter of a book, a particular, you know, single article, and what this training essentially was like, okay, you have your first draft of whatever you're doing that you write out, and it's just the brain dump. The second, uh, go over the editing is, is looking for how concise is it? The, the draft after that is.
What are catchphrases, or hooky things that you can say. The next one is your audience, and so on and so forth. I don't remember exactly all the things off the top of my head. But, there's this idea of you write something, and you revise it, you revise it, you revise it, you revise it, and that story that I told about SNL, and the writing process, is you write the first draft, and then the whole week you're refining it on the fly until it goes live, which Gives it this phonetic energy which [00:07:00] is pretty cool So deadlines help you focus your creative editing process because if you know at the end of the week you have to then, um If you know by the end of the week the episode has to go live you have to work backwards on When are you? Editing and updating graphs and when do you need to have the first draft done by and as you go through your creation process You'll naturally improve it.
Sign up for my free 5 day Creators that Crush in 5 days email course.
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Shawn Buttner: Hey, if you are loving this episode of Creators That Crush, because we're talking about productivity and content rhythm, and you're like, hey, I really want to crush it more, in my creative space. I want to let you know that I have a free five day email course that'll walk you through your performance on everything outside of the thing that you create.
go to creators that crush dot com, provide your name and email and I'll send you the free five day course where you get one email a day, [00:08:00] starting with, focusing on getting clear on your goals, your psychology, your energy, your productivity and then people skills.
people love this course. So sign up again at creators that crush dot com. Or check below in the show notes for the link.
How it does do deadlines impact quality
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Shawn Buttner: So second Idea today is deadlines help you focus your creative editing process
How it does do deadlines impact quality, You might be thinking hey Sean like if I increase my The cadence of the things that I create, it's going to take my, the quality of the work. And to a certain extent that's correct, right?
I'm not going to say that that's not going to happen, but it's also based on skill and it's based on the number of reps. So For example, uh, there's a YouTuber that I follow, April Lynn Alter, in 20, [00:09:00] in, in 20, in 2024, she, from January to November, she had produced like five videos on her YouTube channel and her process was to do like 500, 000 pages of notes, condense that down into a YouTube script.
You can add all the editing bells and whistles. shout out to April Ann, or April Lynn. she does a fantastic job, discussing and breaking down how YouTube works. But, um, in December she's like, you know, I'm going to switch up the deadlines that I have for myself and see if I can do one video a week, right?
And so she's basically doubling her output in the month of December, roughly. Just to see if she could do it. And she was able to mostly adhere to that. She did, like, four videos over 35 days, so a little bit over, uh, one video a week. But she did it. And she learned. [00:10:00] And, and part of her breaking down what really didn't work for her was she felt like her superpower was getting things To a point where she was really proud of the quality and she stressed out incredibly throughout that process.
But she was still able to do it. And the videos she created were high quality, But, if you're worried about the quality of Your content. You could always increase the increments between releases, right? Give yourself more time to figure it out. This is especially important for beginners.
And as you build your creative career, you'll be able to shorten that and get a little bit more on a quicker pace. And you'll find what works for you. And I hope you're hearing that throughout all of this, this is all up to you to pick these things. Elements in [00:11:00] your deadline and for your content rhythm.
And your unique mix will be sustainable for you and it might not be for anyone else and that's okay. So I'm trying, I'm here to cheer you on and to really think through this. So, okay, moving on.
How can deadlines and content rhythm impact your quality of life?
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Shawn Buttner: How can deadlines and content rhythm impact your quality of life? So from the SNL story, right? Um, it's, you can't do this intense 100 percent effort every week thing forever.
There's generally, in SNL, a 6 months on, 6 months off schedule. So you do about 20 episodes a year. And even that, you know, you talk to people. That like Andy Samberg or the Lonely Island guys or Seth Meyers and Joey Fallon people will talk about the show in That they loved the quality of work they were doing It was fun being around high performers and people that they loved and [00:12:00] admired.
It was incredibly intense and Not sustainable and most cast members from What I've seen for writers say there's about, you know, at year seven, you kind of burn out and you're like, okay, like, um, for my mental health, I need to change things. Right. But so, you know, there's a seven year ish, um, Spam that most people do before they either, you know, stay forever like Keenan or leave.
Or, uh, there's also the six months on and six months off because I think it would just churn out broken people if SNL was live every weekend throughout the year, right? Could they do it? Yes. Is it a good idea and healthy for the people that work on it? Like, they need a break too, so, um. Thinking about the intensity, that's the thing to take away is, you know, what is the [00:13:00] intensity of the schedule?
Is it once a day, once a week, once a month, once a quarter, once a year? And what does that look like, right? There's different levers of intensity you can pull on just output or making sure your process is super streamlined or, or not. So. What intensity would be best for your content creation and think about that, right?
How do deadlines help provide structure and help you make decisions?
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Shawn Buttner: Then finally, how do deadlines help provide structure and help you make decisions, Uh, I have found that the, as you are creating your sustainable content creation process, and it's how, This balance of being structured enough, and I come from a technical background, so I like kind of like finding the methodology and just repeating that over and over and over again.
And [00:14:00] sometimes because you know the format of your show, the format or outline of your book, that frees you up to get creative when it comes to actually putting words to page. And so. Also, if you're. It's going, you're going to be fighting your motivation and your energy is if every time every week for my podcast, if I had to choose the music, choose the name, choose the art and, you know, and not have templates and not have, um, an expectation of how the show flows, it would just Yeah.
Yeah. Exhaust me, right? You'd spend all this energy trying to make those micro decisions when 80 percent of the time it's going to be the same and the container, it's the container for the good stuff that you put in it, right? Which is the goal. I hope I'm able to accomplish that every week. I'm sure [00:15:00] there are better episodes than others, but that's part of the creative process.
So, alright, so. All of this boils down to how can you create your sustainable content rhythm for your business, right? Again, the things that we talked about in this episode or what is the cadence or rhythm? So when are you releasing things? We're talking about your creative process and when you do editing, um, and refining and to increase.
quality or research. We talked about, you know, the space in between releases, right? So, related to your cadence, but if you want more quality, give yourself more time. And if you want to, um, get really good, release more. So, whatever that looks like for you is important. [00:16:00] The intensity. So, thinking about, okay, you might have a season.
Of, you know, in the summer, it's really intense and in the spring and fall, it's kind of medium intense and in the winter because of the holidays, we shift back and put it into like a maintenance mode. So what is like your quarterly intensity for your content rather than and then finally, you know, the what is the structure that helps keep you motivated?
for me, and again, in the podcast, it's having a specific outline and format that I'm using and, tweaking as I go, it's about having templates for thumbnails and for doing the show notes and all of that kind of stuff. So.
Challenge To Create Your Sustainable Content Deadlines And Rhythm
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Shawn Buttner: My challenge to you right now [00:17:00] is to go and. Create your content rhythm, your content schedule, your deadlines, your reoccurring deadlines using these five criteria, thinking through them, what works for you or what you think might work for you.
Give it a try for a couple of weeks, for at least two or three things that you create. So that could be two or three days, two or three weeks, two or three months. Um, And I think you will find that having this process defined for yourself will help you be more productive in your creative career.
It'll help you crush it as a creator. I know you guys can do this. I'm cheering you on
And with that, this is Creators That Crush. I'm your host, Sean Butner, signing off. We'll see you guys next week.
Free Creator Performance Stragegy Session
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Shawn Buttner: as we've talked [00:18:00] about your content rhythm and being productive creatively, you might be thinking to yourself, Hey, I need a little bit more help. I know that I've had experience that myself. I recently have hired a podcast coach and business coach to help me. With with my creative business and just getting that extra perspective of someone that's been through it or has a process to walk you through can be immensely helpful and I would love to offer you a free creator performance strategy session where we'll go through, your life, your creative business, the things that you're struggling with and the things that you want to get out of your creative business.
And create a strategy plan for you. And we do this through a questionnaire. And we do this through focusing on specific high performance habits. Any creator can implement to increase how they feel [00:19:00] in their business. To feel less like an imposter. To feel more confident when you create.
So if you are interested in getting a little bit more extra help, go to the link below in the show notes to schedule your creator strategy session. I have about 10 slots open each two weeks to do these. So if you're thinking about it, definitely go to shrubbutter.
com backslash apply, and that will get you scheduled up.
