How to Master Time Management for Your Podcast, with Anna Dearmon Kornick

Time. It's our most valuable, non-renewable resource. You can always, always find a way to make more money. But no matter what you do, you cannot make more time. As podcasters, this is one of our biggest challenges. You know what I'm saying, right? To grow our shows, we have to come up with episode topics, book guests, conduct research, and interviews. Edit our show, promote our work, do targeted daily engagement, and many, many other things. Not to mention, a lot of us have full-time jobs, full-time businesses, and personal lives to juggle on top of our podcasts. This was one of the biggest lessons that I learned when I was first cutting my teeth on my first podcast, Philly Ho. Before I took that show past six figures in downloads and revenue, I left my full-time job. I figured that if I could just work on my show full-time with my full energy, no distractions, the show would grow, right? And I'd be making money in no time. Well, there were two tragic flaws in that thinking. Number one, growing your podcast audience is not a function of how much time you spend. It's a function of how you spend that time. And number two, I learned that without proper time management, you're going to grow to hate your own podcast. That was me in the fall of 2018. My show wasn't growing, my savings were shrinking, I was spending 60 hours a week on the show, I was making zero dollars, I was completely burned out, and I really, I started to hate my own show. Now I wish that back then I had known this week's guest of Grow the Show. That's because time management and time efficiency are literally her specialties. She's a professional time management coach and she's a podcaster. Her name is Anna Deerman Cornick and over the past two years she's been able to start and grow a coaching business, start and grow a successful podcast while also starting and growing a family. Now I connected with Anna last June because she was actually the very first person to join the Grow the Show podcast accelerator. Since then her show has more than tripled in size and the accelerator has grown to almost 70 podcasters. We've come a long way together in less than a year, but that is not why I invited Anna onto the show today. Now Anna Deerman Cornick is here today to teach you what she has taught me as she and I have worked together growing her podcast for the past year. And yes, she will share with you how she actually grew her podcast on average 30% in each of the eight months since joining the accelerator, but she's also going to share how she managed to do that while also growing a coaching business, raising a two year old, moving to a completely different city and preparing to welcome her second child into the world. For Anna, growth, happiness and success are all about time. And today she's going to share exactly how you can make grow and monetize your podcast without doing what I did and just throwing 60 hours a week at it and by learning how to double your podcast output in a fraction of the time. This is Grow the Show. My name is Kevin Schmitland and my mission is to help you the independent podcaster to grow your audience and monetize now so you can have a thriving podcast business. Today, we're joined on the show by the host of It's About Time, a podcast about work, life and balance. Her name is Anna Deerman Cornick and she's going to teach you how to manage your time as a podcaster so you can actually enjoy growing your show into a thriving business. It's all about time today and now on Grow the Show. Hey there. My name is Anna Deerman Cornick and I'm a time management coach helping busy people stop feeling overwhelmed and start spending time on what matters most. Anna has built her entire career off of time management and while today she's a coach, a lot of what she teaches comes from her previous jobs where she was put in charge of managing other people's time. One of my very first jobs was as a scheduler to a United States congressman. This gentleman was incredibly not just by his constituents from the New Orleans area but by people from all over the state, the country and the world. I's probably spent about 10 to 12 hours parked in front of an outlook calendar every day managing someone else's time and my own. This was incredibly exciting but it was also a lot to be working so much all while in Washington DC far away from her friends and family. I started to miss Louisiana. I missed Crawfish season. I missed my grandmother being right down the road. So I had the opportunity to move back home and that started about a decade long career in the 24th seven world of crisis communication and government affairs. Now crisis communication is no joke. Basically it means that you're in charge of PR whenever there's some sort of huge emergency or disaster. Oil spills, droughts, hurricanes, floods, plant explosions, embezzlement schemes. You name it and I have probably escorted someone down a secret freight elevator and into a back alley in order to avoid TV trucks waiting outside. That 24 seven on call lifestyle began to take its toll as well. I started missing family events. I was staying at home to work while my friends were all at baby showers. I was missing out and I hated it after one too many missed family events and one too many times crying in the stairwell on the way up to my windowless cube. I knew that something had to give. So she bounced around a couple more PR jobs but even then she still wasn't happy with the makeup of her life. That's when she first started thinking about taking the leap and becoming a full-time entrepreneur. I had been doing wedding invitation calligraphy on the side and wedding signage and so I thought well maybe I'll be a callographer. Maybe I'll start a business doing bespoke calligraphy and custom signage. Diving into learning about opening a business as a callographer is when I learned that coaching exists and that I actually could create a business that fit my life instead of trying to squeeze my life around the cracks available in that working schedule. So she pondered becoming an online coach as she built out her calligraphy business. It was just then that Anna would stumble into the next stage of her career through an opportunity found in a place we rarely look. There was an invitation in my spam folder to attend a Myers-Briggs certification program that was coming to New Orleans in two months. She thought what the heck and she went. I got certified and met so many other coaches who were intending to use the MBTI in their coaching practice and I remember on the last day they they had to separate into three tables. Coaches, counselors and other. The people who didn't really fit into coaches or counselors and so I went and sat at the other table and the discussion turned into how do you want to use this and I remember saying as plain as day I want to use this certification to help people with time management. I don't know what that's called. Is that consulting? Is that coaching? How does that work? As she was trying to define the next step of her career at that event Anna met an aspiring career coach who wanted to help people with just that sort of thing. That coach was offering three sessions so Anna took her up on the deal. And that was the game changer experiencing a coaching session from a coach from the certification program that I found in my spam folder showed me what coaching really was. Within two weeks I was signed up for a coaching certification program. May 22nd 2019 was the day that I made the decision. Just a few months after that Anna decided to launch a podcast to go with her coaching business. I made the decision to launch the show and then worked pretty nonstop from September until launch day on December 2nd to to make that happen. The podcast is called it's about time and it aims to help busy women seeking better work life balance. The catalyst behind starting the podcast was just knowing and seeing that so many other online entrepreneurs had a platform to share their stories to share their expertise to educate a broad audience and to make connections with others in the industry. And I saw other people doing that and I've always been of the mindset of well if she can do it I can do it. And she did it. Anna took a course on how to launch a podcast and she made it happen. Her work immediately resonated with an audience. I think I hit 500 downloads within the first few days, first two days maybe which again it like completely blew me away that people actually listened and I just I felt on top of the world. But like many of us who experienced a successful podcast launch that buzz started to fade for Anna. In fact for the six months after she launched the show her download numbers shrank every month except for one. This was frustrating Anna had seen great success launching her show but just after a month the strategies that gave her a successful launch weren't helping her show grow at all. It was just about that time in June of 2020 that Anna's path crossed with mine. So one of my good friends too is a friend of yours. And she tagged me in a post on Facebook that you very informally posted letting people know that you're here to help with podcasting and that you were starting something new and she tagged me with it and it was like well you know if two believes in Kevin then let me give this a shot. So Anna and I hopped on a call and I told her all about this program I was building. It was going to be called Grow the Show and it would teach other podcasters how to grow and monetize a show like I had. I mean hearing about what you had done with Philly Who and then having that having the phone conversation that we had take it back to that competition strength. If he can do it I can do it and if he can show me how I'll get there even faster. With that Anna was the first to join the Grow the Show podcast accelerator. And for me what really clicked after doing the foundational work it was diving into targeted daily engagement that's where everything took off and that's when everything changed for me. The results were unreal very quickly. What kind of what results did you see? And you know it's funny because I'm such a skeptic and I was like I'm going to do this but nothing is probably going to change. I started to see my numbers my downloads increase on a weekly basis you know daily basis weekly basis and I was like oh looks like something's happening. And then it was at the beginning of November I was looking at October and I was entering my downloads into my spreadsheet with my little formula and somehow for some reason it was showing me that my downloads grew by 60% and I was like this has to be wrong I have to be doing the math wrong I'm not a math person and I even reached out to you and I was like wait am am I am I really doing this math right? Did I really increase my downloads by 60% from September to October? And the like undeniable truth is that yes that is exactly what happened. And the only thing I didn't I didn't land some amazing big fish guest. I didn't suddenly become super famous. The only thing that was different was this commitment to 15 minutes of targeted daily engagement. Monday through Friday I wasn't even doing it on the weekends but I have steadily increased my numbers every single month since then with I think I'm at an average of around 30% growth month over a month since then something it's something like that. I had been invited to speak inside large closed Facebook groups to membership programs to entrepreneurial masterminds. I think I booked 10 different guest appearances on podcast interviews. Third CDE all third CDE. I also recently booked a speaking engagement with a creative entrepreneur conference that I have been wanting to be a part of for years now. And in the in the invitation from the conference planner she said you and I have interacted via DMs on Instagram several times. I mean she was directly referencing those intentional you know TDE activities that I was doing and it was working. And so with every podcast guest appearance I saw my numbers increase with every mastermind workshop that I gave not only did I see my downloads increase but my email list would grow too. But show growth isn't all that her coaching business grew as well. I actually used my podcast content as a runway to launching a new one-on-one service that really enabled me to book myself solid for the rest of the year in terms of coaching clients and being booked out in terms of coaching clients for the rest of the year kind of took the pressure off and it was it gave me the ability to refocus on the podcast. Now it's obviously fun for me to share and a success as her proud podcast coach but that's actually not the main reason why I invited Anna onto the show today. What blew me away about working with Anna was quite frankly her time management skills. She was walking the walk. She claimed that her specialty was time management and holding crap did her actions back that up. Before I started the show before I hit publish it was so critical for me to get my processes ironed out from day one that there really wasn't a whole lot of oh my gosh I'm so overwhelmed. Can you imagine that after a year of podcasting there wasn't a moment where Anna was overwhelmed with the work. I don't think I have heard that from any other podcaster that I have ever come across. Now I will say that other grow the show students and listeners have indeed seen very similar audience growth results when implementing targeted daily engagement so if the thought has creeped into your mind that it won't work for you if you're not already a time management pro like Anna squash that bug right now it's not true having said that I am willing to bet that you'd like to know how Anna has managed to launch a podcast launch a coaching business and grow both of those things at a hefty clip in one year without feeling overwhelmed right I know I do so how did she do it how does she run a business host a successful podcast maintain a personal life and keep her sanity and how can you do the same well first you clearly have to lay out your process and your systems from the very beginning a lot of times we we want to start something and we kind of play it by ear and then the next thing that we know we're overwhelmed because we're trying to keep track of too much of what we're doing in our heads and we don't have a system or a set schedule for doing any of it and so as a result Parkinson's law kicks in Parkinson's law states that work expands to fill the time allotted if you don't have specific boundaries in place for when you will work how you will work and what you will work on your podcast grows like this amorphous blob and takes over your life and that's not good no it's not nobody wants to have a podcast blob take over their life right so what do we do grab a stack of loose leaf grab a stack of white copy paper whatever is close by and do a step and write it down do a step and write it down if you feel like things are moving slower you're doing it right because you're taking the time to actually think about what you're doing as you are capturing it which bringing that intention to your podcast creation is not only going to set you up for success in terms of managing your time well but two other things are going to happen as you have this written workflow you know as you're capturing this on your piece of paper and you eventually put it into something like trello or a sauna to keep track of it for you every time you follow that workflow it gets more and more ingrained in your in your mind in your subconscious and what happens is that you get to a point where you can almost push yourself on autopilot you're not having to think about what the next step is because it begins to feel automatic it begins to feel innate because you're doing things in the same exact order every time it's that habit forming it's that routine forming and workflows habits it's a form of automating yourself and then the third benefit is that it sets you up to outsource it puts you in a much better position to outsource and get some of this work off of your plate so that you can prepare to delegate some of the more you know just routine tasks so you can spend more of your time on what really matters whether that's you know researching your potential guests or preparing for your interviews or maybe your goal is to just show up and hit record and that be your biggest piece of being involved with the podcast but until you have those workflows captured and again it's sound simple you just sit down do a part of your process and write it down and writing it down in a way that a third grader could could understand it is what's really going to prepare you to be able to to outsource that to someone else once you've taken your process you've written it down in painstaking detail and you've established your workflow it's time to define the other half of a great system the cousin to a workflow is a template so that looks like having you know if you are a podcaster that invites guests to your show as much as you can put into template form the your interview request email your show prep email that explains you know here's your link this is the flow of the show this is what you can expect template as much as possible if you do anything in your business or your podcast more than three times it's time to put it into a workflow or to create a template if you have not captured your workflows yet capture them as soon as possible if you have not created templates get those into a google doc that you can file make a copy as soon as you can so that you are not reinventing the wheel every single time you launch a new episode because that's how we make mistakes that's how we waste time and that's how we feel overwhelmed so workflows and templates are the foundation without those you're going to be overwhelmed for the rest of your life once we have those though it's time to take the next step of great time management specifically there are three time management strategies that Anna thinks are the most impactful for podcasters the first one is time blocking time blocking essentially is setting a meeting with yourself to do specific work we put interviews on our calendar we put doctors appointments on our calendar we put zoom meetings on our calendar this is the same thing it's setting a meeting with yourself to write show notes or setting a meeting with yourself to do research to prep for your upcoming interview and by putting something like this on your calendar by putting this activity on your calendar you're giving it a start time and you're giving it an end time Parkinson's law work expands to fill the time allotted you're creating boundaries putting a fence around that time and it causes you to get the work done most of the time during the time that you have allotted the next strategy is task batching which goes hand in hand with time blocking the cool thing about task batching is that you already know how to do it and you've probably been doing it for most of your life when we do laundry when we have a pair of pants that are dirty okay we don't wear that pair of pants and then wash that pair of pants and then put that one pair of pants in the dryer and then take it out and then iron it and put the pants away and then go get a shirt and do the same thing no we use a laundry basket and we let our dirty laundry build up and then we wash it all at once we dry it all at once and so on and so forth task batching is essentially looking for opportunities to apply the laundry method to other parts of your life and in our case parts of our podcast you know sure you can do a single podcast episode from start to finish you can invite your guest you can interview your guest you can create their show notes you can create their social media graphics and you can write the newsletter associated with promoting their episode but what's a whole lot more efficient is doing all of your social media graphics for the month ahead in one sitting doing all of your newsletter drafting for the month ahead in one sitting and so on and so forth because what that does is it gets you in this focused mindset and you find yourself just moving through the process again putting yourself on autopilot automating yourself without using a robot and it makes you more efficient and when you batch those activities together and put them in a scheduled time block eventually you become more efficient at doing those activities it begins to take you less time you are able to better estimate how long your time blocks should be and again it sets you up for outsourcing to someone else finally the third piece and the most difficult piece for most entrepreneurs especially me setting boundaries so for all of us these healthy boundaries are going to look a lot different you are the host of your podcast you're the leader you get to decide when you interview people you get to decide what your production schedule is going to be if you leave your schedule wide open and you know some days you'll do an interview at 8 a.m. and some days you'll schedule an interview at 9 p.m. just to accommodate that specific guest you know on one hand you know you do you if that's if that works well for you and you're happy there then you know keep going with it but by setting boundaries and deciding you know these are my podcasting days these are my podcasting focus days or I only do interviews on these days of the week what that does is that enables you to cut back on context switching so whether that's having a podcast focus week whether that's you know deciding when you'll be in podcast mode and when you won't be it's you know putting your stake in the ground and sticking to those for the health of yourself and the long-term sustainability of your podcast and it enables you to turn it off and be present if you can't shut it off and actually live that life that your business is meant to support then what's the point once again Anna doesn't just talk the talk she walks the walk as well we mentioned earlier how her show grew 60% in one month back in October well she's maintained insane growth since then as well and the beautiful thing is that thanks to TDE and incredibly good time management that growth has held steady even as Anna's personal life has turned upside down we made the decision December 23rd that we were going to move to a new house and a new city in order to be closer to my husband's job we did listing photos on December 26th the house was under contract within 24 hours after listing it we had our new house under contract by New Year's Eve and we closed on February 5th all the while I have a two-year-old and I you know was eight months pregnant now you know ready to have a baby at any moment her podcast growth numbers during January as Anna picked up and moved to a new city while being eight months pregnant 52% her download numbers grew 52% in that month that's what happens when you build momentum is you ride that wave as a result of the dedication to doing TDE from September October November I was seeing the fruits of my labors like blossom and so even though I was in a season of having to pull back from that daily TDE the momentum just kept going and I've continued to see growth today right now at the time of this episodes release Anna is currently on maternity leave and her show is still growing that's because of her dedication to targeted daily engagement and because of her incredible ability to manage her time so today Anna has shared exactly how she does that and how you can do it too number one she documents her workflow and her templates from the very start remember if you do anything more than three times it needs to be systemized and documented in a workflow or template then Anna utilizes three tools to maximize the time she spends on the podcast and her business so she can live a happy balanced life number one she utilizes time blocking for TDE for episode research for anything else she needs to do it goes on her calendar just like a meeting number two she task batches like waiting to do the laundry until you have a full load Anna does similar tasks for her podcast in a batched fashion so that she isn't constantly switching contexts and having to remember to do a million things and finally number three Anna sets boundaries if you don't set a rule for how much time you're willing to give to your work your work will take all of the time and it will expand to fit all of the time that you have this is the most challenging piece for driven people like you and me but it is arguably the most crucial so here's my question to you which of these time management strategies are you missing out on right now could you choose one of them and implement them for your podcast today I challenge you to do just that and if you're looking for some extra support and accountability let me and Anna know in the grow the show Facebook group let us know which piece you'll be implementing this week and what you could use help with and we can be there to help you make it a regular part of your growing thriving podcast business grow the show is a Q9 production this episode was produced and hosted by me with associate production by Catherine Nails post production by Max Graham and a very special thanks to grow the show accelerator student number one as in the very first Anna dearman cornic for grow the show my name is Kevin Schmidtland see you next time