Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, an 18th-century German writer, said, “Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”
As podcasters, our days are consumed by seemingly important, but ultimately unimportant tasks, many due to their urgency (or perceived urgency). Responding to emails or calls often fall under this category, as does social media.
Truly important tasks align with your long-term goals for your podcast. For example, doing a pre-interview call that will make the interview you record better.
Related … people don’t need to know about this pre-interview work on social media. We don’t need to broadcast everything we do.
You may be familiar with the “four questions” to determine if a task is important or urgent:
Can I delete it?
Can I delegate it?
Do I need to complete it myself?
Can I defer it for later?
To make this even simpler, consider my philisophy that “podcasters podcast.” Because of this, anything related to creating your podcast should come first.
Yeah, marketing is important. Yeah, the business of podcasting is important. But you don’t have a need for either if you haven’t done the foundational work of actually creating something for people to listen to.
