I keep track of everything I try to do 1% better each time I release a new YouTube video.
I’m not going to start teaching how to do YouTube, but I did want to share just how many things can make a 1% difference.
Stack them up over time and it makes a massive change.
1. Writing scripts
2. Making thumbnails before the video
3. Creating the title before the video
4. Hiring a thumbnail designer
5. Sharing my thumbnails with people to get feedback
6. Using Photoshop to build thumbnails
7. Spending way more time researching what’s working with thumbnails
8. Watching competitors videos
9. Learning what competitors are doing to get views
10. Trying to create videos around what my viewers want to watch, not what I want to share/say
11. Focusing on the juicy idea, then thumbnail, then title, then video
12. Not letting fear of judgement dictate what my video will be about
13. Focusing on stories not facts
14. Building the stakes before each point
15. Writing my intro over and over
16. Testing my intro and getting feedback
17. Writing a script and leaving it for a week
18. Using a teleprompter
19. Providing more feedback for editing
20. Sharing unfinished videos to be critiqued
21. Opening myself up to shock and story over fact and truth
22. Allowing thumbnails to take 95% of the time
23. Getting the idea to be as juicy and clickable/watchable as possible
24. Researching ideas and brainstorming 10 ideas and scraping them all
25. Deleting large sections of my scripts
26. Rewriting my scripts from scratch
27. Creating curiosity with my thumbnails
28. Leaning into people’s more base desires and goals and feelings
29. Not trying to “rise above” people’s wants and desires
30. Reducing the amount of information in my videos
31. Focusing on making the viewer feel smart
32. Removing my need to be seen as smart or hard working
33. Providing way more feedback for my thumbnails to my team
34. Taking more time to create the thumbnail
35. Using AI to mock a draft version of the thumbnail
36. Investing in communities and training for YouTube
37. Make sure the camera is not on the desk to prevent shaking
38. Using Loom to record a rough draft brain dump video first
39. Writing a script breakdown from that Loom
40. Spending more time writing stories and getting feedback on them
41. Giving feedback to more people’s YouTube stuff to better my own work
42. Deleting 3 recorded videos and scripts and starting again
43. Spend more time on the photograph and less time on the graphic design
44. Pushing video titles to their extreme with bigger numbers, bigger claims, safer more tested ideas, new ideas, easy, fast and simple results
45. Sharing intros with the team
46. Sharing title thumbnails with the team
47. Forcing myself to share scripts, thumbnails and titles with my friends and team
48. Creating 4 different ideas per video
49. Make the photograph tell 90% of the story
50. Write an intro/hook first and base the thumbnail off that
51. Write an entire script and create a thumbnail from that, then redo the video if needed
