I Haven’t Batched My Posts for Over a Year – Here’s Why & What I'm Doing Instead

Feel guilty for not batching your content a month in advance? You’re not alone. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I’m opening up about why I stopped batching 30 days of content—and how I’ve found a more flexible, aligned system that still keeps me consistent. Learn how your content creation process can evolve with your season of life, why strict routines might be holding you back, and how to build a workflow that actually works for you. If batching feels overwhelming, this is your permission slip to do it differently. Let’s dig in!

 Check out the full show notes for this episode.

Things I cover inside the episode:
✨ Why I stopped batching 30 days of content—and what I’m doing instead
✨ How to build a hybrid system that supports both structure and creativity
✨ Why batching used to be my lifeline—and why it isn’t anymore
✨ How to repurpose old content effectively (without sounding repetitive)
✨ What to consider when batching doesn’t work for you anymore

Resources & Links Mentioned in this episode:
🔗 Later.com, where I schedule my posts to auto-publish when I batch ahead!

Connect with me:
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🫶🏼 Join my 321 Create Newsletter for weekly content tips
🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership

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Transcript

0:00

You should find a structure that really supports your creativity and doesn't strangle it. And I have met plenty of female business owners who say to me, bashing doesn't work at all for me. I need the creativity. I need the ability to make whatever I feel like the day of. And I'm like, good for you. Like that's, if that's what works for you, do it. That does not work for me. Welcome to the Creative Bodega, a podcast about content marketing, Instagram growth and personal branding for female service-based solopreneurs who wanna grow their business without letting it take over their lives. I'm your host, EM Connors, and each week I'll share actionable tips, expert advice, and unfiltered truths to help you create engaging content, connect authentically with your audience, and turn followers into loyal customers, all without the burnout. If you're ready to simplify your content creation, navigate the ever changing trends and build a business that works for you while staying sane in this crazy season of life, then you're in the right place. Welcome back to the Creative Bodega Podcast. Today's episode is part confession, part strategy, and if I'm being honest, it's something I've been sitting on sharing for quite a while because I'm not gonna lie, it feels a little uncomfortable for me to admit this to you, especially as someone who's built kind of like your entire business around content systems and batching. Here is the truth. I haven't been batching my content for probably over a year, if I'm being really honest. That's right. Me the batching queen, the consistency queen. I haven't been batching, and honestly, I feel like a little embarrassed, even maybe a little ashamed because I kind of teach and preach that, right? I'm like, you guys, you, you know, you gotta batch ahead. You gotta create that content. You gotta show up consistently. And I felt like I was breaking some like unwritten rule that I created for myself. But the truth is. My business and my life looks so different now from when I first started, and maybe yours does too. And just because I'm not actively doing what I teach most of you to do doesn't mean I'm not allowed to teach it. Right? It's almost like comparing yourself. To a nutrition coach who doesn't track her food anymore, right? So I used to be a nutrition coach and I used to track my food in my FitnessPal, and I just honestly memorized what I had to eat, what, what the macro breakdown was. I didn't have to track anymore. I had reached my goal. I wasn't trying to gain or lose. I was good. So I was teaching people how to track their food in order to become more aware of what they were putting in their bodies. But I wasn't actively doing it anymore. But does that mean that I wasn't allowed to teach it? No. So I, I kind of justify it that way, just because I'm not actively batching 30 days of content ahead of time anymore. I. Doesn't mean I didn't do it at one time, and doesn't mean that it's not what helped me get to where I am because it absolutely did. So I want to take you behind the scenes of sort of why I stopped batching my content weeks in advance. What changed in my content creation workflow and what I've learned that might give you permission to do content your way. That feels good to you, right? And because I know you are all busy professionals, working mothers, all the things. I have created all the notes for you on this episode. You can find those on the created bodega.com/blog/fifteen. So if I didn't batch, when I first started the Creative Bottega, I didn't post. And if I didn't post, I was never gonna grow my business and fulfill my dream of leaving my job and becoming my own boss, right? I had kids in preschool and my absolute goal was to be there at the bus stop when they got on the bus in the morning and when they got off. And I didn't want anybody telling me I couldn't be there. I didn't wanna be sitting at a freaking desk until 5:00 PM on the dot, just because that's what the boss said I had to do, even if my work was done like I was in my forties. I'm turning 44. Let's see, today is the 25th of April that I'm recording this. I actually turned 44 on April 29th, so I was about 40. I was 40 when I started this and. I just was like, I'm an adult. If I'm done with my work, I want to get up and I wanna leave. If my kid is sick and needs me to pick them up, I want to be able to leave and go get them, and I don't want anyone giving me any, you know what, these kids are my life. You know, I waited a long time to become a mom and I'm not gonna miss any second of it. So my why was. So tangible and so real. I wanted to be available for my kids in a way that, you know, to be honest, I didn't really feel like my parents were available to me, and that's probably a whole other, you know, podcast episode in and of itself. But I needed to batch ahead. Because if I didn't, I wasn't posting. Why? Because we owned our gym. At that time, I was the head nutrition coach for our gym. I was the head content creator. I was batching for our gym and I was mentoring other gym owners on how to grow their business. And I had, I. You know, four or five calls a day that were 45 minutes long on Zoom and I was, I had 15 minutes in between calls. That's all. I had to eat lunch to go to the bathroom. I couldn't be creating content in between calls. So if I wasn't batching for the creative bodega, this like little side hustle, that was like a passion project at the time, I wasn't posting at all and if I wasn't posting, there was absolutely no way I was gonna grow my business. And that really wasn't an option. To me, I was so miserable, to be honest. I was so miserable in my current state in having these back-to-back calls in our gym. I was over our gym. I was over nutrition coaching. I had become a bad coach because I just was frustrated with people's lack of drive. And people just not doing what they said they were gonna do and I couldn't do it for them. I just remember sitting there in some of my last nutrition appointments with clients being like, if I could come to your house and do this for you, I would, you sit here and you tell me you want this so badly, you cry. Right? But like. You really don't need me. You need a therapist. You, you need something. This is much deeper than me just telling you what to eat.'cause that's the easy part, right? If everyone just ate what they were supposed to eat, whole real foods on a consistent basis, everybody would be fine. But that's just not life and it's more complicated than that. And I was just finding that I was not cut out or qualified to really deal with. What a lot of these people were struggling with when it came to the relationship with food. So, uh, I digress a little bit, but I did not start batching because I loved systems or was super organized. Although I, I do kind of love systems and I am quite organized, but I did it because I had no other option if I wanted to grow my business. The creative bodega. I had to post that was a non-negotiable, so I was in survival mode. I had, honestly, technically three jobs. I owned the gym with my husband. I was our head nutrition coach and content planner, content manager, and I was a mentor for this dietician that I worked for. So I honestly had three jobs, and then I had two toddlers, both in preschool. Two and three year olds, and I did not have content to repurpose for the Creative Bodega yet. I wasn't there yet. I hadn't, you know, I had just started my business, so it wasn't like I could pull upon all these past posts and, you know, use them. Batching wasn't just a productivity tip at that point. It was my lifeline. And it really did bring me a lot of joy. It brought me a lot of joy to work on content for this business that was just a baby. It was a twinkle in my eye. It was a dream, to be honest, and I did not know what was gonna happen with it. I didn't know if it would work. I knew that at that time I was so miserable in my current state that I really felt like I had no other choice than to go all in on something that could work. Right? So. Every single piece of content that I was making for the Creative Bodega at that 0.4 years ago was brand new that I did not have a bank to pull upon. I did start using Canva templates, but everything was basically new content. And what I was doing at that time was I was bing mostly on the weekends when my kids would be watching TV, watching a movie or napping.'cause they still napped at that point. So whatever time I could carve out. Between the naps, between feeding my kids or taking care of them, I was batching content ahead of time for both our gym and the creative bodega. So I was here burnt out on nutrition coaching. I was exhausted working on our gym, working so hard on our gym, watching my husband work so hard in our gym and not reaping the benefits financially at all. And I was tired of trading. Time for money. With these mentoring calls, I had more, no more time. I couldn't move up the ladder, so if I wasn't taking calls, I wasn't making money. And it just, it was like a trap. I felt like I was in quicksand, honestly, and I needed an escape plan. And the creative bodega was that escape plan. And again, I had no clue what the outcome would be. Zero, none. But fast forward to today. My business has evolved so much. I quote unquote, made it, if you will. I have been able to make a really lovely income from my business. My family's evolved and grown. My kids are now in elementary school, which is amazing. And I've evolved as a business owner. So as we closed our gym, my husband got a job back in finance. I was able to step away from my mentoring job. I was able to step away from nutrition coaching, and I was able to go all in on the creative bodega and suddenly, instead of having a couple hours every week to work on my business. I had all day, like literally all day, which was nuts. I remember that first week just being like, oh my God, what am I gonna do with all this time? And I'm not one to sit around and watch TV when I'm supposed to be working, right? So I wasn't like, you know, eating bon bonds and sitting on the couch. I was hustling in my job and working really hard to build something right, to build this dream to, to prove to myself that I could do it. And what came with that more time was better systems, right? I was able to create these Canva templates that would save me hours each week. I was able to come up with a really strong posting strategy. That would get people to connect and convert with me on Instagram. I, the more I posted, the more I had this bank of posts to pull upon and repurpose. The more I posted, the more clear my messaging got, and the more clear my brand pillars became, and those evolved, right with every post that I made, or every conversation that I had, or every student that bought a course from me and gave me feedback. I still love structure, don't get me wrong, like trust me, I still have a strong framework and structure, but I've just shifted how I approach batching and what that looks like for me. So what I used to do was batch literally five to six posts a week. Pretty much every post of the week I would batch. I have a posting schedule where each day of the week, I know what type of post I'm putting out, what pillar relates back to it, what type of post it is, if it's a reel, if it's a carousel, all of that. So I take all that guesswork out of it, which is glorious. I highly recommend you do that if you haven't already. But I would sit down and I would batch. If Monday's my how-to reel, I would batch four of those in a row, and there you go. That's four Mondays, there's typically four of every day of the week in the month, so I'd have a month's worth of how-to reels. Then I'd move on to the next day, okay, I need four carousels about content creation. Let me go in, let me pull up my templates and let me batch those. Great. Done. Then I move on to Wednesday. So that's how I would batch before and I really would try to batch. Pretty much every single day of the week, and I did this for years. I did it for years and now I still batch, but I'm pretty much batching like two to three core posts for the week, the week before or maybe two weeks before. Uh, the rest, usually two to three other posts I'm creating a little more, bit more intuitively, maybe a couple days before, maybe even the day before. I am pulling upon all these posts at this point that have done really well. You know, I'm tracking my posts so I know what my top six are from every single week and, or month rather. And I'm, I'm reusing those. I am not like recreating the wheel every week. I've now batched and created so much content four years in. That I can kind of sit back a little bit and pull upon previous posts that I think performed really well and got people to save, share, comment, all of that. And I, I'm really leaning into that. So one boundary that I do not cross is that I never create a post the day of, like that's my personal sanity line if I don't have a post for that day. I let the day go and, and I'm, I've just started doing that. It's a slippery slope. I, I'm really scared that if I don't post, I'll get in the habit of not posting. So I do prefer to show up five to six days a week. I. It's not hard for me to do at this point because all my systems are so buttoned up and because I have so much content to pull upon if I need it, but I really do refuse to feel that state of being frazzled and having to get a post out that day. I just, I won't do it. So I really do everything in my power to get everything pretty much. Scheduled the week before, if I'm looking at just one week ahead, right? So if this is, well, today is Friday actually, so I will look at my content for what's coming out next week. If I don't have stuff, I'll start digging, start creating, and I'll get it all pretty much figured out by Monday so that the week goes pretty smoothly. But I'm not going much past a week. So whereas I used to sort of teach and preach like, oh, batch 30 days ahead. Like, I'm not batching 30 days ahead anymore. Does that mean you shouldn't? Absolutely not. That might work for you. You may be in the same season of life that I was in when I first started the Creative Bottega. You might have another full-time job. This may be your passion project that you're posting for Bion 30 days ahead may bring you a ton. Freedom and sanity. And if it does, kudos to you, right? Do that. I did that for years. But what my content creation looks like now, it's really more of a hybrid, right? So number one, I definitely have a weekly theme based on whatever my podcast is that week. So that is my Monday post now is whatever my podcast is, I'm creating a carousel that relates back to the podcast theme, and my call to action is to download. The podcast or to listen to the podcast, right? This really helps me like stay on brand and help promote my podcast and then I will batch two to three core posts. Like these are really like my anchor posts for the week. It's the A Canva, how to for sure. I do every single week and it's probably like a content creation carousel, like something to make content creation easier. Those three are pretty well mapped out for the week, and then the rest are sort of like, you know what I feel like making that week, whether it's a color story or it is a Canva roundup of like fonts or a Canva element Roundup. Or maybe it is. A talking head reel where I'm just sort of shooting a shit with you and like sharing what's going on in my life or whatever. Or maybe it's a meme reel, right? Maybe it's meant to be sort of entertaining and funny and show you my sense of humor. But I am leaving space for feeling kind of inspired and for creating more timely content, right? So think like trends or behind the scenes or like real time insights. And then I am 1000000% leveraging my existing content bank. Again, four years of posting six days a week. I have so much content to pull upon, and I think this is a misconception a lot of people have is like. Just because you post something once, you can never post it again or that concept is done like you post about it once. Oh no. People are gonna see that you, you post about it again and they're gonna be like, I saw that post three months ago. No, it literally doesn't happen. You're giving yourself too much credit. I. If people notice that you're posting the same content, like they're your super fans, they, they love you, they're, they're consuming all the content, they're drinking the Kool-Aid and good for them. And even if they do, they're not gonna stop following you because you're repurposing something like that's just not gonna happen. If they do, honestly, you don't want them as a client or a friend. So, and then of course, I'm absolutely leaning upon my reusable Canva templates. I'm not reinventing the wheel. I am not, you know, going in and creating a new design every time I am gonna post something that I'm creating a Canva. Absolutely not. I've got my templates, I've got my systems, and I've got my tool later.com where I schedule all of my content in advance. I'm telling you, I. Just even visually seeing these things planned out for the month or either week ahead, like I know where the holes are, I know where I have to fill in. It's, it helps me get really strategic and not waste time creating content that I don't need right now. Right. I am looking at that calendar. I'm saying, okay, I've got Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday scheduled out, so that means I need a Wednesday and a Friday post. Perfect. What do I normally post on Wednesdays and Fridays? Oh, okay. So Wednesdays is usually like a photo of me or a talking head reel or a meme reel. Great. Which one do I wanna do? Oh yeah, I saved that inspiration that couple days ago that I'm seeing a lot of people do. I'm gonna do that meme reel. Perfect. Wednesday's done Friday. I typically do a color story. Do I wanna create a new one? Do I wanna use an old one? Do I wanna do something else? Right? So just, you know, leaving those couple days for that creative freedom, it feels good for me. Now, it used to feel not good. It used to make me panic, and now I don't mind it, right? So again, I've evolved, things have changed in my business, things have changed in my personal life to allow for this type of. More loose planning. Loose batching, if you will. So I would say that systems are seasonal, right? Systems are seasonal. The right way is one that supports your current life, right? Your current life, not the one before. And for me, the one before my previous life was one where I did need to batch 30 days in advance. And I did do that. Then things have evolved for me and the right way that doesn't feel like the right way anymore. And I'm being honest with myself and I'm being honest with you. And that's really hard because I know that you guys, you know, you probably look at me and you're like, she batches all these days in advance and she doesn't have to do anything real time. And you know, and while part of that's true, part of it's not. And I felt like I kind of had to like come clean with you on that. There's no gold star for bashing 30 days at once. No one's gonna give you anything. You should find a structure that really supports your creativity and doesn't strangle it. And I have met plenty of female business owners who say to me, bashing doesn't work at all for me. I need the creativity. I need the ability to make whatever I feel like the day of. And I'm like, good for you. That's if that's what works for you. Do it. That does not work for me. I cannot create the day of, I actually feel strangled. I feel so much pressure that honestly, my brain almost goes dead and I, I don't know what to make. It's just too, it's all too much, and that's why matching in advance, even if it's a couple days a week like I do now. It gives me that lighter feeling for those other days of, of the week where I can sort of make something more real time. So again, everyone's different. Then you may be listening to this and be like, Nope, I'm the opposite. That's totally fine. That's totally fine. You don't owe anyone a rigid routine. Right. As a content coach or as a content creator, as a small business owner, you get to evolve. Right. So I really do teach batching because I find that it does give you freedom, right? It's, it's not because it's the only way to do content, the right way, that's just absolutely false. I will never say that. Ironically, right before I went to record this podcast, I got a DM from an alumni of mine. Her name is Carolina, and she just went through the Insta Campa Collective, which is my eight week signature course. She said, and I quote once again, thank you so much for your help in IXCC. It's helped me massively. Content creation feels light and exciting instead of the profound dread that I used to feel before. Like that is gold that I, I wrote her right back and I was like, I need to screenshot this. I need to like change the headline on my IXCC sales page. That is what I hope to bring people's lives. I want content creation to feel light and exciting. I don't want you to dread it.'cause you know what? If you're dreading it. We're gonna feel that on the other side of it, if you're just checking off a box and throwing stuff out there and you don't care or you're over it, we're gonna feel that as the consumer and people are not going to engage with it, they're not. So if you're struggling with batching, they're, it's not working for you right now. But you're, you're not showing up. That's the problem. If you're not batching, but you're still showing up, you're, you're good. You're good, right? If batching is not working for you, but you're, you're not showing up either, I want you to really ask yourself, why do that? Why five times thing that everybody says to do? There's so much overlap with nutrition coaching and content creation coaching. It's ridiculous. But as a nutrition coach, I used to ask, why five times I wanna lose weight? Why? Well, because I'm embarrassed of how I look. Why? Because I, you know, I think that every day would feel lighter and better if I felt good in my skin. Why? Well, it's the same thing. Ask, why are you not batching content for your business? Why does it feel so hard? Why do you feel stuck? Why are you avoiding it? Right? Is it because your brand foundation isn't solid? Is it because you don't have an offer? Is it because you dunno who you're talking to? Is it because you don't have content ideas? It's'cause you just lack structure. Ask. There's so many layers to batching your content. As a small business owner, which is my pillow, like why I built an eight week program around it, eight weeks is the lowest I can. It started at 12, I got it down to 10, and then I got it down to eight and that's the lowest it can be because there are so many layers. Starting off with your brand foundation, your entire brand messaging, right? That's where it begins. What problem are you solving and how, and what makes you different from everybody else doing it? Then how often are you looking to post? What are the those posts gonna be about? Do you have Canva templates for them? How are you coming up with post ideas? Are you varying the type of content that you're creating? I'm not trying to overwhelm you, but I get why it's overwhelming'cause it's. Not that simple, right? It's not just slap together a posting schedule and you're good to go. It is about strategy, it is about structure, and it is about support. It is about getting feedback from someone who's walked the walk before you or done it before you, or is doing it well that you respect. So start where you are. Build slowly and find a system or build a system that's going to fit you and your lifestyle. Even though this system's totally working for me right now, this like kind of like hybrid batching and not batching, I'm gonna be real with you. Like I still struggle sometimes I wonder. Huh. I wonder if my life would be actually a lot easier if I just went back to batching everything and knowing the whole week is good to go. Like when I think of that, I feel lighter when I think of visualizing all six posts for the week. I post Monday through Saturday. Like when I picture that I do feel lighter, so should I go back to batching? Am I hypocrite for not batching everything ahead when that's something I really teach and preach. I don't know, like I really do love teaching batching and I, I love batching. Hi. Like I built a whole course around it, but the truth that I've learned is that you can believe in something and still evolve. And so I want to give you the freedom to do that and let you know that that's okay. I don't batch like I used to, but I'm still consistent af and I'm still strategic and I'm still showing up crazy consistently. Right. So if you're in a season where batching feels heavy or forced, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, right? Maybe you just need to think about and just think about it and give yourself permission to maybe shift or to simplify it, or to experiment with doing it a different way. You can still be really structured and really intuitive, honestly, and you can still be really strategic. Flexible. There are no rules. That is the beauty of what we do. You guys, there are no rules to this. It's what feels right for you, what you are feeling called to do or what you know, what creator you are feeling aligned with what they're saying, like what, which creator feels good, like their messaging feels right for you. That's it. It's finding that person and kind of honing in on it, so. Your content system should support your life. It really shouldn't suffocate it. And so that's my spiel for this podcast episode. Like I haven't been batching in almost a year, but that's a little click Beatty. I, again, I am batching two to three posts, but just the week before, I'm not doing 30 days ahead. So I hope this episode brings you, I don't know, a little satisfaction in that I'm not quote unquote perfect. There is no stitching as perfect, and you absolutely have the autonomy to like look at your life. Look at, you know, what's working for you and what's not, and dig a little deeper. All right. That's it. I will see you on the next episode. Thank you so much for being here, and I hope I will see you on the next episode of the Creative Bodega. Thanks so much for hanging out with me on the Creative Bodega Podcast. If you love this episode, please be sure to share it with a fellow solopreneur. Who could use a little content creation inspiration. And hey, don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources I mentioned on the episode to help you create content that feels easy and actually gets you results. If you want even more Canva and content tips, head over to my website, the creative bodega.com, or find me on Instagram under the same name. Until next time, keep creating, keep showing up, and most importantly, try and have a little fun with your content. I'll see you on the next episode.