21. An experiment: How I'm using Top Chef to Create Editing Guardrails

It's easy to over think during a podcast. Did that sound ok? Should I take this out? 

The problem with overthinking is that it can slow us down too much.

To try to get back on track, I decided to create some guardrails, Top Chef-style: set a timer and give myself a set amount of time to edit. No more, no less. In doing so, I’m forcing myself to stop overthinking small details and to move the edit faster.

If you're an overthinker like me, and you need to get back on track, I hope this episode gives you some ideas! 

mentioned in this episode: Ep. 4 Keeping Up With the (Podcast) Joneses

about the host:
Angela Briones is an award-winning podcaster and the creator, host, and producer of The Gay Podcast for Everyone, a podcast for the lgbtq+ community, family, friends, and allies.

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music for episodes 12+: (1960's 2 house) by mobygratis

Transcript

Transcript via Descript. Semi-edited.

[00:00:00] Angela: Hey, friends. So I was watching Top Chef the other day and I'm watching these chefs and I'm thinking, you know, all these chefs are really good at what they do, you know, but they go into like this moment where they have to create within a constraint, a time constraint usually, or sometimes it's like only using certain ingredients or what have you.

I started thinking like, what if I did that with my podcast? What if I could speed up the process by putting a time constraint on it? What if I sped it up by telling myself I could only do certain things within certain limitations and kind of created guardrails for myself simply as a way to do this faster?

 Honestly, like I said in the last episode with my friend Miriam Simon, I overthink a lot of this process, and the overthinking slows me down. So, if you're also an overthinker, I hope this episode helps you. I hope it inspires you a little bit. Because I'm gonna do an experiment. Purposely giving myself some constraints to force myself to stop overthinking. And maybe you might wanna join me in doing this too.

My name is Angela Briones, and I wanna welcome you to the space where we talk about podcasting, sharing our voice, and life behind the mic.

So, like I said in the last episode with my podcast friend Miriam Simon, we talked about the process of editing and overthinking when you're editing, and we also talked about managing time. Now, what's really interesting is I brought Miriam onto the podcast for several reasons.

[00:01:25] Angela: You know, she's just an amazing, inspiring person, and I wanted to like kind of pick her brain about her podcast process a little bit because. I thought we had similar schedules as far as podcasting, but as we were talking, I realized we have very different schedules. you know, she has those pockets of time where her wife is not home, and she's able to podcast where I don't really have those moments.

And I feel like I'm always podcasting in the nooks and crannies of life, if you will. And that being said, when time is already a constraint. And I've purposely kind of built in a monthly podcast to fit into that constraint to where I'm like, okay, I don't have the time to do a weekly podcast, but I can do a monthly podcast because I can kind of pace things out over the month, you know, since I'm kind of, since I am podcasting in the nooks and crannies of life.

The thing is, I really do wanna do this more. And I, I really understood Miriam when she said like, I have so much to say, and I just, you know, I'm bursting at the seams. I wanna get it out. And I totally understand that. I feel like that about podcasting. I feel like that about writing.

And when you don't have the time to do it, and you're not able to just sit down and dedicate some time to do something, it's really frustrating. 'Cause you're like, well. That idea, you know, came and went, or the momentum and the excitement about that idea came and went. So you don't wanna lose that energy. 

As I was sitting watching TV the other day and I'm watching Top Chef, I'm thinking, you know, all these chefs are amazing at what they do. They're all great chefs, and they go onto the show, you know, yes, to kind of like get into the spotlight a little bit [00:03:00] and, to make a name for themselves, of course.

But in doing that. they also put themselves in this position where they're being forced to create within certain confines and within certain conditions. it creates this like discomfort, right? Because maybe it's not what they wanted to make.

You know, maybe in 15 minutes having to make something that has very specific coloring to the plate. You know, maybe that's not what they wanted to do, but I kinda wonder if at the end of the process, if they all think, you know. Those weren't conditions I'm used to. Those weren't conditions I really was excited about, but the practice and the skill of forcing themselves to pivot, forcing themselves to think outside their norm made them kind of shape their creativity a little bit.

So I decided I'm gonna do that with my podcast. I kind of need something new. You know, I kind of need to do something to make this go a little faster, to be honest with you. Like, I really do wanna podcast more, and I've said that in one of the previous episodes. And the episode, um, episode four, which was called Keeping Up with the Podcast Joneses. Where it was like, I really do wanna do this thing more, but I don't really have the time to do it the way I want to. So I feel like I'm always trying to balance those two, but now I feel like I'm trying to balance it even more.

Now I'm like, I really wanna figure out a way to make this podcast process faster so that I can use that time, like those little pockets of time to my best ability. And like Miriam said in the last podcast, you know, really managing that time.

[00:04:33] Experiment: Set a timer

[00:04:33] Angela: So the experiment I decided to do, it's just simply one kind of like top chef set a timer.

I'm gonna purposely tell myself, you know, even right now, I'm like, you've got 15 minutes to record this. Whatever happens, happens, and I have just bullet points of, you know, what I wanna say or what have you, because this is also practicing a skill for me. You know, this is not speaking from a script, which the only time I really do is on the intros of my episodes.

That's really the only time I do that, but I think we can all agree like. When we podcast, especially solo podcasts, it is a skill to learn how to say something like Miriam said in the last podcast to say something with your chest. That just cracked me up when she said that.

Um, but she's right. You know, like to stand behind what we're saying the first time and not feel like we have to rerecord something.

And the only time I ever really feel like that, the only time I feel like this cringe stuff is really in the edit. And in the edit is where my overthinking happens. And I dunno about you, but like your overthinking might happen in a different place. It might be in the recording, it might be, you know, in just trying to come up with ideas of what you wanna talk about throughout the year or what have you.

But I really overthink during the edit. And I think because I have like such a, um, like a writer film type mindset, I'm always like trying to really perfect the edit and really make it sound a certain way [00:06:00] and really keep that audience listener experience in mind, which is important. but we also have to remember that in podcasting, it really is asking for \ the realness and the raw conversation, which is bumpy, And it's not perfect. And it has like these wonderful imperfections of personality. I think we forget that so much. especially when we're listening to like professional, you know, studio level podcasts and stuff, like with celebrities, like, I don't know about you guys, but I'm always like, oh my gosh, you know.

How am I supposed to measure up to that? I, I mean, we're not, that's the thing. We're not, we're supposed to just bring ourselves to this and we, and I forget that. I don't know about, we forget that, but I forget that. And especially in the edit, I start to overthink things and I start to remove things probably more than I should, to be honest with you.

And when I start to really think about, oh, let me take this out. No, this doesn't work, or This didn't sound right, or what have you, and I start to say those things.

The only problem with that really and truly in my mind, the only problem with that is that a 30 minute edit ends up taking me two hours because I'm sitting there listening to something over and over again, So, like I said, I'm gonna build in a time constraint. And I'm gonna start forcing myself to do a couple of things.

[00:07:29] Guardrails & Guidlelines

[00:07:30] Angela: One, I'm gonna make sure that my recordings with the guest episodes are a hard stop at 30 minutes because a 30 minute episode really does take a little longer for me. I try not to overthink, but that's where I'm probably gonna overthink a lot of things. so I'm gonna act like I'm on Top Chef.

I'm gonna set a time constraint, and I'm gonna tell myself when I'm editing a solo episode. Or a guest episode, I'm gonna give myself a one to two ratio. Now, I don't know how people, they talk about, oh, I do a one-to-one ratio. Like if it took me 30 minutes, I take 30 minutes to, or if it took me 30 minutes to record, it took 30 minutes to edit.

I don't understand that because that's basically like you're just listening to what you did. And where does that leave time to edit? Although, let me tell you, when I first started podcasting.

I do remember this. Let me tell you, let me jump in and tell you this story. Suddenly I got distracted by this story, but I remember I podcasted with this guy. I was very new by the way, and, but I podcasted with this guy who was super seasoned. Like he had been podcasting for years and he was like, Hey, you wanna jump on an episode with me?

We'll do one recording, we'll put it on both of our podcasts. It'll be great. I'm like, yeah, that sounds great. And he said, I'll do the editing, et cetera. And I'm like, okay, cool. I mean, Ideal circumstance. Right? And he sent it back to me like within the hour, which just blew my mind, you know? I'm like, what are you doing?

And he. Basically said his one-to-one edit was not even listening to the [00:09:00] episode, which you guys know I like flip out about. Right. but his edit was a visual edit. He literally just like swiped through the timeline, looked for pauses, took those out, visual, like he's just looking at the wavelengths and anything that was just like a pause.

That's the only thing he took out. That's it. That's a little too minimal for me. I at least wanna listen to the episode. I wanna make sure nothing went crazy because I've had things happen like that. And I just wanna make sure that it sounds, the way it sounded when we recorded, you know, I just wanna make sure that everything flowed the same. Like nothing crazy happened.

Now that being said, it shouldn't take very long, So that one to two ratio I think works for me. If I take 30 minutes to record a guest podcast, I'm gonna give myself an hour, and that is a hard stop for me. and that's gonna force me to kind of like edit faster, to think less like the overthinking is what we're trying to, or what is what I'm trying to eliminate here.

So I'm trying to practice removing that overthinking and just letting myself like, kind of instantly decide. What's working, what's not working, what sounds good, what doesn't sound good, and I feel like the time constraint is what's gonna allow me to really practice honing in that skill.

And if I can do that, and if I can kind of like edit a little more freely. Then I think I can podcast more, which would be great because I have, I do have so much to say, just like Miriam in the last episode. I have a lot to say too, and I'm sure you do too. And so if overthinking is part of your process, if it's slowing you down or what have you, I'm gonna encourage you to do a constraint just like I am.

Like give yourself a time constraint. Let's just start there. And you know. Maybe one to two ratio doesn't work for you. Maybe you wanna do a one-to-one ratio and you're like, I wanna do that. I mean, that's my goal, but I'm gonna kind of work my way down, if that makes sense. but do what works for you as far as that goes. and I should I mention part of my one to two ratio as far as the time management goes, is that is also gonna include making sure that I have my intro, my outro, my music, et cetera. so if I have a 30 minute episode.

I'm gonna take an hour to do the overall edit, like editing the podcast and adding everything to where the episode is ready. By the time that hour ends, and my goal is just to try to balance quality with that time constraint. You know, I'll be asking myself what really matters along the way and what doesn't. It's gonna be a lot for me. I'm not gonna lie to you. It's gonna require me to leave in things that normally make me uncomfortable, but. Because I overthink, I know that there are a lot of things that bother me that don't bother other people because when I listen to certain podcasts, even like the professional podcasts like that have a team around them that I know that they have like the, you know, post-production gurus.

I hear things that I'm like, why is that in there? Because it's real, because [00:12:00] it's a podcast, because it's supposed to be a conversation and it's supposed to be just like a real time recording of a conversation, and. I don't know.

I just wanna kind of pull back my overthinking a little bit. So in this episode, and in the next few episodes, I'm gonna be employing that time constraint. You might hear it in the sense that maybe it doesn't sound as great as other episodes, but maybe it won't. And that's kind of my goal.

My goal is like, Hey, I wanna show myself, and I wanna show you that it's fine and it sounds fine. So maybe if we can just like stop overthinking, like, oh my God, I sound horrible. Or Oh my gosh, why did I say that? What if you just left it in? What if you just. Spoke with your chest. Said, that's what I said.

I love that Miriam said this. I'm gonna repeat that again. Um, you know, like, she said, leave it in there. That's what you said at the moment. That was your experience. That's how you felt. I mean, unless it's something just like super horrible and you're like, oh my gosh, I totally did not mean to say that.

I mean, of course take that out. But otherwise, as Miriam also said in the last episode, this is a way to listen to what you're saying in such a different way. Podcasting is such a beautiful way to let your voice be heard, not just to other people, but to yourself. And a lot of times that is such an awesome gift. You're like, did I say that? Was that me? Yeah, that was you. All right, you guys, I hope this has been helpful. This is just a little nugget, i'm gonna try to do a few experiments over the course of the next month or two. So, if you have any ideas or if you wanna join in with me, let me know There's a link in the show notes to reach out to me I would love to hear from you.

 All right, you guys. Until next time.