Batching

Tonight was the night I needed to get some video editing done. Luckily it wasn’t anything too hectic today, it was just my Weekly Quote Drop videos, so only 50-60seconds long with a photo overlay.

But after not doing any editing for a couple of days, it really took me a little while to get into it. Typically, when I film my main video content, I will then film anywhere between 2 and 4 Weekly Quote Drops while everything is already set up. This system is know as batching, and is especially useful with such short videos. It would probably take me longer to set the camera up and take it down than it takes to film each video.

The same can be said with the editing. I’ll drop the whole video (tonight’s was 5 mins long) into iMovie, and then split it into the different Quote Drops This can then be topped and tailed to make sure that the start and end finish well, and I’ll pull out any more mess ups in the middle.

I use Canva to create a thumbnail that I also overlay the main video as the quote is being read out. I think this gives a nice contrast, and I’ve specifically designed the quote to be quite minimalist. I love Canva, and am trialling the premium version to see if it is worthwhile. Again, these thumbnails were designed one after another while I had the template open. It was really easy to copy and paste the quote from Notion.

All in all, each video will take 3-4 mins to edit, and another 3-4 mins to create the thumbnail and pull in any links etc for the video description or social media. If I set the camera up to film each one individually, or edited each one individually, it would take probably near an hour overall. Instead, 4 videos has taken my 30 mins. So that’s the time to write this article or read a book with my son.

Batching is common sense in a lot of ways, but actually how many people purposefully plan their day or working hours so they can complete similar tasks at one? Have you thought about batching and how you can use it to complete your tasks in less time?