How a Homeschool Mom of 4 and YouTuber Manages Her Busy Schedule with The Minimal Mom: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 342

“Video is such a powerful way to share your life.”

Be sure to check out my Free 2022 YouTube Goals Workbook! Inside you’ll find you’ll find an exercise that I do with my clients and in my Bootcamp that will help you stick with and achieve your goals on YouTube. The journaling and reflection exercises in the workbook have three different components that we’re going to focus on: money, lifestyle, and mindset, and will help align your life goals with your YouTube goals to help create the 2022 that YOU want.

Dawn Madsen, also known as The Minimal Mom, and her family have lived as minimalists for 7 years now. Passionate about the message of minimalism, most often you can find her on YouTube sharing practical tips and ideas to simplify and declutter. Dawn shares her ideas with over a million people each month, was recently featured on the Today show, is author of Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day and is the co-creator of the Take Your House Back course.

As a mom, I know the struggle is REAL when it comes to running a YouTube channel, running a business, and being present for my kids, and I know so many of my students, clients, and listeners can totally relate. That’s why I was so excited to have Dawn on the show. Dawn is a minimalist YouTuber, business owner, and course creator, all while being a busy homeschooling mom! How the heck does she do it all?

Outsource, Outsource, Outsource!

There really are only so many hours in a day, and to make it all work, Dawn has hired a team. She began homeschooling her four children (ages 7-12) during Covid, but has since hired someone to facilitate that. She also has a video editor, full-time virtual assistant, and social media manager. By hiring and outsourcing to others what she was previously doing herself, she can stay consistent. When outsourcing, it’s important to find someone to match your style and who can mimic your voice when writing captions, and who you can really jive and work well with. Often, that can be easier said than done.

“I want to reach more people, because I think the message that I’m sharing is so powerful and it really is life-changing.”

A Week in the Life

Dawn posts two videos a week on her channel (Tuesdays and Fridays), and luckily, she’s been able to batch record and stay ahead of things so she doesn’t have to cram to get it all done on time. She typically records her videos on Mondays and sends it off to her editor. She spends the rest of her week working on the rest of her business: her courses and membership group, and tries to take Fridays off to spend with her kids. This of course is the ideal and what she tries to stick to, but it doesn’t always work. 

Dawn’s Tuesday videos are her minimalism content that is relatively easy to batch produce, while her Friday videos are more vlog-style lifestyle content, which are much harder to make because they can’t be batched, and they require a lot more planning, forethought, and time. Dawn has been able to find a wonderful balance between giving value to her subscribers but also showing them more who she is, who her family is, and what their life is like. Remember: subscribers will first and foremost watch your content because of who YOU are!

Dawn used to do 3 videos a week, but she found that maintaining that kind of schedule was way too hard. It was burning her out, and zapping her creativity to the point where YouTube felt more like a chore and less like a hobby, so she decided to go to 2 videos a week instead. In fact, she made that choice after listening to my episode with Danelle from Weed ‘em and Reap! Eventually, she would like to cut down even more to 1 super high-quality video a week, but there are many factors that will play into that choice, most notably, sponsored content. 

YouTube as a Marketing Tool

To diversify her content, Dawn created a workbook, Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day, and a course to go with it. Creating a video course as a YouTuber felt very natural to her, and also made her content and her channel feel more meaningful and impactful. Dawn only promoted this through YouTube, and she sold 15,000 workbooks and had 5,000 sign-ups for her course… all because of YouTube! Dawn has spent very little time promoting her business, and has never done targeted paid ads, but the power of YouTube is so great that her content spoke for itself. YouTube has been an incredible way for Dawn to build a community and a business.

She’s also had many wonderful opportunities as a result of YouTube, and been able to collaborate with other YouTubers (including another former YTPH guest, Cas from Clutterbug!). Not many creators say this, but being a YouTuber can actually be pretty lonely, so Dawn’s experience working and collaborating with a few other decluttering creators was amazing. Partnering with someone can really help and be a fun project to connect with other creators and promote it to a wider audience!

“YouTube is so powerful. It’s been incredible.”

Final Thoughts

Dawn has big plans for herself and her future. She wants to create more courses, including a decluttering certification program to equip other women with the tools to start their own businesses and help even more people. But she’s torn. While she wants to reach more people and scale her business, she also likes her business where it is right now and doesn’t necessarily want to hire more employees and put herself and her family even more into the public eye.

Her #1 struggle is feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day, which many of us can relate to, but she’s doing the best she can. She also wants to pay more attention to her analytics, and while she tries to stand out and be different from other minimalism creators, she recognizes the need for better planning for her content. 

Dawn’s advice to YouTubers? First of all, don’t read the comments after the first day of your video, and definitely don’t scroll to the bottom. The longer the video is out, the more negative Nancys come out of the woodwork, take her videos out of context, and leave mean comments. One negative comment can have a really terrible impact on someone, so don’t even bother. Second, give it a good year before you throw in the towel. It’s easy to think big YouTubers got where they are overnight, but the reality is that they’ve likely been grinding along on their channel for years. Even if you’re super passionate and knowledgeable about your topic, there is a learning curve in being able to explain your topic to others. There is so much to learn, so be patient with yourself! You have to learn how to demonstrate, show, and talk about whatever it is that you’re passionate about along with learning about video, lighting, sound, editing, tech, and more!

“Give yourself a lot of grace in the beginning, because each video you’re trying to learn and master is something new.”

Mentioned in the Episode:

57 Things We Don’t Buy Anymore | Family Minimalism

Decluttering “Just In Case” Items (Starring Justin Case!)

Course: Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day

YTPH Interview: Weed ‘em and Reap

YTPH Interview: Clutterbug

Connect with the Minimal Mom

The Minimal Mom on YouTube

The Minimal Mom on Instagram

The Minimal Mom on Facebook

TheMinimalMom.com

Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
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