Free download · Editable Word file
Most videos are lost before the camera is switched on. This is the one-page plan that stops that happening — the same five stages I walk every channel through, as boxes you fill in.
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What’s inside
It follows the Whitefield Loop, so nothing in it is theory I have not written up somewhere on this site.
Who the video is for, whether it is a search, browse or suggested video, and what already ranks for it. Filled in before anything else.
Ten title slots, because the good one is never the first. Then the thumbnail: one idea, the focal point, and the 320-pixel and greyscale checks.
Your first sentence, the proof shown by 0:10, the question still open at 0:30 — and a cut list for the five things that quietly cost you viewers.
A six-beat sheet with timestamps, plus space for the loops you open and where each one closes.
One ask, placed after you have actually delivered something. The next video you point at, by name.
The 48-hour, 7-day and 28-day checkpoints, with the exact numbers to write down and one line for what you will change next time.
How to use it
This is the whole point. If you cannot write a title and describe a thumbnail you would click yourself, the idea is not ready — and you have found that out in five minutes rather than six hours.
The hook and the beat sheet are the two places retention is won or lost. Write them down rather than improvising and hoping the edit rescues it.
48 hours, 7 days, 28 days. The last box asks for one change for next time. That single sentence is what turns a channel that uploads into a channel that learns.
FAQ
A Word document (.docx). It opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Pages and LibreOffice, and everything in it is editable — delete the sections you do not use and add your own.
No. It is free. You are giving me your email address, and in return you get the template and one breakdown a week. Unsubscribe whenever you like and keep the file.
Both, but it earns its keep fastest somewhere between your first upload and around 100,000 subscribers. The stages are the same at any size; what changes is how much of it you already do without thinking.
No. Stages 1 and 2 are the ones that change outcomes, so start there. Plenty of people only ever use the ten-title exercise and the thumbnail checks, and that alone is worth more than most advice.
One email a week — a real channel pulled apart, a packaging teardown, and one change small enough to make before your next upload. No pitching and no affiliate spam. Every Tuesday, about 4 minutes to read.
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