I'm Hiding My YouTube Analytics and Here's Why That's a Business Decision
Last week I uploaded a studio vlog. On the surface, it looks like me making mystery oops packs, but underneath the footage, it's really a voiceover retelling of the day I broke my website and everything I pulled from that whole experience. If you haven't watched it yet, go watch it. This post is partially a continuation of that story, because I'm still learning from it. But also, I'm learning from something a little deeper.
The website breaking taught me not only how to fix it technically, but also lessons I can apply directly to my life and business.
Lessons like:
when you think about giving up is exactly when you shouldn't
the grass is greener where you water it
don't put all your eggs in one basket
sprinkle seeds but don't dig new holes
And I know what you're probably thinking — these are generic as ffffffff. But I go into all of that in the video and how it applied directly. The biggest thing I walked away with from everything happening was: your email list shouldn't live where your website does. Which applies solely to business.
When I got done with the video, I uploaded it. No schedule, nothing. I already had told myself that's what I was going to do way back, and that's exactly what I did. It works for me, but it's also part of the creator I want to become. I uploaded it on Memorial Day, and when it comes to YouTube and numbers, holidays may not be ideal. But honestly, there was no other window for me.
I have a goal to upload one YouTube video a month — if I can do more, I will. But at the very least one. I'm in a long distance relationship with my significant other, and I drive nearly two hours in one direction. I was going away for a few days to be with him. This is nothing new; we've been doing this for almost three years now, and hopefully this will be the last year we have to. I'm gearing up to move to North Jersey. Anyway, seeing as the month was ending and I don't have a laptop, my PC isn't portable, Memorial Day was the only window. But I've always had the issue of feeling defeated when the numbers come in.
When the numbers are good, they're exciting. When the numbers are bad, it makes you feel like less than yourself. It can honestly break your creator spirit. And the only way to get better is through repetition, through constantly showing up. That's something I learned through snowboarding that applies to the long game in general. The thing I love about blogging is that you're never going to see the numbers right away. It takes time, and that's what makes creating beautiful.
Because the obsessive refreshing and second-guessing and watching metrics like a hawk is not healthy for you, your business, or anything.
So that's what this post is. It's me working through it in real time, the way I always do.
The Numbers Started Running the Show
When you treat content creation like a business, which to me it partially is because it pays a lot of my bills (thank you blogging!), you inevitably start forming habits in ways that aren't always healthy for you or the business.
The advice you hear everywhere for YouTube is: track your analytics, watch your CTR, study your audience retention, see what performed and make more of that. If your CTR (click through rate) is below 3% your thumbnail sucks, change it. If your audience retention is below 20%, the video is crap. (Not my words, but that's the gist of it.) But if you keep living according to the algorithm and what people want, is it true to you then? Is this what you really want? Because to me, I don't like second guessing myself or what I created.
I’ve seen time and time again things randomly start getting views months or even years later! So the video wasn’t crap, the audience at the time was (Sorry not sorry LMFAO). The audience simply wasn’t ready for it. The stage wasn’t ready. The timing wasn’t ready. The culture of the world wasn’t ready. Sometimes yeah, the video is crap, but people still need to learn without feeling defeated.
And look, I get it. That framework exists for a reason. It's not wrong. When content creation is paying your bills, numbers do still matter.
But here's what nobody tells you. There's a really thin line between using data as a tool and letting data become the voice in your head while you're trying to create. And lately, I had crossed that line so far that I almost couldn't see it anymore.
I was checking YouTube analytics constantly. Not once a week. Constantly. Refreshing views & numbers. To the point I found myself on Reddit with people having the same issue. Some users started to joke about joining "Analytics Anonymous" — no, it doesn't exist, but it put a smile on my face.
Watching view counts on my latest videos, seeing where my video placed out of 10 videos, looking at impression numbers and click-through rates the way someone refreshes their texts waiting for a response that hasn't come yet. And the thing about that behavior is that it doesn't just drain your energy. It rewires the way you think about what you're making before you've even made it.
You start to fear you're not cut out for this. Like you're not meant for this somehow. And maybe this isn't for everyone, but if you have this desire in your heart, do not let the numbers stop you.
The thing I love about blogging is exactly what I already said, there’s no numbers involved in the beginning. Nor do they matter until things have compounded. And this website and blog reaches over 3 million impressions a year at this point, a feat that I didn’t imagine years ago when I started. I did it, I created it, because I knew it would be something one day, but I also just really enjoy it. I am not a passive audience member, I don’t scroll on my phone, I create and then I create some more. I create things for personal, for business, and for monetary gain. But simply put, I’m a creator.
Michelle Phan Said Something That Stuck
I kept coming back to something Michelle Phan once said. Two things, actually. The first one:
Find a goal outside of numbers when it comes to YouTube.
And look at her now. That's not a coincidence. The creators who make it, the ones who actually stick around and build something that lasts, they are almost never the ones who were the most obsessed with the scoreboard. They're the ones who were the most obsessed with the work, the video, the thing they wanted to create. The creating side.
The second thing she said:
Success is like a lightning bolt. It'll strike you when you least expect it, and you just have to keep the momentum going. You have to strike when the iron is hot.
For me, that second part is everything. Because it's similar to the lessons I spoke about in my video. Specifically, when you think about giving up is exactly when you shouldn't.
Obsessing over analytics has been interrupting the "striking" action. So I'm stopping it.
I'm Hiding the Analytics. Here's How.
I made an executive decision: I'm removing the scoreboard from my view. Not forever necessarily, but for now, while I'm rebuilding the relationship I want to have with this work. My blog and site do really well, my products also sell. I'm just getting started on YouTube, and no one really knows me there completely. To be frank, I could be doing more on my site to promote my YouTube channel and videos.
I still want to be accessible to my community. I want to reply to comments. I want to show up. I just don't want performance numbers sitting over my shoulder while I do it.
So here's what I looked into, because if you're in the same place I am, maybe this will help you too.
First: Browser Extensions Built for This
There are extensions made specifically for creators (or viewers) who want to mute the noise without losing access to the platform. A few worth knowing:
Hide YouTube Statistics(Chrome, Brave, Edge): hides views, likes, subscriber counts, comment counts, all of it. You can still use YouTube normally, you just don't see the numbers.
Goodbye Metrics(Firefox): purpose-built for hiding YouTube metrics, with toggle controls so you choose exactly what disappears.
Trash Panda: broader tool that removes social metrics across YouTube and other platforms. Good if you want the reset to apply everywhere.
uBlock Origin: Extremely customizable and probably the most powerful option on this list. You can remove almost anything on YouTube, including view counts, subscriber counts, analytics cards, dashboard elements, recommendations, and more. The tradeoff is that you have to manually set up what you want hidden, which means looking at the very things you're trying to avoid in the first place. For people who want total control, it's fantastic. For me personally, I wanted something that worked immediately without having to go hunting through every page and metric first.
Second: YouTube Studio Comments Page Only
This one is underrated. Instead of opening Studio from the homepage and getting hit with the dashboard, performance cards, and every metric known to mankind, you go directly to the Comments page. Bookmark it. Make that your entry point. You can reply, heart comments, moderate, and filter by unanswered, all without the analytics spiral that starts the second you open the main dashboard.
Go to:
The habit loop then becomes:
need to reply, open bookmark, reply, leave.
Not:
open Studio, check dashboard, check analytics, compare to last week, compare to last video, compare to everything, question everything, maybe reply later. Feel like a worthless piece of shit, wtf am I doing?
Make the desired behavior the path of least resistance. I know this about myself. If it's easy to spiral, I'll spiral. So I'm redesigning the environment so the spiral requires effort, while showing up for my community is automatic.
What Does DREAMLIKEDIANA Create When Numbers Aren't in the Room?
Someone asked me that recently, and it hit me. It's a genuinely important question. Not anti-data forever, just what changes when performance signals stop sitting over your shoulder while you're making and engaging?
I've been thinking about it a lot. And the honest answer is: I create the way I always created before I started watching the numbers. With instinct. With gut. With the kind of long-game conviction that my blog taught me to trust.
YouTube was always part of the plan. I learned how to create videos that perform well thanks to short form videos. I learned angles, and edits, and how to capture audience attention and receive retention through all of this. I grew social media channels over 3x and deleted every single one just because. I just have a love hate relationship with being seen, but meeting my man years ago, plus learning to snowboard, really gave me the confidence to finally fully put myself out there despite all fears. And I'm glad I did. Because the second most open video I ever put out performed very well. And it changed everything for me.
But here's the thing, learning to snowboard doesn't happen overnight. Great relationships take time, effort, and work. My blog didn't reward me immediately. These three things all have the same thing in common that YouTube also has. It's not going to happen overnight. You're going to fall, face plant, fail, get frustrated, and do it simply because YOU WANT THIS. You want to show up for this, that person, you love it, and little by little over time it compounds into the full circle moment.
For example, with my blog, the first few years were slow. Like 17k impressions, then 26k impressions, and then one year it skyrocketed. I hit over a million impressions, and now it's over 3 million and still climbing. In November 2025 it reached 1 million impressions for that whole month. That's the crazy part, it still fluctuates but it all comes down to: TIMING.
I didn't get here by watching YouTube tutorials on what to do or reverse engineering what other people were doing. I got here because I genuinely loved what I was making, I trusted my own instincts, and I have a background in websites and SEO from years that let me know when something was a good idea before anyone else was calling it a good idea.
There have been so many damn times I deleted something in the past that people are just talking about now. I published things that didn't perform immediately that are performing now. I had ideas ahead of their time. Things I started 2 years ago are currently knocking big opportunities onto my doorstep. Not because I watched what everyone else was doing and copied it. Because I followed a gut feeling and kept going. If people start to do what I did then, now, they’d be following a trend or too late.
That's what I create when numbers aren't in the room. Things I believe in. Things I want to exist. Things I needed but didn't exist. Things I think deserve time to breathe. Things that deserve to have a life. And that is what I'm returning to.
When I read back through everything I just said and sit with it honestly, this isn't "I hate analytics." It's more nuanced than that.
What I'm really describing is a difference between creating from instinct and long-game conviction versus creating under immediate numerical feedback. And my own history is exactly why I trust that distinction.
A few things I've been sitting with:
My blog trained a different nervous system around creation. Blogging created a delayed-feedback environment for me. I published because I believed in the piece, because I enjoyed it, because I thought it deserved to exist, and then months or years later the audience caught up. I already lived through that. I watched the slow build, the compounding, the delayed payoff, ideas maturing over time, old work becoming newly relevant, opportunities arriving after the fact.
So my creative system learned:
publish first, trust process, allow time.
NOT:
publish, refresh, evaluate worth immediately.
That's a fundamentally different conditioning loop. And I think this is exactly why social platforms have always felt irritating to me sometimes. Not because I dislike growth. But because the feedback timing clashes with how I naturally create.
I have a strong relationship with creative intuition. I knew what was a good idea before anyone knew it was a good idea. I don't say that out of ego. I say it because it's pattern recognition. I have loved puzzles since I was a child! And the things we love as children show up in adulthood many times over! I have an SEO background, webmaster experience, long-term publishing experience, audience observation, content instincts built over years. I have 2 decades of work experience, my CV is many pages long! So when I say I followed my gut, that gut wasn't appearing out of nowhere! It was experience metabolized into instinct. And I already have receipts for that working. Blogging being called dead, me continuing anyway, and now watching opportunities arrive from seeds I planted years earlier. That's textbook compounding.
My concern about analytics is less about data and more about influence. That's the real heartbeat of all of this. Because analytics can serve two very different roles.
It can be a tool: pattern spotting, operational insight, learning after the fact.
Or it can become a creative steering wheel: approval seeking, immediate adjustment, overcorrection, making under pressure.
And I've been noticing that second version interfering with how I create best. Not because data is inherently bad, but because constant exposure can subtly start negotiating with your creative instincts before the work has had room to breathe.
And I also want to be clear: I don't sound anti-business to myself at all. Actually the opposite. I make things sometimes because bills exist. Some adventures still have market research or business in mind. This isn't romanticized "art only" thinking. It's more like: business matters, strategy matters, but not every piece of content should be forced to justify itself through immediate business framing or immediate numerical validation. Those are different things.
And honestly, I think that's where a lot of this is coming from.
Not everything needs to become a lesson. Not everything needs to become a strategy. Not everything needs to be squeezed into a framework that justifies its existence.
Sometimes things matter because they happened. Because they changed you. Because they marked a chapter in your life. Because they gave you a story worth remembering.
The older I get, the more I think creation should leave room for that too.
I'm Done Forcing Adventure Content Into a Business Bow
Here's another executive decision I've made, and this one has been building for a while. Because I'm pissed. I'm pissed the fuck off that I tried to follow what people were saying to do. FUCKKKKK THAT.
I am no longer going to force my adventure content to be business-related. Not every vlog needs to become a number of business lessons. A lot of my videos will still be business related because well, this is a business after all and I do enjoy helping others make money from their time. But DREAMLIKEDIANA isn't just business, it's the art, it's snowboarding, it's interest media. It's getting paid to exist. This is a promise that I will be having more fun with my videos. Allowing myself to create what I enjoy or what sparks my interest. Things I want to watch. Same with blogging, I reread a good majority of my posts because I love the way I write. I love what I create. I'm obsessed with it and that's exactly the relationship I want with my YouTube channel. Because that's healthy. The monetization will come, I'm sure of it because of where the blog is at. It may take time though, but it's going to happen.
But no, not every trip needs to be framed as what I learned about work-life balance on adventure or a snowboard getaway. Sometimes I just went somewhere because I wanted to go somewhere. And the video can just be that. People can already tell I'm a snowboarder. Sometimes I might mix the two, sure. Sometimes I might mix everything together — business, hobbies, art, snowboarding, etc. But other times, no. I'm going to let it breathe as whatever it is.
I went to Niagara Falls three years ago. I drove 8.5 hours by myself in a 2008 Nissan Versa Sedan while healing from a torn hamstring in my driving leg, and I don't have power steering or cruise control. I have videos to edit from that trip. I don't want to wrap it in a business lesson bow just to justify its existence on the channel. It can be what it was: a trip I took. A moment I lived. Content that adds dimension to who I am as a person and a creator. Because that trip mattered, it was the act of turning the page and starting a new chapter. Because right after I came home, I was excited about my next adventure and I booked snowboard lessons and here I am now.
I'm also done with the advice that says post the same content for a year before you try anything different. I understand the intention behind it. Consistency matters. But I have watched too many creators niche themselves down so hard that they are now creatively trapped. They want to switch gears and they genuinely cannot, because their entire audience was built on the expectation that they would never be anything other than one thing.
That's not what people are signing up for with DREAMLIKEDIANA. They're signing up for all of me. Not part of me. The full human. The snowboarder, the business owner, the artist, the solo adventurer, the woman who figured out how to build something real from a 92 square foot bedroom with no team and no funding and no map. I think it's actually necessary for my audience to see that I have a life outside of any one thing. That I'm a real person. Not a machine. Not a content factory. A real human being who is doing this because she is genuinely passionate about it, and also because yes it pays the bills, and yes this is possible, and both of those things are true at the same time.
I need to prepare my audience now for what my channel actually is and what the content buckets actually are. That's not a bait and switch. That's just being honest about who you are from the beginning so the right people stick around.
I Know What I'm Doing. Not Out of Arrogance. Out of Evidence.
I want to say something clearly, because I think it matters. When I say I trust my instincts and I'm going to do things my way, that's not arrogance. It's lived experience talking.
I was working on websites at 13. Self-taught. Code, design, SEO, all of it, because I loved it and I just kept going. By the time I was building DREAMLIKEDIANA into something real, I already had years of that behind me. When people were telling me blogging was dead, I knew something they didn't. Not because I was special. Because I had been watching how humans interact with the internet long enough to know that nothing is ever permanently dead. People get exhausted from short form content. They get frustrated by timestamps that say one, two, three without telling you what you're actually watching. They want something real. They always come back to wanting something real.
The algorithm is always changing. The only audience you truly own is the one you've built on your own platforms. Your website. Your YouTube. Your email. Social media is for people who are chilling. It can be part of the ecosystem but it cannot be the foundation. I knew that before it became a talking point. I know it now more than ever.
And I didn't get where I am by doing what everyone said. I didn't complete a bachelor's degree and a minor in two years while working full time by doing what everyone said or by doing it the way the school tried to tell me I was supposed to. I didn't learn to swim at 28 and snowboard at 31 and grow a blog to 500,000 monthly impressions by following someone else's roadmap. I did all of it because I trusted myself, kept going when it was slow, and took the long view when everyone else was optimizing for the immediate.
By the time I was 8, my mom was teaching me to work. By 14, I was paying for my own phone minutes. By 16, I had a phone plan in my name. I have been building and figuring things out for myself for a long time. This chapter of DREAMLIKEDIANA is not a beginning. It is a compounding. Every year, every video, every blog post, every design I drew by hand, every late night in a 92 square foot bedroom has been a building block. The foundation has been laying for years. What's happening now is just the part where it becomes visible.
So when I say I'm going to stop checking analytics and start trusting my gut again, I'm not throwing the business side out the window. I'm removing the noise so I can hear myself again. Because that voice, the one that knew blogging wasn't dead, the one that knew what ideas were going to matter before anyone else was calling them good ideas, that voice is still right. And it does its best work when I give it space.
What This Means for Field Notes
If you're new here, Field Notes is a series of blog posts based on YouTube videos I've published. I ask myself a series of questions that I keep on my Notion. Questions before I start filming when the video is being worked out. Questions while I'm filming, creating, or editing — what I'm learning or have learned. And then questions after all is said and done, uploaded. Not a word for word play by play, but giving my videos a second life. A way to breathe in a different way. Whether it's by learning what did well, or simply just learning. Kind of like this post, but not every post is this long.
But I want to be transparent: my Field Notes series might be changing, and that's not a bad thing. Field Notes was always meant to be the behind-the-scenes. The real talk. The process and lessons and things I'm working through. That part isn't going anywhere.
But I'm done forcing every piece of content to justify itself through a business lens. It's funny because I was saying I was going to do it this way not too long ago, and now I'm like, yeahhh that's a no. Not everything has to become a business lesson in disguise. Not every adventure has to be wrapped in five takeaways for your creative business. Some things can just be documented because they happened, because they mattered, because they add dimension and texture to the story of who I am and what I'm building. But some things do easily translate directly to my business, and I will mention when they do.
Like I said in the first video, it's funny how everything in life interconnects with one another.
I have a feeling that people actually remember videos that weren't optimized. The ones that just existed because people wanted them to exist. I've watched that play out with my blog for years. Old posts that did nothing at the time suddenly pick up traffic a year later, or even two or three years later, because the world finally caught up to the idea. The same thing is true for video. Some things are just ahead of their time.
The evolution of Field Notes is that it gets to be more honest. More dimensional. Less focused on whether every post earns its place by delivering a business takeaway, and more focused on whether it's real, whether it reflects where I actually am, whether it's the kind of thing I would want to read or reread.
So what now? Keep striking of course.
I broke my website. I learned from it in more ways than one. Not just technically speaking. But the most important thing I've learned is that I built something substantial through consistency, instinct, experimentation, and long-term thinking. So now instead of asking: What does DREAMLIKEDIANA create when numbers are not in the room?
The question really is:
If I already know how to create and compound... what happens when I remove the constant scoreboard and return to that quieter creative relationship again?
Because to me that feels less like avoiding analytics and more like returning to the conditions that helped me thrive in the first place.
Till next time!
With Love & Gratitude,
Diana
DREAMLIKEDIANA LLC
