It's easy to waste away time in editing videos to try and make them perfect but as with anything, there's work that's valuable and work that's not and being able to separate and prioritise that work, is the key to efficient use of time.
In order to create a successful social media channel, you need to be able to produce good content frequently. Good being good enough and frequent enough to remain relevant.
This is one method to ensuring the refining process to create video content spent on valuable stuff rather than wasting time and although the example here is video, it can really be used for anything.
The difference between a good video and a great video is in the refinement, the bit that makes your video extra smooth and easy to watch. Using this basic Agile technique, you can review your videos, surface everything that could be changed and then prioritise your editing time to ensure you're spending it as efficiently as possible.
Basically the steps are;
Export your video to somewhere you can watch without distraction but also see the timestamp on the video.
Grab Post-It notes and a Sharpie or alternatively Trello or similar software, as long as you can label and change the order easily.
As you watch the video, write down on each Post-It the time and what it is that needs to be fixed or changed. For example: "0:13 - Speed ramp this bit to the music"
Once you watched the whole video, layout your Post-It notes
Write a t-shirt size on each one, Small, Medium and Large for the amount of time you'll need to fix or enhance it.
Then write next to the size, how valuable that is to you and your audience as Low, Medium and High. Low is something kind of annoying but not critical, High being it really affects either their enjoyment or understanding of the video.
Create two columns, To-Do and Done either on the desk if you have the room or a wall around your desk, whatever is convenient.
Now prioritise the list using both Size and Value, in the To-Do column, place the High Value + Smallest items at the top and Low Value + Large items at the bottom. Then place your High-Value + Mediums under the top ones, Low Value + Medium above the bottom ones, keep going until everything is on the wall. Your most valuable and smallest items come first, your least valuable and largest items last.
Now go through the list, editing each one, as you complete it, move it to the Done column.
Keep going until you run out of time or you're happy that you've returned enough value for the time spent. If you feel like you're not really doing anything valuable, stop working and get onto making the next bit of content!
Using this method ensures you are getting high-value items out of the way first, a larger volume of important things done first and then the heavier stuff later. So if you run out of time, you haven't wasted time on low-value items.
