The Savvy Seller with Kristen Doyle

165. Overwhelm-Free Content Batching that Actually Works

• Kristen Doyle, TPT seller, SEO coach, and web designer

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Content batching is supposed to save time, but it often feels overwhelming - until you have a real plan. In this episode, I share the three-part system that helped me go from dreading batching to actually (kind of) enjoying it! You’ll learn how to plan monthly themes, use quick voice memos and AI tools for idea generation, and separate planning from creation to make the process lighter and more productive. Whether you’re new to batching or just want it to feel less stressful, this episode will help you organize your content with confidence and reclaim your time.

02:17 - The biggest mistake I was making when content batching

03:17 - Breaking down my 3-part batching system that simplifies everything

09:26 - Steps to take this week to begin your overwhelm-free content batching

11:12 - What to do if you’re brand new to batching

Links & Resources:

Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode165

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Kristen:

If you are anything like me, you have probably heard all about content batching and how it's supposed to save you so much time and energy, and every time you sit down to try and batch your content, it feels like a huge, overwhelming task that you just want to avoid. Trust me, I get it. I have been there. In fact, I was really resistant to batching for a very long time because it just felt like too much. I would put a session of batching on my calendar. You know, Monday, I'm going to batch a month's worth of podcast episodes or a month's worth of emails. And it just always felt so hard and like so much that I would find a million other things that I felt like I had to get done that day, and I would keep putting off the But the good news is I have found something that works for batching. me, and today I want to share it with you. This shift in the way that I create my content really took me from dreading content batching and always putting it off, to, I'm not going to say loving it, but to being able to batch and feeling good about it. Maybe it's not my favorite task, sitting down and knocking out a ton of content at one time, but it does help me be so much more productive, and it helps me get this big task done and off my plate. So today I'm going to share with you how I am able to knock out a whole month's worth of content without all the stress and all the overwhelm, and you can do it the same way. Are you a digital product or course, creator, selling on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy, or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'm Kristen Doyle, and I'm here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process—things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations and so much more. Let's get started, y'all. The real problem that I found wasn't in the batching itself, it was the planning. So one of my first mistakes was I was trying to batch my content without a plan in place. And without that plan in place, I would sit down and just stare at my screen stressed out, trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing. And I'm watching the time go by and thinking, Oh, I should already be halfway through my first blog post or my first episode right now, and I haven't even started because I don't know what to write about or what to create. See, a lot of us sit down to batch without a plan, and then we wonder why it feels so overwhelming. So if you sit down to batch with a plan, it makes things a whole lot easier. When you don't have a plan, you end up staring at that blank screen or switching back and forth between totally different topics and just burning through your mental energy on the decision making instead of using it for creation. So what I've switched to now is a three part batching system, and the reason that it works so well is because I am separating the planning part from the creation. I've broken it down into basically three different batching chunks, and the first one is to start with planning out monthly themes instead of individual topics for each piece of content. See, for me, it makes it so much easier for me to batch my content for a month if I sit down to record, for example, these episodes and all my episodes for this month are going to be on the same topic. That keeps me from all of that mental context switching from one topic to the next, and it really helps me stay in one frame of mind while I'm batching that content. So instead of jumping between unrelated topics, pick one broad theme for the month. For example, this month's theme is content creation, and we're starting off with talking about batching, and then there will be three more episodes coming around the topic of content creation, but on other bits and pieces of the content creation process. So what I do is I sit down and I plan out 6 to 12 monthly themes at one time. This kind of covers the whole year, and I go ahead and look at them and I plug them into what month I think I'm going to record those particular themes. So for example, for my show, I might do email marketing one month, product creation one month, customer service, this month, like I said, is content creation. And I go ahead and plug them in based on when I think I want to do those episodes, giving myself flexibility to adjust. Maybe, you know, things change in the world, and I want to shift what I'm talking about one month. Or maybe I just don't feel like talking about email marketing this month, so I bump it to next month and pick a different topic. But having that outline in place of 12 months or so worth of topics really helps me to take a little of the pressure off, because when I sit down for this month's content, I already have a topic in place. And then my second chunk of batching is picking episode topics for the current month. So take your monthly theme, whatever it is, and come up with six or eight different episode or post topics that you could create. The way I do this is I actually use some AI to help me. I grab my phone and I record a five minute or so voice memo all about the theme. I just start spitting out ideas, all the things that I have to say about this theme. So for example, when I started recording the one for this month's episodes, I knew my topic was content batching. I started just talking about my content batching process. Here's what I do. Here's how I do my content batching. Here are some thoughts I have around content batching. I recorded this voice memo about how typical batching didn't work for me, about how I am using AI for content creation. You'll get some tips for that in next week's episode. About ways that I am tracking whether my content is working or not, and how I'm going to be repurposing content across multiple platforms. So I spit out all these different ideas, and I plugged that into, you can use chat GPT, or Claude, or whatever AI tool you like. I used Claude, and I let Claude come up with specific episode ideas based on all the thoughts that I had. When I do that, I like to ask for more ideas than I need. So like I said, I come up with six or eight ideas when I really only need four. And that helps me have options and be able to choose the ones I think will really work for me and for my audience. But what this does is it turns that broad theme into some actionable, specific content pieces that you can create. So now that you've done that, you've got your broad theme, you've got your specific blog post or episode ideas, and then when you sit down to create, you'll know exactly what you're making. So it helps the actual creation batching, which is going to be the third chunk, flow a whole lot better, because you're not sitting there trying to brainstorm topics and make decisions in the moment, you're just ready to sit down and create the thing you already said you were going to create. Alright, so batch number three, like I said, is to outline and create one piece of content at a time. Now a lot of batching experts will tell you to break your content apart into all the pieces, do all your outlines, then all your images, then all your writing, then all of your SEO or your recording, whatever you're doing. But for me, it works a whole lot better to create the content one piece at a time, and part of that maybe is because I am recording my content, not writing it out. So for me, what I do is I create an outline and immediately go and record that episode, rather than creating all the outlines and then recording all the episodes. The process for me all the way through is I outline the episode with the main points that I want to cover. While I'm doing that, in my mind, I'm already thinking of stories I want to share and ways that I want to phrase something. So that stuff is all fresh in my mind. So I go ahead and record immediately before I forget all of that. See what I have found is, if I do all my outlines and then come back to record later, I will have forgotten those stories or the way I wanted to phrase something, and I have to read through my outline and think about it all again. So not only does it take extra time, it's a lot of extra mental work too. So I do this one episode at a time, outline, think about those stories and things, and then record immediately, and then I move to the next episode, rinse and repeat. This lets me knock all of my episodes out in a day, or even half a day, if I'm super focused and don't have any interruptions. Alright, so here are your action steps, here's what I want you to start doing. Right now take some time to write down maybe six monthly themes to cover the next six months. Twelve if you're feeling really frisky. Don't overthink it though. Broad topics that give you plenty of room to explore details and specifics are going to work better than super niched down and specific topics for every month. So give yourself room to kind of explore once you get into that month, but write down six broad topics you can use for the next six monthly themes of content. And then later this week, pick your first monthly theme and go ahead and record a five minute voice memo about it. Use your favorite AI tool to generate those six or eight specific topics for your blog posts or your podcast episodes or video content, whatever it is you're creating. Now, I personally have gotten pretty fancy with it. I'm recording on my phone in a voice memo and sending it through a make automation that does lots of fancy things, but you don't have to do anything that technical. You can just open up your favorite AI tool, Claude, Chat GPT, whatever it is, use it on your phone, on their app, and you can hit the microphone button and just record yourself talking right into your AI tool. It's good to generate those six to eight specific topics for whatever type of content you're creating. And then pick the four or five, if it's one of those longer months, that you want to actually create. And then next week, schedule yourself a 2, 3, 4 hour batching session, and use that one piece at a time method that I told you about to complete your month's worth of content. If you're brand new to batching or it feels overwhelming to create four or five pieces at a time, try it with just two pieces at a time first to kind of build that habit, but go ahead and plan out the entire month and then make yourself a couple of smaller chunks of time to batch out just a couple pieces of content at one time. Here's what I want you to remember. Content batching does not have to be this huge, overwhelming task that feels like it takes over your entire week, or you keep putting it off because it's too hard. When you start with a theme for the month and you give yourself a clear plan before you sit down to do the creation, you really can knock out a whole month's worth of content at one time. And not only does it check a huge task off your to do list, you might actually start to enjoy the batching, because it feels so much easier to create content this way. If you found this helpful, make sure you're subscribed to the show, because next week, I am sharing how I use AI and how you can use it to create your content without losing your unique voice. I'll talk to you then.