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Dealing With (& Preventing) Podcast Burnout

· Time to read: ~3 min

This is an archived page from 2019. Find out more

(By Johnny Peterson) Every podcaster deals with burnout at some point in their journey, from career podcasters to hobbyists. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve fallen out of love with your podcast, but life just gets crazy. Family, work, kids, and the things that pop up throughout the day that we can’t plan for. It can feel really easy to skip the episode(s) for this week.  Then next week. And the next, and so on until you realize you haven’t put out a new episode in months. This can be especially true if you’re starting to lose that spark you had when you first started doing this.

I see this more often with podcasters who are putting out their show as a passion project or a complement to their various brand-building tools. Since it’s not bringing in the big bucks, you can find yourself slipping as the burnout becomes more and more obvious in the mind. So how do we deal with this? How can we push through this feeling of being overwhelmed and the obligation to the listeners to pump out content?

Firstly, know that you’re not alone, no one has the perfect schedule where  they can uninterruptedly put out a new episode every week. Every podcast deals with it in some form or another. Here is a route I have found to get you some breathing room in dealing with burnout in your podcast.

I have found it to be unbelievably helpful to have at least two to three episodes in the queue, ready to drop at a moment’s notice. These will come in handy to deal with this burnout feeling. Along with these episodes, try to record two to three more episodes within the coming week, if possible. These could come in the form of recap episodes discussing points or your thoughts from favorite guests or topics. They could also be bonus recorded audio you didn’t release or a highlight reel of popular episodes and segments.

Now you have four to six episodes completed, you can spread these out over the course of several weeks. Take time to rest from the podcast, determine why you’re feeling burned out and remedy the situation. This could be an enormous opportunity to form the direction of your podcast, develop new content, and strategize how to get maximum benefit from it. Once you decide to start recording again, you’ll remember that jolt of excitement when you finally go live.

Self-care works, even in podcasting. You’ll know if it’s time to take a step back from the mic and reevaluate, as well as when you’re ready to jump back in. It’s about filling that time in between with continuous content for your listeners that will make this as smooth a journey as possible.

Johnny Peterson is the CEO and founder of Straight Up Podcasts, providing professional podcast services and consulting. He is also the host of the Pod Logic podcast. You can reach Johnny at johnny@straightuppodcasts.com 

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