I’ve been writing in a blog for a bit over the year and I hosted the Game Design Live Chats for a year as well! (The Game Design Live Chats is currently on a hiatus between seasons 1 and 2). This has been the first time that I really focused on creating content for others for an extended period of time. I’ve had different blogs on and off, done different video series and interview series, but this is the first time I’ve been really consistent with it and I’ve learned a lot about how to really be consistent and also not get too burnt out in the process.
Have a Schedule
Having a schedule is a good idea for a variety of perspectives:
- It can help motivate you to finish things. If you don’t have a schedule and just have to produce content at some point, at some rate… will you? I know that for me, that wasn’t defined enough for me to stay consistent or motivated to continue for any length of time.
- It can let others get used to what you’re doing. I’ve been posting my blog every Monday and doing the live show every Sunday. This means that other people that post about blogs or care about live shows can get used to when content comes out. It definitely is nice to be included in lists of content and to have others be interested in your content. It can be highly motivating to know that others care about your content.
- Having a schedule means that you can get ahead of schedule. Creativity doesn’t always happen when you want it to, so being able to write 3-4 blog entries one week and take off a week when you’re just not feeling it can definitely help with you getting overwhelmed or getting burnt out.
You can have a schedule for more than just posting content, too. You can have a regular day that you post content, that you share the content on social media, that you send out your mailing list, or that you play games. Content isn’t just about the actual posting or creation of content, you’ll have to do research, whether that’s looking at BGG or experiencing other content. Scheduling anything that helps make content easier to create will mean that creation will just happen and be much less stressful.
Get Ahead of Schedule
I mentioned above that one positive to having a schedule is that you can get ahead of schedule, but I wanted to be talk more about that. Once you have a schedule that you can keep up with on a typical week, it’s good to get a bit ahead of schedule. Ideally, you can have about a month of content ready to go. This is so you can go on vacation, be sick, or just not make content when you’re not feeling like it. Being able to make lots of content when you’re feeling it and not feel bad about not making content when you’re not means that you’ll be so much more passionate about the content you create.
Be Reasonable
At one time, I was doing three live shows a week, running a playtesting night, and writing a blog every week. This was not a reasonable schedule! At least for someone that has other things besides content creation in their life, which should be most people.
I’ve since gone down to one blog post a week and one live chat a week, plus attending the playtesting night instead of running it. This is a much more doable schedule that means that I don’t constantly spend time on content creation and I have time for other things in my life.
Get Help
You don’t have to do everything alone! Even if it’s just getting someone else’s opinion on what you’re doing, it’s nice to have someone else there to tell you you’re doing a good job. This can be having someone that helps to record your videos, edit the blog, or just be around for morale support. Knowing someone else has your back and can just tell you your content is good is super nice and definitely helps with motivation.
For the Game Design Live Chat, I have my partner handle recording the show and live streaming, so that’s not something I have to stress about during the show. I also have a friend that helps add more questions to my interview questions, so I can be super prepared during the interview. Finally, I have a few friends that read through and edit my blog each week, which means I’m way more confident in posting my blogs, as I know that not only is the article worthwhile, but it also doesn’t have any errors.
Getting help also includes things like getting guests to interview or having guest posts. There’s so many great designers that could have more attention on them and getting their help can be so valuable! Having someone else write a guest blog means that you don’t have to that week and interviewing someone else means that you have much less to prepare as someone else is going to be talking for (hopefully) half the time.
Knowing that other people have my back and support me has made it all the more easy to actually be consistent with content, which is is something I’ve struggled with up until this point.
Switch Things Up
If you do the same thing every week, it’s a lot easier to get tired of what you’re doing. I learned at some point with the Game Design Live Chat that having different segments for specific weeks was really nice to switch things up. I made every 3rd Sunday group chats, every 4th Sunday feed back sessions, and all other Sundays interviews. This meant that every 3rd Sunday I’d prepare a little more than usual and every 4th Sunday, I’d prepare a lot less.
For the blog, I have so many different formats of posts! That way, I never get tired of any one format.
- Game Design Live Chat Interviews: With these, I include the video for the game design live chat and the written summary. These are usually really easy to write, as I have the notes from the live show, so getting a summary written up in an easy to read format only takes about on hour or so usually.
- In Depth Designs: I take a look at a specific game and all the interesting design and publishing choices that went into that game. This is an easy type of post to write, as I regularly learn new games to experience new mechanisms and get better as a designer, so putting in a little more effort to make a blog post is a win-win as I then get content AND it makes me better at analyzing games. It does mean that I have to regularly play new games, but this isn’t a bad requirement.
- Guest Posts: For these, I make a questionnaire of 3-5 questions and ask other designers to answer the questions. Once I get enough answers, I put all the answers together in a post. These articles are super easy to make at this point, as I made the first post and the subsequent posts can be made by creating a copy of the previous one and just subbing out the answers. The first post took an amount of formatting time, but at this point, the posts make it super easy to have a month or two of articles ready at any one time.
- Design Posts: These posts are anything that’s about design or design adjacent. Most of the time, these articles are either focused on the creative or technical, which is a certain headspace for me.
- Publishing Posts: These posts focus on more publishing or industry focused topics and are basically the opposite of the design posts for me; instead of being about the ‘fun’ part of board games, it’s more of the topics that are dry but still important. If I don’t have the creativity to write a design post, I can brain dump and make a post about publishing. These are also posts that are really easy to add to gradually, while the design posts are more ones I have to do all at once.
I have a type of post for however I’m feeling and posts that I can do a little bit at a time or in big chunks. Having the different types of posts means there’s always something I can work on.
Make Content a Regular Event
I have a daily task on my todo list to do some sort of content. Whether that’s preparing for my live chat by getting questions ready or asking guests to be part of the show or if it’s just taking 10 minutes to create a new blog article or finish up one that’s already done, I make a bit of progress every day. Just spending 5-10 minutes adding more to a blog post every day usually means that I can finish an article each week and keep up to date with everything. I do also work on things more when I’m super motivated to do so, but putting in a little effort each day means that I’m rarely behind. Once I tend to get behind on something, it’s so hard to catch up, so really focusing on staying on top of things and ahead helps out a lot.
Know Yourself & Try New Things
This one might be the hardest of all the advice in this article. You have to find out what works for you, as each person is different, which means taking time to be introspective and figuring out how you work best. Above, I talked about how staying ahead tends to make me keep staying ahead. You might be different, though! Maybe you can’t be at all productive in 10-20 minute chunks of time and instead need to dedicate a 4 hour block every other week to making content. To find out how you work best, you might have to try a variety of things.
For instance, I find writing really easy if I do it between major tasks in the day. As soon as I finish one task that took a lot of brain power, I do so writing, which is more on the creativity side, and that helps me get ready to do other hard tasks later on. It works for me to switch between a variety of different tasks during the day so that I don’t ever get too tired of one thing, but plenty of people are better at focusing and waiting for their creative day to be creative.
Find what works for you and what you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy making the content you are creating, it’s going to be hard to continue creating it long term. So, find what you like and why you like it, then get out there and make some content!
Finally, there’s a lot of reasons you might want to make some content:
- Giving Back to The Community: If you’ve been part of the board game community for some time, you might come to find that you want to share what you know with others, as there’s always new people coming into the hobby that are looking to learn, whether it’s about design, publishing, or information on specific board games.
- Promoting Others: There’s so many fantastic designers out there and if you’re part of the community, you probably have a ton of friends that you can help out. If you’re new to the community, you can also gain a ton of new friends, as well! Interviewing people has given me a reason to reach out to some amazing designers and get to know them a lot better and it’s even led to codesigning some games!
- Increasing Your Confidence: It’s sometimes hard to know that you’ve learned more and gotten better at what you do, but having the proof in the form of a certain number of blog posts or by getting comments from your readers can certainly help you acknowledge what you’ve done and how you’ve grown.
- Getting Yourself More Well Known: It’s sometimes hard to make a name for yourself in the industry, but if you create great content consistently, people should start taking notice. You can show that you’re knowledgeable and passionate about what you do and that can make a difference in the opportunities that you can take advantage of.
You can start off with having a certain reason and it can switch from day to day or from year to year. But making sure to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing and what you’re getting out of it is so important. It’s also fine to realize at some point that you’re not getting anything out of content creation or that you need to take a break. There’s nothing wrong with that! You’re important and making sure you’re not putting too much stress on yourself will mean the best for you in the long run.
Did you enjoy this entry? Do you have any tips or tricks on creating content? Please let me know! I’d love to hear what you think and what kind of things you’d like to see from this blog. Feel free to send me an email or comment with your thoughts!
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