I'm really glad you posted this topic- I think its really important not only for Youtube creatives, or creatives or artists more broadly, but also for people who live with a creative problem solving mindset, which is my impression of the vast majority of people here on the permies forums.
Creative energy isn't linear in my experience. It ebbs and flows, as does all the energy on our lives. We all have dry spells when the ideas just disappear into thin air.
I think that there are a couple of things that have helped me manage this rhythm and in my life:
One is a sense of playfulness. If one is a serious artist or craftsperson, there is the discipline that you devote the most of your energy and discipline to mastering - let's say oil painting for example. Each of your art pieces or videos of your art demonstration or however you are sharing is going to demand a lot of time, focus, and energy. And if you add to that the type of demands that a youtube channel creates (regular posting, social media engagement, editing, Patreon content etc) you add even more drain on your creative energy. I think that adding a break to do something just light and fun and silly - I was doing sketches with ink and colored pencils as a mental reset; I've done papier mache, built dollhouse scale armchairs, written punny bedtime stories - the point is not producing anything to share or to specifically further your main art form, but to mentally rest and play and recharge with the simple act of being creative for fun. There is an artist that I think does a good job of demonstrating this habit:
Ann Wood Handmade Her newsletter is always so full of variety and a range of low to high effort projects she is working on.
The other is a realistic, human scale pacing discipline. The woman in the video touched on this. Instead of cramming a complete project in to each weekly upload, break it up into several components to post over several weeks. I always appreciate "series" videos for projects, like one for planning, then one for the muslin and fit adjustment, one for construction, one for finishing touches and "reveal" or however a project logically breaks down. This allows for another element of pacing- planned time off (or at least off from the pace of uploading weekly) if you have something in the works that doesn't demand to be completed each week. I don't think it's realistic to expect to complete a well executed project every week, and the pacing of a lot of youtube content can get a little "fast fashion/trend chasing" and unsustainable from both a resource and energy perspective. So pacing your projects to a realistic speed while still making regular uploads seems to require a steady hand on the throttle - work with the requirements of youtube to a degree, but at a realistic pace for you to successfully accomplish the thing you set out to share in the first place.
I look forward to hearing what other people have to say on this- I think it's something most creative people struggle with, especially when making an income from it or establishing your expertise publicly is involved.
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