Disney Podcast Updates, well...Eventually!!!

Okay, as pretty much everyone knows, I’m WAAAAY behind on getting the podcasts updated; so much so, in fact, that, even when I do get a batch of shows chronicled, they’re so far outdated that it’s pretty much meaningless.  What happened was two-fold:

• 1.       I tried to accommodate everyone who asked me to look over their shows and start posting updates for them.  Doing this made the amount of time needed to listen and to write the shows up increase tremendously.  It also led to me not being able to remember who said what and when they said it, which further increased the time required to do it.  Ultimately, I found myself listening to shows that were two months old and, more importantly, I wasn’t listening to shows because I wanted to – it became a task.  I no longer got to actually enjoy the shows; rather, I sped through many of them at 125% speed and catching only portions of the shows.  I ended up doing nothing that was my own – all I ended up doing was copying and pasting the show descriptions to the blog and occasionally adding a short blurb.  It had very little of my own stuff there, and I didn’t like that.  I was getting burnt out and almost dreading turning the iPod on.
• 2.       The other main thing that happened is not uncommon for most of us – that thing we call the real world.  On top of being a husband and father; I work full-time as an Economics instructor at Illinois State University.  No biggie – everyone has a job.  I’ve also taken on the role of Academic Advisor for all Econ majors and minors at the university, so that takes up quite a bit of time I used to have free.  Throw in the fact that I also teach courses at the local community college (online and night classes), and that makes for long days.  But wait…there’s more!  I’m also a Ph.D. student trying to finish a dissertation which will likely be over 300 pages long.  Not enough?  Okay, I serve on a committee at church (doesn’t take too much time), but when you add it into the mix, along with being the Den Leader and a committee member of the Cub Scouts for my older son, coach of t-ball for the younger son (seasonal, when cub scouts aren’t going on), and assistant coach for the older son (again, seasonal), and there just aren’t many hours left to listen to shows.  Throw in all the training I did for my first half-marathon last summer/fall (as well as hours upon hours of trying to fundraise for our team), and the occasional hour to eat/sleep/breathe, and you can hopefully understand why things don’t quite get done.

Something had to change – it was getting to the point where I was losing efficiency/productivity by trying to figure out what to do next.

So here’s what’s going to happen with the Disney Podcast updates…I’m not even going to try to catch up with the rest of 2010.  The effort required to do this simply doesn’t justify the returns.  What I’m going to do is this:

1. I’m going to make my “Disney Podcasts 101 for Idiots” blog post as comprehensive as possible, giving exposure to as many podcasts as I can.  As always, a description of the podcast as well as a direct link to the iTunes Store page (and perhaps other ways to download).  You should hopefully see this change starting in the next week. 
2. I’m going to cut back on the number of shows…I’m going to be much more selective on what gets posted.  There will be a core set of podcasts that I will provide updates on (the ones I tend to listen to more often).  These updates will be me talking again for the most part…not simply the show descriptions.  Of course, this means that a lot of shows that were receiving exposure via the regular updates will no longer be getting them.  Don’t worry – on occasion, if I listen to a show that I think deserves special mention (special interview, breaking news, awesome/hilarious segment), there’s a good chance that I’ll include them too.

 It’s not the greatest way of doing it, but at least the updates will have a shot at being current.  I try to include a mention for @Dis_Pod_Review over on Twitter.  Shawn does a fantastic job with currency of the shows and covers a plethora.  Please follow him if you want to get a feel for what recent shows being released are talking about – you won’t be disappointed.  If you are a podcast host and don’t see your shows being updated regularly, please don’t take it personally – time constraints simply are going to keep me from being fully comprehensive.  If you think you have a particular episode that really “hits a home run”, feel free to let me know, and I’ll do what I can to get it in the updates, but I can’t promise that it will get in. 

Remember, the goal of my updates is to provide exposure to podcasts…the hope is that people will find my updates when searching for particular topics and then subscribe/become new listeners.  I hope to do more weekly updates instead of twice a month to maintain a little more consistency and currency (without those, the blog shrivels up and dies….kind of like what my blog has done).  You’ll probably see changes starting in the next week.  I deleted over 500 shows from 2010 that I had yet to listen to/report on, and I’ve actually found renewed interest in listening to them – it’s becoming fun again.