One of the best things I've ever done as a content creator is I boiled six different YouTube channels down into one simple spreadsheet that helps me see exactly what I need to do today, keeps everything super simple, and helps me appreciate that what I'm doing is enough.
One Spreadsheet for Six Channels
This spreadsheet is the essential part of my six YouTube channel system, and it helps because instead of me looking at how many views I'm getting, I look at what I'm contributing. And what I'm contributing so far? This is the 10th video I've filmed today. I've done spreadsheets like this before. I've been a YouTuber since 2011, and I deleted everything. I got burned out last year. Then I started out again with six new fresh channels, and I started my spreadsheet back on May 18th. I simply started tracking how many videos I publish a day and how many minutes of content I publish a day, and then I do the averages. I've published 435 videos in less than the last four months. That's an average of 5.4 videos a day, 75 minutes of content a day, and 102 hours of content total.
Then I've got my publishing schedule in the spreadsheet, with one column for the longs, then a short one column and a short two column. I've started adding shorts into the mix because first I had to get my long video system down so fast that I can crank out six long videos a day — and even do more than that to get ahead so I can actually take days off. Now my content is going so rapidly that I also want to add, if I can, filming 12 shorts a day and posting those also: 18 videos a day. Because this spreadsheet makes it super obvious what I need to do. More videos, more videos.
And I've got the results to show for it: half a million views and over 5 million impressions. That means my videos have been seen over 5 million times across brand new channels over the last four months on all kinds of different topics. And this one spreadsheet is how it's done. This one spreadsheet shows what I need to do, and it helps make my mission clear.
Focus on What You're Giving, Not What You're Getting
Yesterday, I realized I need to stop — I need to speed up my process. Like on August 4th, I only was able to get three videos done. Now, that was 55 minutes of content, but I only got three videos done. On August 2nd, I got 17 videos published. Today, this will be 10 so far.
If you're a content creator, it can seem really complicated, and you can be focusing on the results you're getting all the time. But really, what you need to focus on is what you're giving. This is what I'm giving. Today, this will be the 10th video, and I'm hoping I can film maybe 10 more videos before I'm done today. And we're going to do a lot more shorts. My shorts filming system has gotten ridiculously fast: I generate a thumbnail off ChatGPT, download it, take a title idea, and stick it on the background. Then I go over to the shorts view on OBS, drop the shorts view thumbnail in, hit record, talk for a minute, hit record, and upload. And then I have AI that automatically takes the metadata and sticks it in the video. Super fast to publish.
Quality Is Subjective — Quantity Is Not
So if you want to be a successful content creator, to me the essential thing to do is track how fast and how many of your videos you're getting out. How many videos on average are you cranking out a day? How many are you actually publishing? Most people don't even get past their first 20 to 30 videos. And I've literally done that on six different channels — I've published over 50 videos on six different channels in the last four months. If you want to speed up your growth on YouTube, the number one thing to do, in my opinion, is post faster and speed up your workflow, because you only have so much time to film content. And the goal is to get as much quality content out as fast as possible.
Now, quality is subjective, but quantity is not. Like, no one's going to disagree that I published 435 videos since May 18th. This is hard data. And the daily average to me is like a measure of how good I'm doing. Well, if I'm cranking five and a half videos out a day, that's pretty good. But you know what? I think I can do it — I can get that up to eight or 10 videos a day. And I think I can get this published count up by the end of the year to well over a thousand, if not closer to 1,500. And the minutes of content a day doesn't really need to change that much. If you follow all my channels, you have 75 new minutes of content you can watch every single day. You have 102 hours of my content that you could watch. And that doesn't include the first couple of months when I started up and was going at a bit slower pace.
The Other Essential: Community
This spreadsheet has been one of the most essential things I've done as a content creator. Another essential thing I've done is I have community. I talk to other YouTubers. I host the Jerry Banfield Family, which is here to support you as a content creator — you can jump in and join the Family, share your YouTube channel, share what you're doing, ask for feedback, and DM me. I'm available if you want to have a one-on-one call — it's included right in the Premium and VIP memberships — or you can schedule a one-off call with me.
If you want to be a better creator, the hard way to do it is to try and struggle yourself. The easy way to do it is to go to someone like me: a veteran who's done tens of thousands of videos online, who's made millions and millions of dollars online, who got so burnt out I deleted everything, and who started back up and is crushing it on brand new channels this year. If you want more of this, I go deeper on all of it in my YouTube Coaching playlist.
So this spreadsheet is one of the most essential things I've done, which is why I've written this whole post about it. One simple sheet keeps six channels moving, keeps my mission clear, and reminds me every day that what I'm contributing is enough.