How consistent is 'consistent'?

“Quantity is what you do for yourself. Quality is what you do for your audience.”

Some of you will have noticed that I haven’t been positing on YouTube as consistently as I used to. This post is half an attempt at me trying to justify that internally to myself, and half trying to breakdown what it means to be ‘consistent’ as a creator.

There are two ways of looking at consistency. The first is on a micro-level, where you examine how many videos you’re publishing a week, or per month. The gold standard for YouTube is around 1-2 videos a week if you’re trying to optimise for growth (more on this later) - this was the schedule I’ve stuck to for the past year and a half. I started by publishing 2 videos a month to begin with, then gradually bumped that up to 1 video a week earlier this year.

But there’s a second type of consistency, which occurs on a more macro-level. It’s staying consistent with YouTube over a long period of time, whilst ignoring the weekly schedule. A good example of someone who’s been consistent in this way is Oliur, a tech YouTuber I’ve taken great inspiration from - he’s been doing YouTube for over 9 years now, but he’s never really stuck to a strict uploading schedule per say. By the looks of it, it appears he just posts whenever he has something interesting to share with his audience. Even though he doesn’t upload consistently in the short run though, he’s been consistent over the long run, and has enjoyed a lot of well-deserved success on the platform.

Using an investing analogy, short term consistency is like increasing your annual return, whilst long term consistency is like increasing your holding period - the latter becomes more important over time.

Both approaches have their own merits. Having a weekly uploading schedule helps you to stay accountable, and ensures you’re getting the reps needed to master the art of video creation. I’d argue that for most creators it takes about 50-60 videos to actually become ‘decent’ at making videos (videos that you won’t internally cringe at). If you’re only posting twice a month, it’s going to take you 2 years before you hit this level! However, if you stick to a schedule of posting 1 video per week, you’ll get there in a year - this is why I played the 1 video per week game earlier this year, because I knew it’s what I needed to actually get good at making videos.

There is an issue with sticking to a strict schedule, though, and that’s the fact that it can become unsustainable. A lot of creators fall into the trap of creating content just for the sake of creating content. This often turns people towards making clickbaity videos that turn off their audience (I'm sure you can think of a few case studies where this has happened). That’s why I included the quote at the beginning of this email. In the early stages, the focus is on learning to create good videos, which requires you to just churn out videos even if they aren’t the greatest; you’re effectively prioritising quantity over quality, which requires you to upload consistently in the short-run. It's fine that the videos aren't great because you won't have a large audience to begin with - no harm, no foul. You’ll learn 90% of what you need about making videos using this approach. But eventually you’ll reach a point where you’re at peace with the quality of your videos (you don’t internally cringe at them), at which point the focus shifts to quality over quantity. Every ‘bad’ video you upload at this stage has a negative effect on your reputation and your relationship with your audience, so you have to be more careful about ensuring your videos are of a high quality - this means spending more time on research, more time on ensuring your story is engaging. And if, like me, you’re also doing YouTube alongside a full-time job, posting once a week might not be the most sustainable of schedules.

Bringing this all together, I think that I’m at the point with my channel where I’m pretty happy with the production value of my videos - sure, there are certainly improvements I could make (I’ve got a whole list of them), but if my boss was to watch one of my more recent videos today, I’d have no qualms about what he would think. And going forward, I’d like to only post content when I have something interesting to share, rather than trying to force something just for the sake of posting. I think it would be better for everyone if I published my next iPhone review when it's ready, rather than 2 weeks after launch date because that's what my schedule has told me to do. That’s why for the time being, I won’t be sticking to a strict short-term schedule. I’ll still aim to post around 2-3 videos per month, but only when I think it’s a video I think will resonate with you guys.

Whats New

iPhone 16 Pro Max review

You’d think this would be a boring video given how incremental the upgrades to the iPhone 16s this year were (I managed to get away with using my iPhone 15 Pro Max for most of the video without people noticing). But as always, Apple have managed to find a way to stoke a lot of controversy with this release, and there was a lot to talk about in this review - ranging from how far the iPhone has come, its video capabilities, and (of course) Apple Intelligence.

17 iPhone tricks I had no idea existed

Not everyone buys the new iPhone every year (actually, most people don’t), but that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to make your current phone feel brand new - one of those is learning new iPhone tricks you never knew about before. (A warning: a lot of these tips are pretty advanced).

Monthly Favourites

• Books - Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, by Edith Hamilton. Never thought I’d be reading a book on Greek mythology, but a friend recommended it to me and I’m absolutely loving it. I think it’s often very easy to fall into the trap of only reading books about productivity, business and personal finance when you’re in the whole hustle-bro bubble, so reading something more on the fiction side is a nice change.
• Movies - American Psycho. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this. If you’ve not seen it yet, make it your goal before the end of the year.
• Music - Mr Morale & The Big Steppers, by Kendrick Lamar. Shouldn’t have to justify why this is a banger. Also fun fact: in Apple Music you’ll often find that there are 2 versions of an album when you scroll down to the bottom. Turns out one of them is the ‘clean’ version that removes all of the expletives, so if you listen to a lot of music which contains profanities, you now have a safe-for-work option (should work on Spotify too, but I haven’t checked).