Matt Ragland explains why he stopped making YouTube videos: he psyched himself out chasing production quality and algorithmic metrics while juggling kids, a business, and a newsletter. He's back with a simpler approach, focused on genuine connection instead of views, posting twice-weekly newsletters and planning less polished productivity content.
Chapters
I don't quite have the words yet to say why I stopped making YouTube videos. I have ideas and concepts in my head. The simplest way to explain it is that I psyched myself out. That there was, in my mind, a level of expectation about what a YouTube video was supposed to be for me. That became an insurmountable challenge for me to do. Lots of other things happened in life that I'm going to tell you more and more about. But what is fun about where I'm at now, if I have the courage to continue, is that I feel like I'm going back to my roots as a YouTuber. It will still be very productivity, goal, life achievement oriented. We're going to show you. I'm going to show you. There's no one else. There's no one else here. I'm going to show you, like, the journals. They're still around, everyone. There's still hundreds of pages that we can go over together. But I got intimidated by the quality of really great YouTubers, and I got in my head about what it took in order to do that to a level of excellence. And I just knew that I didn't have the time And when I can give myself the time and attention that it requires, then I'm much more likely to say it's just not time for this priority. I, you know, have more kids. I had a business, have a business that takes the majority of my time. I've been writing a newsletter. Consistently for several years now. In fact, if you're not a subscriber to the newsletter, please go ahead and subscribe in the description below because that is an automatic way for you to keep hearing from me once, often twice a week. The intimidation, the way that I built up what YouTube success meant in my head is something that I'm now getting over because I do miss YouTube. I do miss connecting with everyone, and what I'm seeing that's giving me encouragement are some other cool YouTubers that are engaged in longer-form content, content that doesn't rely as much on the quick cuts and the MrBeastification. Of YouTube and the internet. I love MrBeast. I think Jimmy, that's his real name, is a genius. And not that I was ever going to make productivity MrBeast videos, even though I did spend a lot of time thinking about what that could look like. And that was part of the challenge that I found insurmountable. What I miss about YouTube, what I miss for me about YouTube is It was my most creative stretch personally, because I was making things consistently. And I was talking to people all the time. And there is a version of YouTube that is highly produced, that everything is scrutinized, the thumbnail, the title, the retention, the click-through rate, and all of that matters. But to me, running a channel where all of that mattered, to optimize everything to the nth degree, quickly became a channel that I was not able to get excited about personally. And to be perfectly honest, I don't know if I ever officially said this on the channel, is I got a little tired for a while talking about the Bullet Journal because Yeah, that was well over a year ago at this point. What else could I say about the Bullet Journal that I haven't already said? But there is value in continuing to talk about things that matter, especially for people who like are coming in. Like there have been hundreds of you, if not thousands of you, who have subscribed to the channel in the last year that have only seen me put out a couple of videos. And one of the things that I love about YouTube is that YouTube, I think better than any other social platform and maybe better than any other site on the internet, will take you down rabbit holes and gives you quick access to videos that the creator has. No other social channel does that anywhere near as well. Like my most popular videos each month are still about daily journaling and mental health and my bullet journal setups. Those are my only two million-plus view videos, and both of those are over 3 years old. They're still my most popular videos each month. Just look, look for more from me. I'm excited to be back. It's going to be a little different and What's cool for me is that I've reached a point that I don't care as much about the views anymore. I care about those of you that are watching, those of you that are commenting, those of you that subscribe to the newsletter, and of course, people that are just watching. I care about you as well. When you're at a point where you're trying to do YouTube full-time, and it feels like every view matters and the percentage point of every click-through rate and every second of retention makes a difference. And when that's the case, I learned that it wasn't what I wanted to do in my full-time creator journey. I feel like I could still be the talent of it. I can be on screen and I can talk and I can perform and I can do stuff. But thinking about, okay, like it just completely took me out of my creative flow to think about what's the title, what's the thumbnail, how do I test the different thumbnails, what am I saying in the first 30 seconds. I can get better and better at that, but it again, like it felt like such a challenge for me from a creator perspective. Like I talk about consistently all the time, I'm a little ashamed that I let myself be so psyched out by the challenge of it and that I wasn't able to overcome that challenge. I don't know if I'll be able to. Maybe I need a big team and maybe I need to get over the financial commitment of having a team that can worry about all those things so I can just be me on camera for you and with you. But that's where I'm at. We're still going to be talking productivity and goals and habits. And all the things that help build to a life that matters, to a life that you're excited to get up and, and live every day. If you are a relatively new subscriber or you've been following along the channel for many years, love to hear. And the other part is if you're not subscribed to the newsletter, I send 2 per week. There is the productivity newsletter, goes out on Tuesday, it's called To Do's Day. Uh, love a good pun in my 40s. And the other one is the Weekend Wrap, and that goes out on Saturday morning. And that is a little bit more, uh, personal, uh, a little bit of a mishmash mix-up of productivity and creativity and a couple of videos that I really enjoyed or articles that I read. So it's a little bit more like combination of, uh, personal content and curated content from other people that I'm really enjoying. So, uh, make sure you subscribe, rate and review— no, that's for a podcast. Uh, give this a like, comment so I know you're here, and, uh, let me know what questions you have or what you would like to see from me in the future because the other way that this channel really grew when it was growing at its fastest and at its best and its most, uh, organic was when you were asking questions in the comments and then I would just make a video that answered that question for you. So I hope to hear from you. Subscribe to the newsletter and there'll be another video soon. I can't commit to a specific day, but there will be another video soon. Thanks. I appreciate you. Bye.
