Podcasting Second Brain Template

The Podcasting Second Brain Notion template is the ultimate tool for busy podcast creators who want to streamline their workflow and spend more time on the things they enjoy. With customizable "default to do" lists for each episode, built-in AI prompts, and more, this template will help you optimize your podcasting process and take your content to the next level.

How many times have you had an idea for a podcast or podcast episode that never came to fruition because you got stuck on some boring minutiae in the production process? Your notes and drafts have become a shallow graveyard in which your brilliant thoughts go to die.

Notion is an all-in-one workspace and no code tool that can streamline your podcasting workflow to make it more efficient and effective. If you’re not using Notion as a podcaster, you are most likely wasting time switching between tasks, and forgetting what you’re supposed to do next.

I created this template (currently in Beta) for creators who are overwhelmed by the mismatch between their ingenuity and ability to work through the tedious but necessary parts of publishing consistently.

You’ll find plenty of other podcasting templates, but most of them suffer from one of two problems:

1. They are too rigid and complicated (chances are the creator hasn’t ever used it himself)
2. They are too simple, and don’t actually create the kind of workflow that will help you get from point A (an idea) to point B (a published episode).

Between point A and point B lies the vast abyss known as “Podcast in Progress,” with multiple inescapable steps:

1. Inviting your guest
2. Confirming a time
3. Setting up the recording studio
4. Preparing your notes/outline
5. Recording the show
6. Transcribing the audio/writing show notes
7. Editing the audio and applying intros/outros

Balancing Structure with Flexibility

Everyone has a different workflow. The ideal podcasting template needs to accommodate these differences, while providing enough structure that you don’t have to build from scratch.

My Podcasting Second Brain balances these with a standard master database, in which you can customize your “default to dos” for each episode.

When you start a workflow for a new episode, the first step is to click a button to populate these default tasks into the “Not done” column.

You can then move them sequentially into the “In Progress” column, and populate each action item with the corresponding “sub-template” within a related “To Do List” database.

The Transcript + Show Notes template, for example, features a series of pre-written AI prompts that will summarize and generate assets for your blog posts, social media, and podcast description based on a transcript that you paste inside the page.

Notion’s built-in AI can find the highlights within a transcript, helping you hone in the Big Idea. That Big Idea can in turn be used to generate a title, podcast description, and SEO keywords.

The AI output isn’t final draft quality, but it helps build momentum so that you actually finish your drafts in a reasonable amount of time.

Once you’ve prepped all of your social media assets, it’s just a matter of scheduling the episode, releasing it, and hitting send.

Investing time upfront to design your workflow and default to do list is about creating a system — tuning up your content engine from a dilapidated old junker into a high-performance racecar.

Every step in the workflow guides and directs you toward the finish line, where you can take the satisfying final step of moving an episode into the “Published” column.

If you enjoyed this article, and want more ideas for streamlining your podcast workflow, check out my article on the NORDIC tech stack: the 6 tools I use to maximize my podcasting productivity.