Since starting my project-recording journey, I’ve discovered that making videos takes much more time than I initially expected.

Over the past several weeks, as I’ve been recording my progress on several projects, I’ve been thinking about the time it takes to make a single item.  Not just the time it takes to “create” a video: with all the editing, voiceovers, additional recordings, and laying down music tracks that make sense for each video.  But also the overall time it takes to work on a garment. 

For instance, one of my projects I’ve been focusing on over the past couple of weeks has taken a lot of time.  I have more than 6 hours of recordings of just what I’m doing at the machine.  This does not consider any of the time spent ironing anything, or the hand sewing I completed.  Nor does it take into account all the time spent cutting out the pattern, adjusting the pattern, and then cutting the fabric.  All of that took more than 6 hours.  So minimum, this one project is 12 hours.  And that is just from cutting the pattern to the final assembly. 

Then there’s the video editing.  Now, I haven’t started my YouTube because I’m still finishing up all these videos as well as I’m in research mode.  After I had about 4 hours of recording, I had fully edited the video, knowing I would still need to go back and complete an intro and an outro.  But as I began to research, I discovered that I needed to re-do the entire editing process.  Thankfully I kept track of the time spent.  In May alone, I spent 13 hours editing the first draft.

In June and July, I spent more than 30 hours editing the second draft. 

All told, between all of the work spent to just put the one garment together, and then adding in all the editing, I spent at least 55 hours (and possibly even more if I missed something) on just one video.  And that video is about 40 minutes long (including the intro and outro). 

I knew it was going to take time to do this work.  And knowing now what I do, I realize I need to really make sure I stay focused on each project. 

Now, I’m not creating my YouTube just yet because I really want to make sure I have a buffer.  And clearly, I need it.  I do have several other projects I recorded that need some final editing, as well as some others I haven’t started editing at all yet. 

I’m really hoping to get it all done this month so I can launch my channel towards the end of July.  That’s the ideal situation.  And then I should have at least a 6-week buffer.  Now this first video is obviously the longest.  The other projects I’ve worked on were much simpler and less time-consuming.  But having that buffer will be very helpful.

The other thing is that I’m trying to write as well.  And besides my blog, my LinkedIn post, and my daily journal, I did not do any other writing last week, period.  Which is just not good.  I have to make sure I get to it. 

Having the Review helped because it gave me insight into what I’m not doing.  And I’ll definitely do that review process again probably in August.  In any case, I need to really maintain my structure and not get overwhelmed with video editing so much that it takes over my writing time. 

Time is the hardest thing for a maker, in whatever capacity we create.  Time is something you cannot make more of it or take back.  Time marches ever forward, and all we can do is organize ourselves in such a way that we can maximize it.  The maker’s dilemma is not whether the work is worth the time: it’s learning to protect enough time to keep making.