8 Tips To Make Podcasting More Fun And Less Like A Chore Artwork

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8 Tips To Make Podcasting More Fun And Less Like A Chore

January 30, 2026 • Buzzsprout • Episode 213

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When you first start a podcast, everything feels exciting! But somewhere around six months in, that feeling can change. Recording starts to feel routine. Metrics feel heavier. Deadlines creep in. And podcasting slowly starts to feel more like work than a creative outlet.

We are talking honestly about what happens when podcasting stops being fun, and how to bring that joy back without quitting your show.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, uninspired, or just tired of hitting publish, there are small, realistic shifts that make podcasting feel lighter, more creative, and more sustainable.

8 Tips to Make Podcasting More Fun

Stop letting metrics decide whether you’re enjoying podcasting. Use stats as feedback, not validation.
Find the right amount of pressure for you. Too much kills creativity; too little leads to boredom.
Lower the bar when you need to. “Good enough” can keep your show alive during busy seasons.
Identify what’s draining you and streamline or cut it. Not every task is essential.
Play with your format instead of trapping yourself in it. You made the rules and you can change them.
Bring your personal interests into the show. Fun increases when the work overlaps with what you love.
Change your environment to change your energy. Small physical shifts can unlock creativity.
Build community so you’re not podcasting alone. Connection makes the work feel worth it.

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Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods

Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!

Jordan: 0:06

Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. So we all know that when you're first starting a podcast, it's really exciting. You're telling everyone about it that you can get to listen. And then something happens at some point, like six months or a year into your podcasting process, where it starts feeling a little less exciting. Do you guys remember maybe the first time where you felt a lot less excited about getting into the recording room? Do you remember how like how far into your podcast you were?

Alban: 0:36

Yeah, somewhere around the 212th episode.

Kevin: 0:41

I think somewhere along the lines of your podcasting journey, when you first start out, you have going into every episode, you have some level of excitement. And that's kind of coupled with like a nervous energy, right? Yeah. And the the more you do it, you get maybe six months is the right time into it. And that nervous energy starts to fade. And so there still might be some excitement. There still might be some, you know, I enjoy this, but the same like dopamine hit or whatever that you get from that combination of excitement and nervousness isn't the same anymore. And if you're doing things that you've repeated over and over, like it starts to become a little bit more predictable.

Jordan: 1:18

Yeah.

Kevin: 1:18

I don't know. So yeah, I think you're right. I think the timeline could be about six months. It's it's hard to look back and just be like, you know, because we've been doing it for years and years. So I don't know exactly when that first shift starts to happen, but it definitely does. And I think it's healthy to like recognize it, to be able to talk about it, to call it out and figure out how you can change the show, how you can, what modifications can you make to your format or whatever to get some of that back. Just to be like, this might not be a very good show today. Like that that makes me nervous again. That brings back the and that's fun to go through challenges.

Jordan: 1:49

Yeah. If you don't keep things like fresh and new and challenging for yourself, then you know, your podcast can get a little bit stagnant. I know for me personally, I was very excited with my podcast for like a long time, really passionate about it because, you know, I was basically making it for my kids. And then like as more people found it, that began to be more fun because, you know, it was growing and that was really exciting. And I remember when the excitement of, you know, getting all these downloads wore off. And suddenly I have like a year in contract for sponsorship slots, and I can't take a break because I have these sponsorships. Then the pressures actually started kind of sucking the life out of my podcast for me. And it made it so much less enjoyable. And I felt this just kind of like external pressure that I had to meet deadlines. It became more of like work for me in that um I was no longer doing it as a creative project. Like now it had become like my job. So I felt like beholden to these external forces. And so I think that there are like pressures that will also take the joy out of your content creation. And it can start to feel like you're just like trying to get to the next episode. You're just trying to like make sure that you're hitting publish on like a Tuesday or a Saturday instead of being really proud of what you're creating and taking the time with it.

Alban: 3:12

It sounds like you and Kevin are describing two different sides of kind of the same coin. Kevin's saying what can take some of the enjoyment out of it is we've kind of lost a little bit of the pressure and we want some of it. We want this to be good. There needs to be, and I think this is true, a little bit of nerves. Something is at risk here. And you're saying on the other side, but there's a point where you get so much pressure that you aren't even excited about, oh, what's the next story I'm gonna tell? Instead, you're looking at it going, how am I gonna finish six episodes in the last six weeks of the year? This isn't really working out for me, but I've already committed myself to these sponsors, so it has to happen. There is a line where you want some pressure, you want something at risk, and yet you don't want to just overload yourself on risk, or else it can just feel too much and you're not sure if you can accomplish it. I can feel bored, and that's one of the ways that I can lose fun is oh, there's not much at risk. If I do my best or I do half that well, both of them turn out with, oh, good episode. And I need there to be something where at the end of it I walk away going, that was performing my best, or that was below my best.

Jordan: 4:27

Yeah.

Alban: 4:27

And there needs to be something at risk, whether it be internal, external, numbers, feedback from you know, listeners, whatever it may be. I need something at risk. And so mine is often things get too de-risked. And now it feels like, okay, I can just show up and it's not a big deal, versus coming in and going, like, I really want to focus all of my attention.

Kevin: 4:49

Yeah, I like that. And it's it feels like we're all in slightly different spots about what we find fun and enjoyable. I mentioned that little feeling of nervousness that does energize me. And I think I also, you said bored, Alvin. I'm the same way. I can get bored. And I wonder sometimes when I'm listening to a bunch of other podcasters, like, how do they fight the boredom thing? I think if you have guests on your podcast, that's one way because like I look at like Huberman Lab or Joe Rogan, like they haven't changed the format of their shows, I don't think ever. Like from the first episode I remember hearing to what they're doing today, they're all similar, but they constantly have new people on. And so that can get rid of that boredom thing because you're always talking to somebody new. Uh for us, it's the three of us, and we're always talking about podcasting. So we like to change up either the format of the show, or once in a while we throw in an episode where we each have to prepare something, or we do things like where we um come up with marketing tactics or we're reviewing other podcasts. So we're constantly trying to come up with creative new topics and ideas and not formats for the show, but sort of like special episodes to keep the excitement going. And that to me makes me like a little uncomfortable and a little excited again.

Jordan: 6:00

Yeah. And a lot of things that you're talking about to sort of like bust that boredom are small adjustments that you can make to your podcasting. It's not like changing up your entire podcast or quitting your podcast and starting a new one because you're feeling bored with the old podcast. And so there's certain ways that you can inject more like joy and fun and excitement into your podcast. So I think that one of the first things that you need to look at is to stop chasing like the metrics of your podcast. It's one of those things where, you know, we publish an episode, especially in the honeymoon phase of the podcast, you publish an episode and you're just constantly refreshing your stats, hoping that you're gonna see all these downloads come in. And that's fun at first, absolutely. But when it becomes your success indicator instead of a tool for you to just kind of like track gradual growth, then it can actually kill your joy of podcasting. It can kill the thing.

Alban: 6:57

It can kill it because it's out of your control.

Jordan: 6:59

Yeah.

Alban: 7:00

A lot of the largest episodes we ever had on this podcast were probably in 2021 because podcasting as a whole, tons of new people were still in COVID lockdown and they're all looking at maybe I should start a podcast. And there's just this massive influx of new podcasters. And new podcasters were looking for a podcast about podcasting, and we were the answer. And so the numbers were really high. And I think we've gotten much better at making this podcast. I think the quality is up. I think I'm doing better. I think Kevin's doing better. I think you're doing better. And yet the numbers aren't there. So when something's out of your control and you say that's what I'm going to judge, my happiness or my joy are going to be dependent on something that's external. It's just a recipe for being happy when things are going well because of some, you know, external thing and never being able to get that back if it ever goes away. I don't think we ever looked at those metrics with too much interest. So it was easy when the numbers started going down because we were looking internally and going, it actually feels like a better show. Feel like I'm happier with what we're making.

Jordan: 8:08

What you're talking about here is the like extrinsic versus intrinsic value of podcasting. So if you podcast for the love of it, then you will get value from it. But if you get value from these external forces, such as downloads or getting sponsors or things like that, that fades. It's it's actually not what it's all about. I love what uh Sarah from Wish I Known Then had written in about where she gets value from her podcast, is when she's going through the editing process, she will search for a clip for her podcast for the beginning of the episode. She could use it for like a promo, but there's something about when she's searching for that nugget. You know, it's just like it's kind of like lasering in on this one thing that I'm proud of for this episode, or really trying to find one thing that was very good that we did this episode. And I think that that's good to focus on is like, what's the one thing you're proud of? And then, you know, put that at the forefront. And so she's she's finding value in that, especially if you don't enjoy editing. If you have to edit your podcast and then you, you know, just make a game out of it, what's your top three clips? Go through that. And then you can start to feel a little bit more joy in like the hunt during your editing.

Kevin: 9:21

I do think that's really good advice. We just got back from Podfest, and one of the things I always talk about at a conference, whether you go into a specific session and I come out of the session and I say, like, okay, the whole session was an hour or something. And there's parts that I found more engaging and parts I found less engaging. But if I have a key takeaway from that session, then it was worth the investment of showing up and being there. Um, and you can do that at the more micro level, like at a session by session basis, or you can do it at a conference overall. Like I was here at this conference for three days and there was highs and lows, but I'm walking away with this one piece of advice and I'm going to implement that, and that could be life changing or podcast changing or business changing or whatever. That's worth it. And I think that could be helpful in podcasting. Like every single episode, like from soup to nuts, your entire, you know, if you're doing an hour-long episode or 30-minute episode, they're not always going to be the best across the board, but you should be able to find wins in every episode. And so I love how she's like, if I have the time, I like to do this, go back to my episode and kind of find my favorite point, my favorite moment. And that seems achievable. That's a good goal and it's a good strategy and helps keep you motivated. And I like taking those things and you know, sharing them with friends and family. Again, my wife doesn't always appreciate it, like, I don't always get the reaction I want to get or that I'm thinking I might get. But I'll be like, hey, here's our This is so good.

Jordan: 10:35

Right.

Kevin: 10:35

This was Buzzcast last week. I'm just gonna play you 30 seconds. This was a good segment, right? You like that? And she's like, Yeah, it was great. I'm proud of you. Good job. It's kind of fake, but like I'm proud of it. And so that's what matters.

Jordan: 10:46

Yeah. You know what? I actually think that that segues nicely into lightening the workload because there's there's a little bit of a test. What is it about your podcast that you're sort of dreading? What in the process is making it harder for you to want to keep podcasting is sucking the fun out of it. And if you go through the process and be like, okay, you know, I hate writing the outline or I hate editing or I hate doing the marketing and promotion, there are ways to streamline that kind of stuff. There's there's services outside of it. You could outsource that if you have the budget to do so. When you streamline your podcasting process, especially the things that you don't enjoy so much, it allows more time for the fun stuff. We actually had Susie from Wander World School write in and she had talked about how she makes podcasting fun because she's just enjoying the cool conversations that she gets to have with everyone that she has on her podcast. And she creates systems to lighten the workload in other areas. So she's not worrying about, okay, after I finish this episode, man, now I gotta go do this and that. She's just streamlined it enough where her time is not spent so much in the actual creation process that she doesn't enjoy. She's just able to be fully present in her conversations.

Alban: 12:02

Yeah. So there's a lot of these talks at conferences and there's blogs and there's videos. They're all about how do you streamline your podcast creation so you can basically churn out as much content as possible. Then they often are selling a product that will help you do that. I juxtaposed that with a YouTube video I watched recently, and this is like a fitness influencer. His video is about when you become a solo creator, you're often tempted to outsource everything. Okay, I could actually create two videos if I outsourced editing, and I could make three videos if somebody else wrote the scripts, and I could do four videos, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, But what I realized was I love the editing. I had to keep working out so I stayed in shape. But I also was really enjoying making the little movies. So when I started looking at hiring people, now I'm running a small business and I've got people to feed and take care of, but I didn't want to do that. What I wanted to do was make little movies about all the stuff that I was interested in. And so it was actually a net decrease, even though it fit the like quote unquote uh smart advice on, oh, I you can streamline your workflow and let other people handle the scripting. But he liked writing the scripts, and it's good to identify which of the pieces of this are what I enjoy and which pieces can I hand off. I don't really enjoy um the editing part. I've never done any of the editing for Buzzcast. I do like the scripting, I like coming up with ideas. I really like trying to draw a line through what's the story of this episode. And that's interesting to me. Some of the promotion is fun. But really showing up and doing this part is my favorite part. And we've naturally found all right, these are the roles each person will play based on what do we find that's fun. But you've got to really find that before you can ever look at outsourcing because you're going to be told you should outsource specific pieces, but they may be the part that you like.

Jordan: 14:05

I'm gonna piggyback on that a little bit too, and even go so far as to say, what can you cut from your production process? As an independent podcaster, if you're looking up to all of these major networks, they've got full teams. They've got people to help them crank out several episodes a week and do videos and do promotion and be on every single platform. They have teams for that kind of stuff. And so, as an independent podcaster, if you hate creating like reels for your podcast, if you hate being on camera and editing video, can you cut it? Does it actually matter? Do you get the kind of views on that stuff that it makes sense for you to spend hours on that? So even just cutting little things can help streamline your process a lot too.

Kevin: 14:49

Yeah, this is reminiscent a little bit of a conversation I had with my physical therapist last week where we were doing some exercise work and it was painful stuff, and I hate doing it. And so they always ask when I get there, like, have you done your exercises this week? And I'm like, No, I didn't. I don't ever do them because they're miserable. Go in my garage, stand on a mat, it's cold out there, and stretch and hold it in a painful position for 30 seconds. No, I didn't do it. I'm not gonna do it. They come back to me and they say, Well, you have to choose your pain because you're walking around in pain, you know, 24-7 because you're not willing to go in the garage for 20 minutes and do these exercises. And so, do you want pain for 20 minutes or do you want pain, you know, 24-7? Choose your pain. This is a bit of a stretch, but I think I can apply it to podcasting. And like, you like podcasting, okay, that requires some editing. You want your show to grow, you but you don't like social media. Like, you have to choose what pain, but there's parts of this process that are painful for you. Maybe you don't like the marketing side. So you don't want to create clips and you don't want to go on all the socials and you don't want to promote your episode, and that makes you feel cringy and all this stuff, but then your show doesn't grow because you're not marketing it.

Jordan: 15:55

Yeah.

Kevin: 15:55

And so it's like, which pain do you want? You and just I think it's helpful to remember to get a reminder once in a while. Like, you're in control of this. You can do the stuff that you don't like and get the result that you want, or you could not do the stuff that you don't like and not get the result that you want. But both of them are painful. But choosing which one you'd rather live with and which makes you happier is okay. Like you might say, Well, I hate that stuff so much that I'm willing to just do the parts that I love. And if my show never grows, that's okay because I'm getting enough life out of just doing the parts that I love. That's totally fine. You might say, I really want to make money from my podcast, but I'm not doing a high-quality show, or I'm not finding high-quality guests, or I'm not doing anything to promote it. Well, then you're probably not gonna ever make any money from your show. Can you live with that? Or you really the real goal is to monetize your show and make it either a part-time income earner or full-time at some point or something like that. Well, then there's gonna be some pain involved. Like, you just have to kind of choose where the pain's gonna live. It's nothing that we do in life is completely pain-free. But we we do have to remind ourselves that we do get some control over like which pain we choose. Well, the one thing that's pain free is to scroll TikTok all day. It's not pain free. Like your life will have consequences if you choose to do that.

Alban: 17:08

The the pain is all deferred and it's spread out over just like a general malaise about life, and you're like, uh, I feel like I I don't know, something's off. I don't know what it is. Well, yeah, it's you're not making anything. We're all intended to create stuff. It used to be that if you wanted to listen to music, someone in your group was playing the music, and now we all think of it as professional musicians make music and we all just listen to it on Spotify or whatever. Uh right now I'm having a ton of fun editing this video. So a couple years ago, on my friend's 40th birthday, we went on this small trip and I filmed the whole thing on an old iPod nano. And the idea was just like, we're all in our late 30s now, and this is the kind of tech we have when we were younger. So I just like filmed it there, and now I'm going back through this footage and trying to put it together into like a five, seven-minute video for the people who are on the trip. So the target audience is probably gonna end up being like a total of eight people, maybe if spouses are included. It's not a big group, but I'm having so much fun because I'm having fun making it. And I've never, and the idea of metrics hasn't even entered the equation.

Jordan: 18:21

Yeah.

Alban: 18:21

If I was making these videos for the purpose of, I don't know, getting big on YouTube, I think I'd just be approaching it with a totally different energy.

Jordan: 18:29

Yeah. It definitely helps you have more fun when the like bar for failure is really low. Like you're just making this video for your friends and for your family members. And so you know that they're gonna have a lot of grace for you. It doesn't have to be perfect. You're just having fun with it and they're gonna love it. And so if you bring that same sort of energy to your podcast where you view your listeners as people who are familiar with you and they're going to be understanding, they're going to give you grace if you're having like a rough week and they're still gonna listen to your podcast, they're still gonna be fans. It takes a lot of the pressure off to be perfect all the time. One of the things that we talk about a lot in our work is like for the weeks that we have a lot going on, and you have a project that you need to finish. Sometimes you have to look at it and be like, okay, what's the version of this that is like the best I can do within the time that I have to do it? So yeah, I could spend easily 20 hours on a buzzcast episode and make it absolutely perfect and have all this like music betting and transitioning and laugh tracks, whatever. And laugh tracks.

Alban: 19:35

We need that. Jordan, please make time for that. Start including laugh tracks. I want to see an episode with laugh tracks.

Jordan: 19:41

This is my ideal version of this podcast. But sometimes when you have like there's there's certain seasons where you're really busy, or even your energy is just really low. There's gonna be weeks where you feel low energy and you know it's just gonna like absolutely kill you to spend 10 hours on an episode. What's the best version of this that you can do? Because good is good enough. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Kevin: 20:06

Uh yes, yes and no. Yeah, I think I'm on yes and no as well. It's a good point. I I think what you're saying is there's there's some value in consistency.

Jordan: 20:14

Uh-huh.

Kevin: 20:15

And in order to be consistent, in order for it to not be destructive to your life, and we know that there's other constraints on our lives that aren't always ideal, right? Like we want to spend a couple hours podcasting every week because we find enjoyment in that. And then some weeks get just crazy and hectic and whatever you get sick or a kid gets sick, or a million different things could happen. Can you slip out something that's a little bit lower than the bar that you've previously set for yourself or set for your exam? Yes, you can. Your audience would absolutely be understanding as long as that doesn't become a consistent thing. I also think building on the consistency theme, consistency is valuable. You will unintentionally probably get better at things just by being consistent with them. However, it is very possible that you'll be getting better at the wrong things. This happens, the best analogy I can draw for this is sports. Like you can go out and you can you can play tennis and you can play pickleball, you can play golf, and you can the more you play, the better you will get. But you might also be reinforcing some bad habits, right? You might not necessarily know that you're doing something wrong, but you know the outcome that you want. And so you keep kind of manipulating this bad habit until it feels like you're getting a better score. It feels like it's flowing a little bit better, like in your podcast or something like that. But I really what you need is intentionality and you need feedback and you need coaching sometimes, and you need someone to help kind of point out some of your blind spots. And that's really how we we see bigger gains. Bigger gains. So consistency, absolutely, it's important, but we want to make sure we're practicing the right things and we're not reinforcing any bad habits. So just saying I'm just going to grind, like setting a new year's resolution where I'm going to publish every single week this year, and no matter what, I'm I'm just doing that. If you really want to, uh if consistency is the goal, that's fine. You can accomplish that goal. But if improvement is the goal, then I do think there's some other key elements that we have to introduce into that process to make sure that we're just not relying on consistency alone. We want to be practicing the right things, not necessarily the things.

Alban: 22:16

Yeah, when I hear low failure bar, there are some projects that have to be de-risked. And they're big projects at work where we have an idea and we're like, we don't know exactly how this works, and it's a long-term bet, but let's de-risk it all the way to see how much we can do in kind of a small area. And so, like, there's some times in my life where de-risking is valuable, but maybe it's just the season of life that I've been in. I feel like I've gotten so much more last few years from over-risking, go like saying, okay, this is going to be definitely a stretch goal. It's much harder than of what I'm doing now. It's outside the comfort zone. It has some, you know, sometimes with physical things, has some potential danger. And that is like, okay, good. Now I can focus. Like now my attention is grabbed because something is at risk. And I can think of times podcasting. I love the story from Kevin. The first time you went on Pat Flynn's podcast and you're like talking to your wife, and Kevin tells Kita, he goes, Man, 60,000 people listen to this podcast. She goes, Wow, that's like an entire stadium at the Jags playing. Good night. She went to bed, and Kevin goes, Oh my gosh, that is how many people are. It's like I'm at a stadium at halftime and everyone's listening to me podcasting in the center of the field. Sometimes it can be too much. Like, I'm not saying it's always good to add more intensity, but sometimes you're just you're comfortable you get comfortable and you need a little bit of the stress, at least for me, to focus fully. And so there's times where I don't know, Kevin and I play pickleball with a similar group every week. And people are like, oh, I'm just trying to have fun. I'm having a fun time. And I'm like, sometimes I want to really focus and I want to say, I'm giving it everything I have to try to win right now because I just want to add some pressure, even if it's only internal.

Jordan: 24:10

I mean, this sounds like a like personality difference because you guys are talking about sports and like I'm always improving and always optimizing and always doing exactly the right thing. And I'm over here, like, you know what? I actually like the freedom to kind of explore my creativity. And if there's some weeks where like it's not as good, then that's okay. Because next time I'm gonna have all this energy because the moon's gonna be in whatever phase, it's gonna be a great week for me.

Alban: 24:39

Yeah, but make sure you uh you gotta check all the astrology signs before you make any commitments in your podcast.

Jordan: 24:46

But that's what I'm saying. Like, there's there's just different personalities, and you know, uh, there could be so many different elements that make it kind of a little bit more debilitating and less fun for some people when you're putting that much pressure on yourself to like always be improving, always be optimized. Like, like to me, that is so scary.

Kevin: 25:06

Yeah, and I but I I think it's a good balance, Jordan, that you you bring up like this. We're not trying to create an episode about how to make podcasting fun for Kevin and Alvin. We're trying to say, how do you make podcasting fun for whoever you are? And so we're trying to give examples from our own lives of things that help motivate us or pull us out of ruts or get us excited about recording another episode.

Jordan: 25:27

Yeah.

Kevin: 25:27

But you you do have to, as the listener, somebody who's listening to the show, you do have to kind of do this journey and exploration yourself and try to figure out what are the things that you love, what are the things that you don't love, what gets you excited, what sort of depletes your energy, and and check the balance on that. Like how much of that are you getting in your in your podcasting workflow? Yeah. Uh sometimes people call these things green zones and red zones. Green zones are things that you, you know, give you more energy, give you more life, and red zones are things that deplete or take away. You feel exhausted after you're done doing them. And if your podcasting workflow consistently gets you depleted afterward, like, yeah, I've got some green, but I've got a lot of red. And at the end of this, you know, week-long journey, I hit publish and it's out there. And now you're just looking at the scale and it's tipped more on the red side than the green side, then that's the red flag. That's the thing that we want to help you account for. And so we got to get more green than red every time you hit publish. That's the stuff that's gonna keep it fun, that's gonna keep you podcasting. And that's the whole idea of hobbies and things that we do as passion projects and stuff is that they they're they're more life-giving than they are life-sucking. But it doesn't mean that they're not gonna have a cost associated with them. Anything good in life has a cost.

Jordan: 26:32

Yeah.

Kevin: 26:33

And so we just want to make sure that the output is more than the input.

Alban: 26:37

Yeah. So we are starting this project today on the marketing team where we have we're doing a small cohort. We've got 30 people who've never started a podcast. They're all joining a group, and Megan is going to lead them through the entire journey. The idea is we're bringing 30 people together, hopefully become friends, get connected, and them all launch podcasts together. Starting today, and somebody asked me, you know, why are you doing this now? Why didn't we do this five years ago? Why wouldn't we do this a couple of years from now? And the true answer was Megan wanted to do it. In my mind, for years, it was this is a good idea. I should do it. And when I think through I should do it, I go, okay, I'm weighing all the shoulds in my life, all the shoulds in the work bucket. And it was not the should that I wanted to take on because I don't know if it was gonna outweigh how red, you know, going into a group every week and spending a lot of time kind of being the teacher of the group was.

Jordan: 27:34

Yeah.

Alban: 27:34

I didn't think I would really enjoy that. Megan, when we were looking at this project, I kept saying, Will this be fun? And she was like, Do you know, do you want me to not do this project? And I know I really want you to do it. But if it's fun for you, because if it's fun, you'll probably crush it.

Jordan: 27:50

Yeah.

Alban: 27:51

I know it would not be fun for me. And so I'm pretty reluctant to take it on if I'm doing it because I don't think I'll do a great job. And so there's sometimes like you've got to notice this is fun for me. That's a good indicator that I can give it all this energy for something that feels like an obligation and it's just painful.

Jordan: 28:09

And there's so many different ways that podcasters can find to inject a little bit more fun and playfulness into their podcast. I actually went to our community and we had some people write in and we had some people commenting on a thread about how they add more fun and playfulness back into their show. So we had some people say that, you know, they're gonna break the ice with a guest for like 10 minutes before the interview and they're just gonna talk about something that they're into. We actually do this in uh Happy to Help because people are always like nervous when they come into an interview and you're like new, you're not familiar with the host, you're not familiar with like the other guests or something like that. It can break the ice so much and kind of loosen things up if you just take like 10 minutes before the episode even starts and just talk about something that they're interested in. Find out what TV shows they've been watching, have they been reading any books that they like, and then just let them go loose. It does not have to have anything to do with what you're about to talk about, just something that gets them energized and excited, and that can inject way more fun. And then they're like, oh, this is gonna be a great episode. And so they're excited for when you actually do press record and start recording.

Alban: 29:20

Yeah. I mean, we do this in our podcast. I'm looking at how long we've recorded and what time we got on the call. And there's 25 minutes where we were on, but we had not hit record. We're kind of talking through different things in the day and telling our favorite scenes from curb your enthusiasm episodes just to like warm ourselves up. We're kind of all matching each other's energy, and then we hit record because it can be painful to try to navigate that if you get on a recording and you have to hit record, especially if you don't know each other. And then you're really trying to learn about the person and warm up to them at the same time that you're asking, you know, normal questions for the interview.

Jordan: 29:58

Yeah. We also have uh two responses that kind of go hand in hand on our subreddit. Tom Raftery responded on my thread and he said that he will mix up what kind of questions he asks. So he'll ask a question that's like a little bit unexpected from the guest, and it makes them stop being in the just interview, we're talking about this topic mode, and they go, Oh, I didn't think about that. And then it kind of goes into more of a fun conversation. And Warren from J.HR also said that he embraces the sidebars and like the crazy rabbit holes. And he says that many times these parts have been better than what we actually had planned. I think that's important, especially if you do like a cold open or if you want to inject like a little bit more personality into your podcast. You know what? If someone goes off on a tangent or a rabbit trail, it's okay to follow it for a little bit. Like, yeah, bring it back to the actual topic that you're discussing, but it is good to follow those sometimes.

Kevin: 30:54

100%, Jordan. The rigidity sometimes of podcast formats are like if if you just pull back for a little like a sec, like they're kind of silly, right? These are our shows. We created them. We created the rules, we created the format, we created the we do this and this. And then I think we sometimes get wrapped in our heads a little bit, like, oh, well, the audience expects this now. Now we transition from this segment to this segment. And at the end of every Buzzcast episode, we're gonna do a fan mail segment. Like, who cares? Like at the end of the day. But like, who cares in the sense of like if it's not fun for you anymore, then please change it. Because what your audience really wants more from you than from having a consistent format or going on this segment or this segment or not going on a tangent too often, is they really want you coming back with another episode next week.

Jordan: 31:41

Yeah.

Kevin: 31:42

And if sticking with this format that you have, or you know, I don't want to catch my audience off guard, or if any of those things are preventing you or getting to the point where they're sucking so much life out of you that you're like, I can't keep doing this. I gotta, you know, I want to do something different, then that's ultimately the worst thing that can happen. You started this thing because it was fun, you were having fun doing it, you built some sort of an audience. Again, it could be 10 people, it could be 10,000, it could be 10 million, who knows? Doesn't matter. But they're enjoying the show. There are people who are getting benefit from it beyond you. What that's super fun and exciting. You're impacting people's lives all over the world for one way or another. They're continuing to tune in and listen to your show. They just want you to come back. And so you have to switch things up once in a while to keep it fresh. Or if you do, then do that. If you're like, no, that gives me anxiety, that makes me crazy. What I like is coming in and doing consistent things every single week and knowing where I go next and just trying to get better at that, then by all means, please do that. It's your show. And all the time when we go to podcast conferences and we're speaking to podcasters, we oftentimes hear questions like, is it okay for me to do this? And is it okay for me to do this? Sometimes it makes me giggle a little bit, and I would hate for them to get the wrong message from that. Like, I'm not laughing because it's an offensive question. I laugh because this is your thing. This is your creative output. This is your creation, this is your invention. Like, who am I to say what you can and can't do? Only you can. You can do whatever you want, and it should be fun and life-giving and joyful and a representation of what you want it to be, not what I give you permission for it to be.

Alban: 33:07

One of my favorite podcasts over the years is added segments where it's a tech podcast, but then there's a segment that they added where they're giving advice about parenting and somehow that worked its way in. And then there's another segment, they just call it the mullet segment, because it's like all the businesses in the front, the parties in the back. There's just random topics that people have sent in. They're talking about the back. And there's another segment where they just call like, I don't know, like the dorm room conversation, which is just like these big brained, like, we don't know what we're talking about segments. And they're like, they're really like overthinking it. They're like, what if the future is like this, man? Like, just the kind of conversation you might have had in a dorm room at some point. And they're just kind of making these up as they go because the conversation slips over there, and then they go, I don't know, that's kind of like the dorm room. Then that becomes like a thing that they're calling back to episodes later. And I always enjoy them. I'm always having fun. And sometimes they'll say, like, okay, I know that was a little bit rambly. Okay, we'll get back to the real stuff. And I'm like, there was no thought in my brain before you said that that this segment was rambling at all. Yeah. To me, I'm out doing something else. This is a real joy to be gifted. This podcast that's in, you know, I'm enjoying for my whole run. And at the end, I'm not thinking, man, I really resent that five-minute ramble. I'm more thinking, man, I'm glad that this made it the whole run.

Kevin: 34:30

Yeah. And we forget sometimes as podcasters, like listeners have a skip ahead button and they have chapters. They're some of my favorite podcasts. I love most sports, but one sport I don't really get into is basketball. And there's a podcast I listen to on a regular basis. Alvin, you probably know which one I'm talking about, that they talk about basketball when it's basketball season. And I just skip ahead. It's no big deal. I don't care what the Mavs and whoever, whatever basketball team did last week or last night, but it's fine because I just hit think, think, think three times and now we're past the basketball chat. It's fine.

Jordan: 35:00

Yeah, it's not a big deal. Sometimes listeners love when you're, you know, showing a little bit of like humanity and you're just going off on something or you have a blooper. We actually had a bunch of podcasters in our community say, like, we started including bloopers because we were just like messing up so much and we were cracking up at it. So we're just gonna put it in. It's your show. You can absolutely put in bloopers. And you know what? Maybe listeners love it. And if they don't love it, then they'll tell you and then you can decide if you want to listen to them or not, right? We actually touched on this a little bit. Um, we talked about like playing with experimentation. So, like if you have segments and things like that, maybe you have an inside joke that has been running for a while with your podcast, and you want to figure out how to like integrate it into your podcast as a new segment. I personally love the idea of the mullet being like, this is in the front and party in the back. We very much have adopted that with the post show, where you know what? We we do have a segment in our episodes where we just talk about us. Like we just talk about what's going on in our lives, we talk about stupid stuff or upcoming things. And it has nothing to do with podcasting usually, but our listeners tend to stick around for it because they just know who we are as people. Another tip that I got from a podcaster in our Facebook community group, uh, she said that they had held a live, like Ask Me Anything with their listeners. So if you have a decent listener base and you can do those live MAs, you could release those as a bonus episode. You could have it as a segment in your episode. Just have fun with like your audience feedback, interaction. That's what fan mail's for too. You know, we integrate fan mail into our episodes now and we've experimented with it so much to where, you know, we had an entire segment. We had an entire episode just dedicated to fan mail. And we said, okay, that was a lot. And then we would do like a segment. And then we said, okay, that was a lot. And now we're figuring out how to integrate it into the episode content itself. So that's a little bit more seamless than what we had before. But don't be afraid to play with experimentation with your podcast. It can actually come out really well. And your listeners might enjoy things and they'll let you know, like, hey, I actually liked it better when you did this. And it's a great way to kind of fine-tune how your podcast should go. And it gives you the freedom to just play and just say, what if? What if we just try this? Could be fun, could blow up, but who cares?

Kevin: 37:22

Yeah. And and what is blow up, right? Like there's the stoic exercises of like, what's the worst thing that could possibly happen? Is that everybody who listens to your podcast is so turned off by what experiment you ran or the fun that you had that they never listen again. And you're starting from scratch. Well, again, you did it once, you can do it again. You'll be fine.

Jordan: 37:40

Yeah.

Kevin: 37:41

We've done some terrible things on the show, and never once have we lost every single listener. No, we've been close, probably. That sounds worse than that. We've done terrible things. We've done terrible things on the show. Not really unspeakable. Even the thing that uh you guys hated the most with the buzz boost stingers, the you know, boosty boosty and all that crazy stuff. Wait, I didn't hate that. I loved it. Whatever. Even that we say wasn't that funny when we used to do that. People write in and they say, I miss those. Bring those back.

Jordan: 38:10

Yeah.

Kevin: 38:11

And so there's there's a fan for everything.

Jordan: 38:13

Yeah, and I didn't stop listening when you guys were doing that, and I hated it.

Kevin: 38:16

So you even took a job and joined the team after we were doing that. Jordan's like, this is my only way to get rid of those buzz boost stingers.

Jordan: 38:24

I have to infiltrate from the inside.

Alban: 38:27

My least favorite thing that we did, since now this is our new segment. Love it. My least favorite thing was when we did the outlines right before the show, and we'd get everyone on a call. This is before the days of Jordan. We'd get everyone on the call and we'd be like, What are we talking about today? And then we'd like vaguely put together an outline, and we'd, you know, be like, There's too much, there's too little, and we're negotiating right before. And it would just be this real low energy hour. And then we'd try to go in and laugh and have fun. And it didn't work. So we found a new solution. And yeah, sometimes you just experiment with something and try it. And if something's bad enough, you'll feel the desire to make it better.

Kevin: 39:07

Yeah. I I would share that if you podcast with more than just yourself, if you have a host or a co-host, I'm sorry, you are the host. If you have a co-host or multiple co-hosts, then I would suggest that you break up episode topic creation and outlining. You would assign that to one person or like a rotating schedule. So in our case, like maybe Jordan could create one one week and then Alban create within an I do it. But when you try to do them by committee, you're in this brainstorming phase, and at least for us, without the rules of brainstorming. So we would get together in a room oftentimes in the Buzz Pro podcast studio, and we'd be like, What do we want to talk about? Because we're going to start recording in an hour. Let's go. And Alban would throw out an idea and I'd be like, I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about this. And then, you know, Travis would be like, I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about that, Kevin. We already talked about that before. Right. It's brainstorming in the most unsafe environment in a high-pressure environment, too, because like the clock is ticking.

Jordan: 39:55

Yeah.

Kevin: 39:55

That type of work is best done by an individual, not necessarily a committee.

Jordan: 39:58

I actually think that's a fun. Idea too is if you have multiple co-hosts, try trading off tasks or responsibilities for the podcast, and that can kind of change things up too. Another one that I want to talk about, because this is so fun, and it's not something I would have thought of, but working in your personal passion into your podcast somehow, even if it's not related to your podcast. So we actually had a really fun uh submission from Kevin from Great Grace and Inspiration. And he said, to make podcasting more fun, I've started creating custom songs for my guests. And after each interview, I use AI and creative writing to turn their story into a personalized song. I send it to them as a gift, and they usually love it even more than the episode. And as a bonus for listeners, I include the song at the end of the episode. He said that feedback has been amazing and it's brought new energy to my show. I could see that being such a fun touch on your podcast. You know, if you have something that you're talented at, or maybe you're a really good artist and you're drawing a portrait of the guests that you have on and you gift it to them as saying, like, thank you for being on the podcast. Then you also use it as the cover art for your podcast. That could be really fun.

Alban: 41:07

Yeah, those are great ideas. Do you remember the episode where we did the Buzzprout anthem?

Jordan: 41:11

Yes.

Alban: 41:13

I don't remember. Somebody wrote it. It was like we need a Buzzsprout anthem, and they had some lyrics for it or something. And I went, okay. I think I might have used like really early Chat GPT to come up with some lyrics, but worked on it myself too, and was so bad. And then I went on Fiverr and I found somebody who made like music with kids' instruments, and it was like a kids' nursery jingle thing.

Jordan: 41:36

I'm going to find it and drop it right here. Buzzbrout. Oh, how we love.

Alban: 41:42

No, we already heard it. It was fun for me. Yeah. Now, was it the world's greatest content? I have no idea, but I'm smiling now, even thinking about that.

Jordan: 41:53

Yeah.

Kevin: 41:54

I would like to make a plea from Kevin to Kevin from uh Grit and Grace and Inspiration. Hey, at any time, if you want to create a song for Buzzcast, we'd be happy to play it at some point, like at a post show or something like that. Only if it's fun for you, though. I don't want to give you another task on your task list. But if it's fun, we will accept your fun gift.

Jordan: 42:11

I love it. There is also a psychological effect with your recording space. I get very distracted and kind of like bogged down. I feel very like mentally chaotic if my desk is a mess, if my recording space is a mess. If I just take some time and I really clean my desk, it gives me like a new sense of energy. And the same thing with like adding decor.

Alban: 42:37

We got one in Facebook from Matt who said the way he found fun was just I added this neon light above my desk and it made working on clients' podcasts as well as my own even more fun. And it's this like cool on-air neon sign. I do like that.

Kevin: 42:52

Yeah. We used to have an on-air sign in the Buzzbrot studio, and I used to like it.

Alban: 42:55

It might have been the same one. It looks really familiar.

Kevin: 42:58

Yeah. Something fun about walking into a room and clicking on that light and then just say, I don't know. You just kind of feel, I don't know, a little special, a little professional. We hand out at conferences, we hand out little door hangers that you can put on the doorknob of your recording space that just says uh quiet, please, podcasting in progress. And I think even just doing something as simple as that, like putting a little door hanger on your door and closing it and like letting everybody know in the house, like, I'm doing my thing right now. Like it just feels a little special, a little sacred, a little protective of your space. And that can give you energy. That can get you excited, that can be fun.

Jordan: 43:30

Yeah. And I think with adding decor, especially like a neon light or something like that, it can just make it feel so much more fun. And it's like 20 bucks on Amazon for a neon light. Other thing that I want to talk about is stepping away from the desk. This is a small change that you can make. I think that we all feel a lot of pressure to like sit down and we're going to crank out this episode and we're going to do this creative thing until it's done, or we're going to stare at this blank screen until a outline formulates. And sometimes that's not how it works. You know, there are times where I will go like weeks without leaving my house and I will realize I have nothing to talk about. And so sometimes I will force myself to go out and have a different experience just so I can talk about it on the podcast. I know that's really weird, but it forces me out of the house and gets me to a place where I'm like creative and I'm able to actually connect real life experiences to my work and to my passion, right?

Alban: 44:31

I mean, one way this is manifested for me is recording outside, away from the desk. I talked about last Thanksgiving, taking a you know, recorder with me to North Carolina, talking about filming this little video on the iPod. I recently, one of my best friend growing up, his mom just had her 70th birthday and she taught a bunch of my classes growing up. So I recorded something and edited it down to send to her for her birthday. I love doing these little projects, especially when I don't do them in the same podcasting workflow. Cause I think maybe it's just that I'm like, I know these recorders are pretty good. I can make some edits and I'm already going to be in the top few percent of audio quality. Yeah. And I don't have to put all the anxiety or all the additional stress of doing a whole workflow. Instead, I'm doing the parts that I really love crafting a little message, putting it together, getting a good voice recorder, recording it, maybe cleaning it up with magic mastering, and then sending it over. Like there's just something nice about getting out of the workflow and going down to the essentials that I know this will get me really far, especially as far as a birthday message. This is going to get pretty good audio for a birthday message. Uh-huh. And I can send it over without putting as much pressure as I might need to for this podcast.

Jordan: 45:49

I also like what Robert Peterson from Notorious Bakersfield wrote in about. So he has like a very niche podcast, is specifically about Bakersfield, California. And he will go out and he wears his podcast swag and he'll go out into the community, like people recognize him and they'll stop and talk to him and they'll be like, hey, I loved your episode. And like that kind of gives him more life. And so there's something about podcasting, it's just this hyper asynchronous format. It can be certainly where you just feel like you're, you know, putting your content out into the void and then like no one's responding to you, or you're alone, you're just like sitting in your closet recording. That gets lonely. And if you get more involved in communities or you find other collaborators, it can make it way less lonely. David John Clark from Late Bloomer Actor said that what makes podcasting fun for him is being part of the podcasting community, which is funny because his podcast is not about podcasting, it's about acting. But he has found community with other podcasters and listening to shows like Buzzcast and Pod News and regularly contributing. So he's writing into Fan Mail all the time. We know him as a person, and he feels more in tune with the community of podcasters and it makes it way less lonely. And then Rosie said going from solo to co-hosting has been a game changer for her. So if you are feeling like I don't really want to do this by myself anymore, it doesn't feel fun. There's not enough accountability or people to bounce ideas off of, then yeah, maybe try getting a co-host. Did you have a guest that was especially great in your episode? Or do you have a friend that would be a wonderful co-host? And maybe you just bring them on like once every other episode or something like that. Like they don't have to be a permanent fixture.

Kevin: 47:40

There are lots of great communities for podcasters available online. Personally, for me, I, which is weird because I'm introverted, but like I'm going to say this. I actually enjoy the in-person stuff a lot more with the podcaster stuff. I think being introverted sometimes extends to online. Like I can read some good online discussions and stuff around podcasting, but then I don't necessarily feel like contributing. That barrier is like you overcome it one time when I go to in-person events. Like it's before the event, I don't want to go. And then I force myself to go there, but then once I'm there, like now you're forced to engage. Like people are talking to you, unless you're just going to be like this crazy person that doesn't talk back. You're going to talk back. And so I like the in-person stuff. We're we're lucky that we live in Jacksonville. There's a good community of podcasters here in Jacksonville and Botter and Blythe. Head that up. It's called uh Jack's Podcast Unite. And they do meetups on a regular basis. And I enjoy going to those when I can get there. And so I would encourage anybody who's looking for a community. You might actually have a podcaster group in your community if you live in a larger area, uh, like a decent sized town. If not, you could start one. There's nothing super hard about starting one. You don't need special requirements. You don't have to be licensed. You don't have to get a certificate to start a podcaster's group. Probably the easiest way to do it is to start some sort of online thing, either on whatever communities that you you prefer, whether it be Facebook or Reddit or something like that, and trying to get people who are interested in podcasting in my area, and then just go say, I'm going to be at this coffee house or something like that. It could start with two or three people or four people, and who knows how that could grow. But you could build it if it doesn't already exist.

Alban: 49:13

I mean, the other path of the community is getting involved in the community related to your podcast. So there's the podcasting piece that we've talked about. But if you have a podcast about being a late bloomer actor, are there other people in that community, people who kind of joined it, joined acting later in life? Can you plug into that community? Could you start a meetup for people who are interested in that? Uh if you're doing a tech podcast, can you make a little tech meetup with a few people at a coffee shop? It's nice to have both because the podcast community, they're gonna be talking about, hey, here's the gear and the craft and editing, and here's what I enjoy. The other people are going to say, Oh, let me listen to that podcast. I want to hear it. Oh, we're talking about the same things. Oh, I actually know somebody who'd be a great guest for you. And that's gonna speed the other half of what you're doing. So I think it's easy to miss one or the other where both of them are pretty valuable. Try to find one that connects with the subject matter of your podcast and also try to find one that is just related to podcasters in general.

Jordan: 50:20

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that there are so many different things that we have touched on in this episode that you could experiment with if you're feeling your podcasting is just sort of becoming this source of dread for you and you're you're wanting to combat that, or if things just feel kind of stagnant and you're not as excited as you were, you know, six months into your podcast. I think that there's a lot of things that you can play with, such as, you know, just making sure that you're not focusing too much on the wrong things and instead focusing on enjoying the podcasting, making the work streamlined so that it's not as difficult to do certain things that you don't enjoy as much, um, finding ways to add playfulness and experimentation to your show and change things up so that it feels a little different and new to you again. And then also getting involved in communities, which is probably the most important one. All right, let's get into fan mail. We have one message that I included here from Fernando from Fernando's logbook saying, hi, BuzzBrout team. You like to offer free tickets to podcast conferences to your listeners. It's time for us to pay you back. So come to London and I'll pay for your tickets to the podcast show. What's more, dinner's on me. No way you can say no to this.

Alban: 51:40

Kevin and I were actually talking about the podcast show yesterday in the office. Jordan and Tom are always down to go to conferences. Yep. And Kevin and I were kind of looking at we're, you know, trying to think how long does it take? How much would it cost? How does it differ from the shows that are a little bit easier for us to attend? But now that there's dinner and Fernando's picking up there's a personal invite, so much more tempting. We we really got to look at this, Kevin. Uh, I think we gotta give it a better look. We're talking about, you know, maybe if we had a speaking spot, maybe we should be presenting, uh, submit some talks.

Jordan: 52:13

But yeah, I don't know.

Alban: 52:14

Fernando's logbook. First off, we got to listen to that podcast. Second off, Fernando, dinner sounds great.

Jordan: 52:20

I love it. All right, so for our next episode, I want to talk about something that Kevin actually already talked about earlier in this episode, which is how to organize a meetup. And maybe we can get a special guest on the episode, but I want to hear from you if you've ever hosted a meetup or if you have been thinking about hosting a meetup. This can be a meetup with listeners or their podcasters or community groups, anything like that. So to have your response featured in the next episode, go ahead and tap the Texas show link in the show notes and we will read that. So until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

Kevin: 52:59

All right, special request. Can we do the world's shortest post-show today? Yeah. You guys know that we are kicking off the next work cycle in 19 minutes. And so here's how we work. We work in six-week cycles here at Buzzsprout, and then we take a week or two off to kind of cool down, make sure bugs are handled, all that stuff. Squatch, explore, 18 minutes now. Clocks ticking, explore new ideas, and then we kick off another work cycle. Well, one of these work cycles is kicking off today in 18 minutes.

Jordan: 53:27

And who scheduled that?

Kevin: 53:28

I did. I did because I'm bad at calendar management. Um, so the whole company's getting together in 18 minutes, and I've got to be ready and prepped to run this meeting. But here's what I want to say for the world's shortest post show that's relevant to anybody who's still hanging around listening to this. We've got one of the most exciting work cycles. I'm not going to tell you anything that's in it. I'm just going to tell you I'm super excited about it. There is like some really great work that's going to be rolling out on the BuzzRock platform in somewhere between four and six weeks from the day you're hearing this. And I'm super excited about it. I can't wait to have this meeting. But I have to run and get fully prepared. What do you have to prep for this? I just have to get in the right mental space. I need to get a drink. I need to You need to get away from us. We've just been online talking to each other for almost two hours. Come on. You're dragging it out. All right.

Jordan: 54:18

Okay, bye.

Kevin: 54:19

You guys are awesome. Thank you. I'll see you in 17 minutes.