Same time, same place, every week: why a fixed slot keeps you going

I have four children, two businesses and a husband I’d actually quite like to see now and then. So if something in my week isn’t on a system, it simply doesn’t happen. It doesn’t get done later. It doesn’t get done at all.

So when people ask how I stay consistent, the honest answer is my live slot. The Solopreneur Show goes out live at the same time every week, and that slot does a job my willpower never could.

Why a fixed slot works

Think of a TV or radio programme. Same time, same place, every week. The audience knows when to turn up, and so do you.

A filming day in the diary gets skipped. A live slot that real people are expecting doesn’t, because I don’t want to be the unreliable person on the internet who didn’t turn up.

The colour-coded inbox

Some days are just not good days. Your period started, the teenagers were arguing that morning, the kids are sick, you feel rubbish. And you go, “Oh, I just want to bury my head in making colour-coordinated folders in my email inbox, because it makes me happy, okay?”

And that’s fine. It really is. But if you’re doing that regularly, because avoiding the scary stuff is completely normal and human, you’re not getting any closer to where you want to be. A fixed slot takes that decision off you.

I think a lot of business owners secretly wish they still had a boss.

They miss having someone else set the deadlines. One of the biggest lies told to entrepreneurs is that freedom automatically makes you more productive. I don’t think it does. A weekly live slot is the closest thing I’ve found to getting a boss back without having to actually apply for a job.

“But what if nobody turns up?”

You might run your first one and get three people. Maybe one. Maybe no one turns up. Doesn’t matter. You’re doing it for the replay crew, and for all the future people who haven’t found you yet.

When I’ve asked a room how many people were sat at home, popcorn in hand, watching the very first episode of Game of Thrones live when it aired, a handful of hands went up. Out of a whole room. And yet loads of us watched it, because people talked about it and we caught up later.

And if you’re one of the people watching my show on the replay: go you. I love that you’re here.

Small starts count

When I launched my first community back in 2020, it was designed to be a midweek pick-me-up during lockdown. I promoted it for three days. And by promoted, I mean I put some posts out on social media. No ads, nothing clever. A few people turned up. Then they kept coming back, and they brought friends.

That’s the whole trick. Most first episodes are quiet. The slot is what gives it time to grow. (If you want to see what the audience it grew into was worth, the numbers are over here.)

Why so many shows stop

People go, “I’m going to start a podcast.” And by episode three they’ve already quit. It’s already become unsustainable. Which is mad, when you think about it.

Usually the reason is that there’s no system. Every week becomes a brand new project, planned from scratch, and that’s exhausting. Running a live show every week should make your life easier. If it’s making it harder, something in the set-up needs fixing, and I don’t think it’s usually your commitment.

You can’t hand over chaos

This is my favourite reason to do it. Once your show runs the same way every week, you can start handing parts of it to someone else. You can’t do that while it’s chaos. Nobody can take a pile of good intentions off your hands.

If a job has turned into a ritual, that’s usually the sign it’s ready to go to someone else. Which means the fixed slot is how you get consistent, and it’s also how you eventually get to stop doing all of it yourself.