Whether you make videos as a profession or as a passion, chances are you know how time-consuming it can end up being. Just one little thing goes wrong and BOOM—your entire schedule has blown out.

But the good news is: you can make up time. During the post production phases you’re typically dealing with fewer variables, giving you the opportunity to grab your project by the horns and steer it back on course. Better yet, there are several steps you can preemptively take that are guaranteed to speed up your workflow, and ensure you meet those deadlines!

DON’T DEVIATE FROM THE GOLD RULE OF EDITING

Repeat after me: rough cut first, fine cut second, final cut last. This is the order must always follow. No ifs, buts, or pfffff whatevers. When you sit down to edit a project, do not let yourself get caught up in audio mixing, cropping, or color correction. All that stuff can and must wait until you’ve nailed down your timeline. Half the time, any fine or final edits you make up front are done away with in the rough cut, so please do not waste your precious time by jumping the gun!

EMBRACE THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE

Your ability to focus can either make or break your productivity. So to help keep your brain plugged into a project over the course of a day, try to use a system like the Pomodoro Technique that allows you to break your work up into small, manageable segments. With the Pomodoro, you break your work into 25-minute blocks, stopping to take 2-3 minutes breaks in between each block. After you’ve done this four times in a row, you break for a full 20-minutes, before jumping back in and repeating the entire process all over again.

The Pomodoro Technique has proven massively successful for helping people remain laser-focused and is a particularly great system for anyone working on long, complex projects—which is basically every video editor in the world.

If you want to give it a go, look no further than this handy online timer.

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Mastering those software keyboard shortcuts is absolutely essential for a better, faster workflow. There are several different ways you can go about this. You can either memorize every single shortcut there is out there, you could just learn the essentials, or you could semi-cheat with one of these KB Covers. With covers for Premiere Pro setting you back just $29.99, it really isn’t a bad little investment.

SUBSCRIBE TO A ROYALTY FREE MUSIC LIBRARY

We all know that feeling when you’ve just finished editing a video and immediately need to throw yourself into a hectic search for the perfect song or sound FX to layer over the top. It’s stressful, time-consuming, and more often than not, costly!

To avoid all of this, get yourself set up with a reliable royalty free music library that you can go directly to for all your audio needs. Obviously, deciding which library to subscribe to is no easy decision. There are tons out there with drastically different product and prices ranges.

The main thing is that you find one that doesn’t break the bank and offers a solid variety of audio files. And if, like the majority of other filmmakers out there, you regularly find yourself in need of stock footage or motion graphics templates, then you’re probably best opting for a library that stocks these products as well.

One up-and-coming marketplace that delivers all these goods and for very reasonable prices is Motion Array. In addition to its 23,000 audio files, Motion Array offers a treasure trove of other products to help enhance your projects. What’s more, when you sign up to become a member, you automatically score access to Motion Array’s sweet video portfolio website builder (which come with parallax scrolling!), as well as it cloud-based video review system. Now if that ain’t value for money, I don’t know what is.

GET COMFORTABLE!

Studies show that the more comfortable people are at work, the more productive they are. So the lesson here is, well, get comfortable. Invest in a solid ergonomic chair, declutter your desk, and turn your workstation into a mini post production paradise that actually lures you in and makes you want to stay there. If you need some inspo, look no further than this video.

IN SUMMARY…

Chances are, you’ve already heard some of these tips before. The big question is: do you have the discipline to and pull yourself out of your busy schedule to properly integrate them? Yes, we all know how hard it can be to carve out time for professional improvements like this. But for anyone who makes a living out of their videos, the cost of not doing so can be high. So do yourself a favor and stop to make these changes ASAP.

This post is brought to you by our friends at Motion Array. Sponsored posts like this one help to keep the lesterbanks.com up and running.