If you want to know how to create consistent content, this video is for you!
You’re going to learn 4 super small productivity hacks which teach you how to post consistently
and get better at social media content planning.
Ready?
Let’s do this!
Hi my lovely people, it’s Natalia and welcome back to my channel where I help you create
better content and grow on social media!
Today, I’m sharing my 4 super quick content creation tips to help you create consistent
content.
If you struggle to post consistently on Instagram, TikTok, or any other platform, you can literally
apply these ideas today and make your workflow much more efficient.
Let’s jump straight to hack no 1, document everything.
1.
Point 1 document everything
My absolute favorite hack to save time as a content creator is to document what I do.
Every day or every few days or when I feel like I’m put together and can be on camera,
I set my phone on a tripod and record my day-to-day activities.
It can be me making my morning matcha, cleaning up my desk, planning my day, creating content,
recording videos, even my daily walks or snippets of my workouts at the gym.
The point of this hack is to create a private library of your own stock footage to use for
your content later on.
Not only does it save time massively when producing content, but it helps me on those
days when I’m completely uninspired and being on camera is the farthest thing on my
mind.
Now, apart from my regular talking-head recording sessions for YouTube and Instagram, I also
have a backlog of clips that can be used in so many forms.
These clips can be overlayed on long-form videos as B-roll, just like the stuff you’ve
just seen here, can be combined into mini-vlogs or be used as a background for Twitter-style
quotes, Reels, and even my stories.
Capturing those random moments is also amazing because it reduces the need for more extensive
planning and scripting.
Instead of spending hours brainstorming ideas for visuals, you can simply record whatever
is happening in your life and use that footage as a starting point for your content.
Besides, when you show up in this way, it creates a more authentic, real-time feel to
your online presence which is super important.
One of the values that I want to convey through my content is humanity and connection which
means a less curated, and a more relatable online presence.
Footage like this is a great way to show the behind-the-scenes and let your community see
the real you.
Ever since I started recording footage like this, my content production game definitely
became more efficient.
Even though it takes me a few minutes daily to get this set up, it saves me countless
amounts of time later on.
Now, this first hack is actually closely connected to the fourth one so make sure you keep watching
this video till the very end to not cause yourself more work in the process!
There’s one more thing that just works in synergy with recording footage like this so
really, just stick around ;)
2.
Point 2 day & time blocking
Every Sunday, I sit down to plan my whole week, set a focus point or an intention and
pinpoint the absolute priorities that need to be ticked off my to-do list.
One thing I’ve noticed over time is that during those planning sessions, I started
clumping together similar activities and fitting them into specific days.
It just made sense to me to focus on tasks that go together or require a similar type
of focus.
You could probably call it time-blocking but since it’s not exactly the same, I prefer
to call this day-blocking.
For those of you who don’t know what time blocking is, it’s basically a technique
where you divide your day into time blocks dedicated to completing specific tasks.
In contrast, my approach with the day-blocking is that I dedicate a whole day to a specific
set of activities.
For example, Tuesdays are my script days where I write full scripts for my YouTube videos,
research and outline future ones and write scripts for any original short-form videos
if possible too.
I can then use the classic time blocking on top of this and actually divide my work day
into those three categories too which could look something like this.
What that does is that it helps you get into the flow state more easily and focus on a
similar type of activity.
Staying with my script day, it basically revolves around writing and means that I’m going
to spend most of my day on my laptop, with headphones on and loads of green tea to stay
hydrated.
Keeping a schedule like this is so helpful because the weekly planning goes so much faster
- I can literally just pick the videos I need to work on from my YouTube management board,
any pieces of content I have mapped for the week ahead and throw them onto the time blocks
for that day.
It’s a small productivity hack that can have a massive ripple effect in your life
as a content creator.
By using day blocking and time blocking, you can create a more consistent workflow and
avoid feeling constantly rushed or behind schedule.
It’s also much easier to get rid of any distractions on the day because if you prepare
for a specific set of activities, you’ll quickly figure out what those distractions
are.
For my script days, it’s basically phone away but that’s definitely not the case
for my recording days.
Instead, I then put my phone in the do not disturb mode and I need to have my outfits
laid out beforehand to not get distracted by frantically looking through my wardrobe.
This is such a small habit that’s really transformative.
With this day structure in place and a quick planning session each week, you’re able
to quickly figure out your priorities, meet deadlines consistently and physically MAKE
TIME for what’s important to you.
Apart from that, time blocking also means that you’re allocating a certain amount
of time for a particular task which can help you complete it faster.
Parkinson's law states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”
and you’ll see quickly how true it is when you start working with time blocks.
Now, I think it’s a great segue into the third productivity hack, using a timer.
3.
Point 3 timer
This is a tool I’ve used the longest out of all the ones I’m talking about today
and I think it’s because it’s such an easy, quick way of managing your time more
efficiently.
Every time you’re about to start working on a task, pop a timer on for however long
you need to complete it.
By setting a timer like this, you get the sense of urgency and the task at hand becomes
slightly more important, at least for me.
It’s like a clear indication that this is my focus for the time being, that’s the
priority and nothing else should distract me from it because the clock is ticking.
Bringing it back to Parkinson’s law, if I allocate, say, an hour to design all my
social media graphics for the week, it’s much more likely that I’m going to complete
them in this one hour than if I hadn’t put on that timer.
You may already be familiar with this hack from using the Pomodoro Technique where you
normally set a timer for 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute break but I prefer to be a
bit more flexible with this since not everything needs that much time and for some more involved
tasks like recording YouTube videos, for example, I might need more time.
The beauty of the timer approach is that it’s super simple and almost all of us carry one
in our pockets all the time.
If you want to be a bit more fancy, my absolute favorite app for this is Forest.
It is just like a timer but it has many useful functions too.
You can set the clock for a specific activity and once the time runs out, a beautiful tree
grows in your virtual forest.
I love that I can also enter a deep-focus mode in Forest which means each time I get
out of the app and do something on my phone, the tree withers which is annoying given that
it breaks my streak and puts one dry tree in my beautiful forest.
The more you focus, the more coins you get which you can then use to get more tree species.
Forest can also help you track your progress and measure your productivity because it breaks
down how much time you spend on each activity.
You can then analyze it and adjust your schedule to become more productive.
I love the app because it’s satisfying, the trees are cute and it provides a bit of
gamification to the whole experience which helps me stick to my tasks.
It also comes with a Chrome extension that has an allow list (meaning you can enter any
websites you’re allowed to use during your focus) or a blocklist (which blocks your chosen
websites when you work).
That’s another small productivity hack that improves your workflow to become much more
efficient.
4.
Point 4 Building systems
This productivity hack is a little more involved at the very beginning but then takes seconds
to upkeep and completely transforms your content creation process.
Here, I have two tips or hacks: a content management system and a phone file organization.
I’ll show you exactly what I mean by those in a second, but I want to emphasize how crucial
it is to set systems in place to stay on top of the chaos and increase your productivity.
Without simple systems that support your workflow, your content is scattered, it’s tough to
implement your strategy consistently and you’re constantly putting out fires which means you’re
likely overwhelmed, stressed and things just fall through the cracks.
This is exactly why you need a content calendar where you can store all of your ideas, map
out all your content, create it and upload or link any assets you need for your posts.
I don’t want to go too much into this because I have a whole video on how to create and
manage a content calendar yourself where I also explain my whole process, you can watch
it here, but this is going to be the absolute foundation for you.
Once you spend a bit of time creating that calendar, all the pieces fall into place because
you can see everything at a glance and focus on other more important things.
Make sure you always stick any ideas into this calendar to not miss any opportunities
for really valuable content.
Whether you’re shopping, you’re at the gym or actively planning content, always save
those ideas there because it’s the best way to maintain your productivity.
The second tip within the system hack is your phone.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely have thousands of photos, screenshots, graphics
and clips in your camera roll which are so easy to forget about and super hard to find
when you most need them.
This is where your personal phone file organization comes into play.
Start by adding an album for all your brand assets so that you can quickly pull it up
when you create content on your phone.
I called mine A Brand Book to keep it high up in the alphabetical order so that I instantly
see it, for example, when adding stuff to my Instagram Stories.
Here, I keep my brand photos, a brand color palette to color pick from quickly, all of
my Story stickers I’ve created in Canva as well as any assets that I use a lot on
the go like this phone frame for when I share a Reel to my Stories.
The second album you can create is to store any footage or any photos that you take which
can then be used as a content piece.
This is what I talked about in hack number 1 and all of that day-to-day footage, all
of those random clips as well as any specific selfies that you take can land in this particular
album.
The key here is to save them there regularly.
It literally takes a second after you’ve shot something to just pop it into this folder
so make sure you’re staying organized at all times.
Otherwise, you’ll easily revert back to the chaos of thousands of jumbled pictures
with no reference points and you’ll just have to keep scrolling every time you really
need something.
With an album like this, you’re never scrambling for footage, always have tons of great materials
to create from and can easily get inspired when you’re not feeling like being super
creative that day.
I’ve called mine Content Bank and it saved me so many times before when I couldn't record
clips for a mini-vlog, didn’t feel like showing on Stories or needed a background
for a Twitter-style Reel.
The third album I like to keep is an album with all my completed pieces of content.
Not only does it help me organize it within my camera roll, but it’s a great place to
find posts I’ve not yet published or repurpose old content in its entirety.
It also separates the finished pieces that contain things like subtitles or overlays
from the raw ones that I can reuse as a starting point for a completely different piece of
content.
Now, I fully understand it can take quite a bit of time initially to organize your phone
like this, but afterwards, it’s just a super tiny habit of saving each image or video to
a specific folder if it’s related to content in any way.
You can also go the extra mile and set up mini-checks for yourself maybe on a content
day or a recording day to cull your camera roll.
You can then delete anything from that week that you no longer need and identify any unsaved
media to allocate them to a relevant folder.
Implementing systems is crucial for content creators like you who need to stay organized,
save time, and increase productivity.
Whether it's blocking activities in your calendar, setting up a filing system, using a timer
app, or taking snaps of day-to-day activities, applying those super quick hacks can really
speed up your workflow and help you create content more effortlessly.
Tell me, which tip was your favorite?
Let me know in the comments below what your key takeaway is!
Now, I really want you to take action today to become a better content creator so make
sure you watch this video next to create or improve your content calendar and be more
consistent.
Make sure you subscribe to my channel for more content creation hacks and hit the like
button if you’ve enjoyed this video so that I know I should share more tips like this.
Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you… next time!