056: 3 Ways to Maximize Your Podcast Break
Are you ready to take a break from your podcast? Maybe you just need to go on vacation? Taking a break is not a bad thing and is so good to recharge your creative batteries. But how can you maximize that time?
In today’s episode, I’m sharing 3 ways to maximize your podcast break and why a little planning can help you come back from your break full of creative energy. I’ll share why rest is important, how to stay engaged with your audience and why taking a few moments to plan can make all the difference.
What’s in this Episode:
Why breaks from your podcast are ok
How to stay engaged with your audience during a break
Why planning ahead and scheduling content is important
Rest and why it’s so important for the health of your podcast
How planning ahead can impact you post-break
Links:
Blog Post: Do You Take Breaks?
Episode 051: How to Revive Your Podcast After a Break
BONUS: Getting Your Podcast Ready for a Break
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Our podcast refresh service is a great way to grow and uplevel your podcast! Click here to learn more!
Take some time to plan ahead. So maybe you're sitting on the couch watching a Christmas movie one afternoon and you have a little bit of time, go ahead and use that time to work on what's to come.
Welcome to the Wild Home Podcast, where we talk about podcasting, life and all the wild in between. Join me, Caroline. Every week I share a peek into the world of podcasting and my wildlife as well. Ready? Let's get into it.
Hello and welcome back to an episode of the Wild Home Podcast, I have been on a bit of an unplanned hiatus. I just needed a break and I feel like I've said that in front of a couple of episodes this year. And it's just been one of those years where I find that things when they start to get difficult, I just need to kind of focus in and rest and really prioritize what I'm doing. And unfortunately, the podcast sometimes tends to not be as high on my priority list as I want it to be. Just so you know, my goal for next year is to really, really work on the podcast.
You know, I think that's really common for a lot of us, and I find that with a lot of our clients, when they get busy and things get tough, that's when the podcast usually goes on the back burner. And I really feel kind of awful that I did that to my own podcast. And the truth is, is that what is that story? The cobbler's children never have any issues in the podcast managers podcast, never is edited or has show notes or graphics ready for it. And so one of the things I'm going to be working on as I start planning for next year is definitely like, how can I make sure that I don't take mine off the list when things are hard? Or how can I make sure that my podcast is as much of a priority as everyone else's?
And I think that that is something that I really need to work on in general is just making sure that I am as much a priority as everything else in my life. I tend to put a lot of things above myself and put myself last, and it tends to get me into trouble quite a bit. So anyways, what did you share that little piece of information with you and just really encourage you not to put yourself last? Which brings me to today's topic.
So the holidays are coming up. Some of us are in the holidays now, and you may think that it's time for a little bit of a break and hopefully you're going to be taking a break from your business as well. And so how can you maximize that break for your podcast, but also for yourself and for your business? And so today I wanted to share three of my favorite ways to maximize your podcast break. So making sure that when you actually do take the break that it's not time wasted, making sure that you're setting yourself up for success after the break and also making sure that you are still engaging with your audience in a way that works for needing a break.
So I want to talk about breaks for a minute because I think there's kind of like several camps that I have noticed podcasters fall into. One is they'll do seasons and they'll plan seasonal breaks. Another is they may do seasons and just build on breaks as they go. Maybe you just record and record a record. And then when you're ready for a break, you just take one. That's kind of what I tend to do. I don't really have a set schedule, but if I just need a break, I just take a break. And then there's people who never take a break and they just constantly release episodes, and there really is no right or wrong answer to this. There's no one way that it has to be done. One of the things that I really think is important is that no matter which way you choose to go, that you are still staying engaged with your listeners and involving them in the process. And so whether you've already done seasons, maybe you haven't done seasons and you're like, Oh, shoot, should I do season so I can take a break now? You don't need to do that. And there's kind of a couple of ways that you can take a break. And I actually have talked about this before on the podcast, and so I'm going to be sure that slant in the show notes you can go listen to that as well. So I'm not going to dove into like the actual mechanics of taking a break and some ways to take a break. But I will just say this real quick. You can either re-air old episodes, you can stockpile batch episodes and air those, or you can just take a clean break. It's whatever works for you.
So let's talk about the three ways that we're going to maximize that break to make sure that after the break, we're not scrambling or we're having to build up momentum again. And so one of the main things that I am, I've kind of mentioned is that you really want to stay top of mind. And so we want to make sure that you've not only told our audience what we're doing, but that we are still engaging with them while we're gone. And this is stuff that you can schedule out ahead of time so you're not having to worry about it on your break. But I love sending out emails with maybe my top episodes or my episodes that are all about a topic that is really important to my listeners right now. So a really good example of this is in January, we see a lot of podcast launches or people starting to work on podcast launches. And so one of the emails that I'm going to schedule is probably a link to all the episodes where I talked about launching, but maybe even like with. Linking a freebie that has to do with that, so I have a lunch audio series, so I could link to that. And so that's a really good way to kind of reshare old episodes and also just maximizing that content that you've already got out there, right? Because, you know, if you've been podcasting for a while, you've got this backlog. I like to call it the library of knowledge. The library of all of your your knowledge, a library of things that you've shared. And there's so much value there that people may want to revisit. We listen to. Maybe they just started listening to your podcast and they didn't know that you had episodes about those topics. And so sharing those in that kind of way is a really, really fun way to do that. And I think it's fun to go over the break because I got an email like this from someone whose podcast I will listen to. Sometimes they may also be a client of ours, and it was right before Thanksgiving break. I mean, I think we may have been in the car driving and I was like, Oh, I can listen to these while we're driving. And so, you know, it was cool to see the episodes that she shared. They had to do with a promotion that she was running our course, that she's launching a relaunching or something like that. And so it all tied into something else. But it gave people like the option to just click. And you know, when you share those links in that email, make sure that you're sharing them to your website or to like your main podcast, whatever makes the most sense for you. I always like to share it on my website.
And then also reassuring older episodes on socials so you can talk about these episodes as well that you're linking in this email on social media and just sharing them. Resharing graphics that you already have. Let's not reinvent the wheel here, but you know, letting people know like, Hey, if you're thinking about this thing, now's a really good time. Listen to this episode and find out more about the thing. And like I said, scheduling these out ahead of time so you're not having to worry about it over the break. So even though you're not releasing new episodes, you're still staying top of mind with your listeners and you're still giving them something to to listen to.
I mean, here's another way to really maximize your podcast break, and that is to take some time to plan ahead. So maybe you're sitting on the couch watching a Christmas movie one afternoon and you have a little bit of time? Go ahead and use that time to work on what's to come. So planning your schedule out for after the break? 10 to 20 episodes and just get a rough schedule and then even think about like, can I fit a recording day or two or just an hour in the afternoon while I'm on my break? You know, can I do that now? Find an hour one afternoon and go sit down and record a couple of solo episodes that you've got scheduled? And that way they're already done. And so when you come back from the break, you're going to feel like you've already accomplished something. You're ahead of the game. It's a really great feeling. I think planning, too, is one of the things that's really important and often gets overlooked. I know by me I'm really bad about like taking the break and then coming back and be like, Oh, I got to do an episode. Let me do one real quick. But if I plan ahead, it just like makes the cycle and jumping back into work and getting back into your systems so much easier. And so taking time to do that while you're on your break is a really good way to kind of maximize and make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for burnout immediately after the break.
Let's talk about burnout for a second. So the third way that I want you to maximize your podcast break is to rest. Quality content does not come from burnout. Someone told me recently that you cannot build a vision for your future when you're tired. And I started thinking about that and I was like, That is really also very true with content. You cannot create quality, amazing content when you're burnt out because there's no inspiration there. There's nothing new that's coming to your brain. I know that when I get really tired and stressed, I find that sitting down and talking about podcasting and strategy is really difficult for me. And so know thyself and know if you're like me, if you're one of those people who you really do need a break, you need a moment away, you need to step away. You need to be able to close your computer and not think about the thing, because if you don't think about the thing, then you come back to it. So refreshed, so ready to go with new ideas. And so I just I really want to drive home how important it is to not only rest in the other parts of your business, but also rest that piece of your business where you're creating content and marketing in your podcasts because you need to be inspired and you need to be able to to think ahead and be forward thinking and meeting your listeners are and you just cannot do that when you're not yourself and you're tired.
So really, make sure that when you are building in those breaks, you're actually building in a break. And so that means that let's say you're taking two weeks off for the holidays, but you need another week before you start podcasting again. It's totally OK. And so just making sure that, again, we've built that into the schedule. We have a plan for staying top of mind. And we've scheduled things out ahead of time. So when we take that extra week to plan to maybe start recording whatever it is, when we come out of that, we're ready to go.
So again, the three ways to maximize your podcast break is to stay top of mind. Plan ahead and rest, rest, rest. I hope that this episode helps you as you look forward to your break that you are going to take. And, you know, and this can apply. This isn't necessarily just have to apply to the holidays. Is something apply to any time that you need a break or you need a vacation. Maybe you do about 20 episodes and you just need some time to regroup. These things can also correlate with that and work with that. And so definitely like if you're thinking about a break, bookmark this episode so you can come back to it and remember these tips. And I would love to connect with you, so be sure to follow me on Instagram at @wildhomepodcasting. And then you can also join my free community, whpcommunity.com. And I have some big plans for that in the New Year, so be sure to jump in on that and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast to stay in the know, head to wildhomepodcasting.com and be sure to connect with me on Instagram at @wildhomepodcast. See you next week!
