If I were to boil down my year to just one line, it will be the year of building habits. I have checked a number off my list including, but not limited to, reading, writing, meditation, and running. One of the fundamental reasons for my being able to build those habits (relatively) painlessly is that I placed and adhered to strict constraints.
For example, I told myself I had gone on a “run” if I managed to make it down my driveway, if I did that, then I could add that to my run streak. When I was learning to meditate, I told myself I could count it as meditating if I sat through a 10 minute guided meditation, irrespective of whether I was thinking of other things or not. Having these clear and low-hanging thresholds made it a lot easier to build the muscle for doing each thing.
Now that I have decided that I want to start a YouTube channel, I thought it wise to outline the thresholds I want to hold myself accountable to for getting into the rhythm of making videos. The guiding principle here is to make things as frictionless and as painless as can be by clarifying what hurdles I need to clear to be able to chalk a video as complete. Sooner or later, the muscle for making videos will strengthen and I won’t need to rely on these arbitrary thresholds.
Talking-head video format
Of all the video types and formats, the talking-head-video is the lowest of low hanging-fruits. The equipment and labour is minimal, with the only requirement being a camera. The lighting is free so long as one has a window at their disposal while audio from the camera is legible enough.
Light cosmetic editing
After cutting the footage into a rought A-cut, the only edits I am allowing myself to indulge in are simple title screens, transitions, image-with-pop-sound-effect, light background music, sassy text overlays, and timely sound effects. The end product is not going to be the most compelling piece of filmmaking you are ever going to see, but my hope is that it turns out polished as I gain more confidence with being in front of the camera with practice.