Why I Posted Everyday

Salam Aleikum Everyone!

You know, when I first started this newsletter and named it "The 500," I got a bunch of people asking, "Why 500? What's the story behind it?"

The number “500” represents a big milestone in my creative journey. It took me making 500 videos to get from the day I decided to switch careers to where I am now. I went all-in, coming up with ideas, jotting them down, shooting, editing, and hitting that publish button, every single day, all by myself.

Today, I want to share why I started making videos every day and why, even though it has lots of advantages, it might not be the right choice for everyone.

😰Coping With My Anxiety and Fear
Leaving your full-time job to pursue your passion is a huge risk, there’s more pressure when you have a family to provide for. So from a very personal standpoint, I started making videos every day so that I would wake up each morning and have focus and a purpose. When you’re creating every day, you have structure in your life, or at least some structure 😀and you don’t have time to worry about what can go wrong, you simply create.

🏋️‍♀️Working Out My Creative Muscle
Just like when you practice a sport or dance day in and day out, you get better at it. Because I was creating a piece of content each day, it was the only thing I was professionally focused on, therefore I kept learning new things and improving every day – like how to make my channel better, what stories work better than others, how to frame my stories better, what kind of editing works. This was through a lot of research, trial and error, but you will be surprised at how much & how fast you improve when you focus on something every day.

📈Hacking Growth
You know how in basketball and football (I know I keep using sports analogies 😂) the more shots you take, the higher your chances are to score? When I started making videos every day, I felt like I was giving myself more opportunities to succeed. Any video could potentially go viral, and the more videos I made the more opportunities I was giving myself to make a great video. As a bonus during that time, I noticed that the algorithm appreciated people who post regularly. Even Adobe recently published an article about how the algorithm favors consistency, you can read about it here. 

But like with anything, there’s a flipside to it, it becomes all you ever think about and regardless of what is going on in your life - all that matters is publishing that video.

💭Lack of Strategic Thinking
Admittedly, I wasn't always thinking strategically when it came to my videos. There were days when I wasn’t worried about the story but just getting a video out..Looking back there were a lot of moments when I realized that some videos could have benefited from more careful thought. But then again, if I spent too much time thinking, I might not have ended up making as many videos. It's two sides of the same coin, you know?

Here is a video by Casey Neistat, who was a big inspiration behind me starting daily vlog, he vlogged daily for 800 days and in this video he looks back and describes the biggest lessons from that experience, lessons that I connect with on a very personal level.

☄️Burn Out
I have a funny (well, it’s funny now) story that got me thinking about why taking breaks are important. During one of our travel videos I came down with a severe fever and flu. My then editor came into the room, I thought he was there to check on me, but it was actually to get a voice over for the video of ours he was editing, even though he knew that posting the video was all that mattered, regardless of how sick I was. Can you just picture me thinking he was there to check in on me, maybe even give me some chicken soup, but no, he just wanted stuff for the video 🙁

When you're creating content every day, it’s a sure shot way to burnout. Burnout is like feeling mentally and physically drained because you've been pushing yourself too hard. And trust me, it's not a fun place to be.

The pressure to keep up with daily content felt overwhelming all the time. There was this constant need to deliver looming over my head, and it was exhausting, it took me away from special moments in my life and with the people I love. So now I’ve learnt (and I’m continuing to learn) to take a step back, draw boundaries and use my resources to reduce the toll this takes on me. I found this snippet from Ali Abdaal’s podcast to have helpful advice when it comes to avoiding burn out.

In hindsight, I realised a lot of that growth came from a few videos that did exceptionally well. Sometimes I wonder if instead of creating one video a day, I might have grown faster if I made fewer videos more intentionally instead. But the good news is that, with this experience of making content every day, I’ve learnt a great deal about what works for me, what works for my audience and how to bring the two together. So now I can focus on quality as opposed to quantity.

Some of you may do great with a strict schedule and regular posting, while others may prefer to take their time and think things through. We all have our unique ways of doing things, and that's the cool thing about being a creator! It's all about finding what works best for you.The only thing is that you focus on doing the best work you can consistently. So, don't let the pressure get to you. It's okay to slow down, recharge, and come back stronger. Your audience will understand, and they'll appreciate the genuine and refreshed content you bring to the table.

 🗞 In Other News

Over the past week we released a few sketch comedies, with more actors and increased production. The picture below is me on the set of a comedy video we shot with Rani; a drink I had all the time growing up as a kid in the UAE.

Making comedy videos has been a passion of mine since I started out as a creator, and I have decided to put a lot more focus on the writing and production of the videos. It has been such a fun experiment so far and something I hope to make a core part of our video strategy, you can watch the videos here, here and here 😁 

Until next week!
Much love & God Bless❤️✌️,
Khalid

P.S. Drop me a line and share your own creative journey – I'm all ears.