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Time Management Techniques for Musicians
I received a letter from a former student who is now a professional musician asking for some time management techniques. They were struggling with balancing the business side of their music career with the creative side. This is the letter I wrote back to them with my advice:
Hey buddy,
So good to hear from you. I totally understand the frustration that comes with the rise in business tasks as your music career starts to grow. The key is to minimize the time you spend on the business of music and maximize the time you have to make your music.
I have five strategies that I hope will help you:
Watch a short video version of this blog on the ProArts YouTube channel.
1. Identify Priorities
If you don’t prioritize, then you waste valuable time doing less-important things instead of focusing on the important stuff. Review the tasks you have before you and sort them based on deadline, putting the items that are due sooner at the top of the list. If you have tasks that don’t have deadlines, assign a proper deadline to each one even if it’s a long way off. If a task was given to you by someone else, ask that person for a deadline and order accordingly.
Have you ever heard of the Eisenhower Matrix? Google it. The matrix helps you divide your tasks into four categories: tasks to do first, tasks to schedule for later, tasks to delegate, and tasks to delete. Yes, that’s right. Delete! Some tasks are not necessary. I have found this tool helpful for distinguishing between urgent and important tasks. Often urgency is placed on a particular task by outside influence convincing you of their urgency. Don’t fall for it! Take time to prioritize using a system that works for you.

2. Plan and Schedule Your Goals
If you say you want to record an album, how and when are you going to do it? Setting specific, achievable goals for practice, performances, and personal projects will go a long way. Once you have your goals set, create a schedule using an online calendar or planner to block time for the various activities, including practice time, creative time, and even downtime. I know it sounds weird to schedule downtime, but if you don’t do it you may never have time that is down, and that results in a tired and unhealthy lifestyle. Downtime also helps you stay focused, which brings me to the next strategy:
3. Use Techniques that will help you Stay Focused
The first thing you can do is eliminate distractions. Create a specific place to be creative that’s away from the business stuff, turn off notifications on your phone, silence incoming phone calls and emails, and you might even practice 10-15 minutes of Mindfulness just before going into your creative time to center yourself and get in a more creative mindset.
Another thing to consider is using a scheduling technique that promotes focus, like The Pomodoro Technique. Simply put, this technique has you break work into intervals of 25 minutes of focused time followed by a 5-minute break. You do this four times then take an extended 30-minute break. The use of breaks is thought to reduce the effect of internal and external interruptions on focus and flow, and techniques like this can enhance concentration and productivity. There are other scheduling techniques that you can check out online.
4. Delegate and Outsource
Hand off the non-essential tasks to someone else if you can, especially the stuff you don’t enjoy doing—talk about a sure fire way to suk the creative life right out of you! By doing so, you’ll free up more time for creativity. This is why I started ProArts Admin Services. As I may have mentioned, my role is to handle the things that you don’t need to be doing so that you have more time to do the thing you do best, the thing that only you can do, and that’s make your music.
5. Review and Adjust.
Finally, regularly review your schedules and priorities to adjust and improve time management strategies. One example is email. Did you know that in a Harvard Business Review article, it was reported that the average worker checks email 74 times a day? Yikes!
What if you were to process email once in the morning, say for 30 minutes, and then again for 30 minutes in the evening or at the end of your work day? Twice a day. Believe me when I tell you from first-hand experience that you will see the same amount of emails twice a day then if you checked 74 times a day. And if there’s something urgent, most often you’ll get a text or phone call. That being said, all the planning in the world won’t prepare you for the unknown and unanticipated interruptions. It’s important to stay flexible and it’s okay to adapt plans as needed.
So remember, prioritize, plan and schedule, use techniques to help you stay focused, delegate and outsource, and review and adjust. I hope these time management techniques are helpful to you. They have worked for me and others I know, but you should experiment with different techniques to find what works best for you and your situation. I wish you the very best in finding more time to be creative and look forward to hearing more new music from you.
All the best,
Peter
Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to discuss more strategies like this and how ProArts can help you gain back more of your creative time.
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