30 Days of NotebookLM Video Overviews
Creating NotebookLM video overviews of my favorite lists of 30
Random Observation/Comment #907: Why do I even need to create content anymore? Maybe I should just speak in bullet points so we don’t need the AI conversions of niceties.
//Generated with Nano Banana with the original image style
You do 30 day challenges?
Yeah, man. 30 is kind of - like - my thing, y’know?
I figured it has been a while since I’ve done one of these, and this particular idea seemed very doable.
Why this Challenge?
As you may know from my writing, I love tinkering with new tools and changing my workflow to include better productivity hacks. For work, I’ve been using NotebookLM to better digest competitor content and material we’ve written for our product (I won’t bore you with the details). Recently, the Video Overview feature got some upgrades with Nano Banana and custom instructions for more topic control, so I tried it out.
How will you create the material?
This is my first test, which is feeding my original article and see what it could produce as a video:
With the result:
![[Video] Creativity with Lists of 30](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6cq3!,w_280,h_280,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fvideo_upload%2Fpost%2F176800486%2Fbefdc486-6e5a-48fa-8594-dff8766e6b25%2Ftranscoded-00001.png)
For sources, I tried two approaches:
The List of 30 giant NotebookLM
This is my entire set of books and articles written (I wrote some jobs to pull the material from exports for dynamic updates of new articles). You can check out a read-only version of it here:
Link to: Life in Lists of 30 NotebookLM
Result: All of the Video overviews, despite telling it to ignore all articles except for the one I wanted it to generate it about, were more about the overall idea of Lists of 30. This wasn’t bad in any way, but it didn’t really fit my 30 day challenge flow.
Simplified Source
The source here is the specific article plus an additional document which acts as a summary output about the Lists of 30 project for context and references.
The summary doc: Clemens Wan: The “Lists of 30” Project and Persona
From here, I do the Video Overview with the prompt:
Create a 5-minute video overview of the uploaded List of 30 by Clemens Wan.
Summarize the heart of this particular list — what it’s really about, why it matters, and what insights or humor it reveals about life, creativity, or human nature.
Keep the tone conversational, reflective, and a bit witty, true to Clemens’ style. Feel free to weave in a few quotes or “Random Observations” from the list to illustrate key ideas.
End with this call to action:
“Read more of Clemens’ writing and start writing your own lists of 30 at listsof30.com.”
I did some tweaking and a few test versions, but I really like the result.
In my 30 day challenge fashion, I have already started making a NotebookLM instance for some of my favorite lists of 30. Since Substack can publish the video file directly to my YouTube, I’m just going to try this for 30 articles.
In order to not spam the mailing list, I’ll just post every 5 days a summary of the posts I will put onto my YouTube channel. I’ve started the YouTube playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu-MJ-kMc3byiMoKh9IwGTlLlZWrFVqW3&si=g9D1Qvs8gUVE80RD
Is it a lot of work? Nope, because I’m really good at automation and doing challenging things is most of the fun.
What will be in the list?
Ah, so the most important part. How do I choose from my hundreds of lists ever published into just 30? Luckily, I have a whole brain of compressed articles and mappings for AI to decide for me. Here’s what NotebookLM recommended:
Curated List of 30 for Video Overviews
I. Creativity, Hobbies, & Personal Hacks (Visual & Engaging)
30 Principles for Writing Lists of 30 - Productivity / Self-Improvement
30 Passive Inputs that can inspire Active Outputs - Productivity / Self-Improvement
30 Levels of Dopamine - Psychology / Motivation
30 Reasons Why I Cook - Food / Cooking
30 Things I’m Making - Creativity / Life Purpose
30 Try Guy Things - Hobbies / Personal Challenge
30 Ways to Improve your Morning - Self-Care / Routines
30 Actions of the Day / 30 More Actions of the Day (Combined) - Productivity / Daily Habits
30 Random Q3 2024 Insights - Humor / Anecdotes
30 Things I Suck At - Humor / Self-Reflection
30 Human Experiences Robots will Never Understand - Existential / Emotional
30 Beard Meats Food Cannon - Fandom / Humor
II. Technology, AI, & Web3 (High Relevance & Innovation)
30 Clembot Interviews Challenge - AI / Content Creation (Meta)
30 OpenAI Sora Observations - AI / Future of Video
30 Practical AI Tools - AI / Utility
30 AI and Crypto Narratives - Tech Trends / Speculation
30 Farcaster Frames & Patterns - Web3 / Decentralization
30 Areas AI Takes Over - AI / Future of Work
30 Web3 Values - Web3 / Core Philosophy
30 Decisions to Outsource to AI - AI / Humor / Future Living
III. Life Reflection & Major Milestones (Diverse & Relatable)
30 Lasts with Evie - Parenting / Sentimentality
30 Peak Dad Moments / 30 More Peak Dad Moments (Combined) - Parenting / Humor
30 Exotic Foods I’ve Eaten - Travel / Food Adventure
30 Hopes for the Future - Optimism / Global Issues
30 Pieces of Advice for my 20s - Self-Reflection / Hindsight
30 Creative Questions to Spark a Kid’s Imagination - Parenting / Imagination
30 Denver Suburban Life Changes - Nostalgia / Culture
30 ELLI5 Topics for Evie - Parenting / Education
30 Self Proclaimed Titles - Identity / Personal Brand
30 Doses of Optimism - Perspective / Positivity
And the reasoning behind each choice…
These lists were chosen because they provide maximum thematic diversity while offering compelling visual hooks, strong emotional resonance, or direct utility for the audience, all suitable for short-form content.
High Engagement through Novelty and Humor
30 Levels of Dopamine: This structure inherently creates engagement by mapping immediate gratification (scrolling Instagram Reels) against long-term rewarding effort (publishing a book). A video can illustrate these trade-offs visually, contrasting “cheap dopamine hits” with “actionable steps”.
30 Try Guy Things: This list is built on action and experience (e.g., trying glass blowing, learning magic tricks). It is perfect for a fast-paced, challenge-style video where each item can be showcased quickly as a visual proof-of-concept.
30 Random Q3 2024 Insights: These short, witty, and often humorous observations and dad jokes provide excellent material for rapid-fire video editing, ideal for maintaining attention in a 5-minute clip.
30 Gourmet Culinary Touches: Focusing on actionable cooking techniques (e.g., proper seasoning, adding textures) makes this content visually rich and useful, appealing to the food and cooking show audience (like those who watch Beat Bobby Flay).
30 Human Experiences Robots will Never Understand: An existential and emotional list exploring “messy humanity” (e.g., nervous sweating on a first date, the euphoria after a long cry). This offers deep, relatable narrative potential, contrasting human emotion with AI logic.
Creative & Diverse Content Pillars
AI/Web3 Focus (e.g., 30 Clembot Interviews Challenge, 30 OpenAI Sora Observations, 30 Practical AI Tools): These lists directly address current technology trends, offering both novelty (Sora’s text-to-video capabilities) and utility (tools people can use today). The ongoing Clembot project provides meta-content about the creation of the video series itself.
Food/Hobby Fusion (e.g., 30 Days of 30 ETH Foods, 30 Exotic Foods I’ve Eaten): These lists combine niche interests (crypto, travel) with the highly visual medium of food, creating unique and memorable hooks. The ETH foods challenge, in particular, showcases creativity by arranging meals into Ethereum logos, which is visually striking.
Parenting/Reflection (e.g., 30 Lasts with Evie, 30 Peak Dad Moments): Pairing sentimental lists (the last time doing an activity with a child) with humorous lists (classic “dad” activities) ensures a balance of emotional depth and lighthearted relatability, appealing to a broad segment of the audience.
Do I agree with the whole list? I probably would have chosen a few different ones, but this is all an experiment anyway. I’ll be able to back-populate and forward propagate as needed.
~See Lemons Make NotebookLM Videos
