Why I stopped spending hours on the edit and what I focused on instead

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I thought a better edit meant a better video, I was wrong

I used to think a longer edit meant a better video. That if I just tightened it up enough, removed every unnecessary second, added the right music underneath, it would perform better.

It didn't. Or at least, the edit had almost nothing to do with it when it did.

What I eventually worked out was that the edit is the last place a video gets made. The real decisions happen before you record anything. What's the video actually about? What problem does it solve for a specific type of person? What would make someone stop scrolling and click on it?

I was skipping all of that and going straight to recording and editing. Which meant I was sometimes spending four or five hours producing something built on a shaky foundation.

Here's the clearest way I can put it. Think of a video like a shop front. The thumbnail and title are the window display. The hook is the door. The edit is the interior layout. Nobody ever walked into a shop because the shelves were neatly arranged. They walked in because something in the window caught their eye. I was spending all my time arranging the shelves and wondering why nobody came in.

Once I started treating the idea and packaging as the real work, the edit became much quicker because I knew exactly what I was making and why. The videos weren't longer or shorter. They were just built on something solid.

What does your prep process look like before you start recording?

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