5 Habits that Will Put You Ahead of 99% of the Music Industry

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If there's one thing that will keep you working in the music industry, it's following

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through on your word, aka getting

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done. And this video will help make sure that happens. Whether you're a

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full time audio professional already or working to get there,

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these five productivity tips will help you hit your deadlines and balance your

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life.

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Welcome back to the show. I'm Travis Farents, a Grammy nominated blah, blah, blah doesn't

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really matter for this one. What matters for this one is I work three days

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a week and I probably mix close to 200 songs a year while doing this

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podcast and YouTube channel and being a dad. There's a common

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misconception that hard work is better work and that if you're

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always working, then you must be productive. Now,

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there's no denying that putting hours of hard work in will get things

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done, but that definitely doesn't mean that you're productive. I've had seasons in my life

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where I cranked 18 hours days regularly, and they definitely helped me learn a lot

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and build my career to where it is today. But eventually, it's

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just not sustainable. And even if it was, are you really

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doing your best work on hour 17? So before we dive into these, I

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have to say that I am fully a productivity nerd, but I am also

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not perfect at times. I've taken these productivity hacks so far

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that I think they've actually made me less productive. But these five tips

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have proven to help me every time when I do them, and

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that's the key. You've got to do this stuff. If you can't

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sit here and commit to actually trying these things, then you should probably just click

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on to whatever the latest plugin review is. So with that,

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onto the five tips that I do every day that help me

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deliver for my clients. First up, have a plan.

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Nothing says failure to launch like walking into your studio with no

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clue what you're gonna do that day. When I sit down at the computer without

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a game plan, I immediately find myself in my email or

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down some rabbit hole checking out some piece of gear or productivity trick,

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which is pretty ironic, right? But my most

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productive days start the day before I try to stay in the habit of

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having a shutdown routine to help me close out my day. And part of that

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routine is to look at what I was trying to get done that day and

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decide what I need to focus on for the next day. And the bonus to

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this is that it helps keep overwhelm at bay when you've

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got an open loop, like not knowing when you'll find time to finish something.

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Then you have this constant layer of stress just wearing you down

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a little bit minute by minute. But if you

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end your day by planning the next, you can rest easy that

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night knowing that you've made time for everything. The last piece

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of the have a plan equation is that you need to know what your priorities

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are. And remember that priorities are not always goals. Goals

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are often more long term. Example, one of my goals right now

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is to hit ten k subs on this channel,

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but that's not a priority. I have a priority based on that goal,

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which is to put out the best content I can once a week. Now

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this is a good time to pause the video and ask yourself, what are

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my top three priorities? And more importantly, are they reflected

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on your calendar? How would they be reflected on your calendar, you ask? Well, because

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you do some form of time blocking, right? Which is our second tip.

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Time blocking is the act of putting actual blocks of time in your calendar

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for specific tasks or projects, essentially planning your day

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from start to finish based on what you need to get done. Now, from my

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experience, it is possible to overdo this and also very possible to

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underdo it. I've tried going over the top blocking five minute intervals and

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entering stuff like drive time or lunch into my calendar. When I went that far,

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I found that I was mostly just wasting time physically entering all of these

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things. And on the other side of that, I've put general blocks in my

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calendar for 4 hours that just say podcast, and I find that leads

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to very little forward progress because it's so vague.

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When you time block, it has to at least be specific enough for you

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to know what you're supposed to do during that block. Now, there is a

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huge caveat to time blocking though, which is that you need to

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understand how long things take you. Otherwise you'll be planning an

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unrealistic day. And that's pretty self defeating when you never get what you need to

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get done. I've spent years running a timer while doing projects, so I have a

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pretty good idea of how long things take me. Let's look at a mix. For

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example, I know that I need about 6 hours, give or take, to get a

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solid first mix ready to go out to the client. I'll typically break that up

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into two days, probably two three hour blocks. And do things take

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longer? Sometimes, definitely regularly. But

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rarely do they take double or triple my expectations. A couple hours here

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or there is easy enough to manage if you're doing some kind of

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end of day planning routine. Now, the answer to why time blocking

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works lies in Parkinson's law, which states that

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work expands to fill the time available for its completion. This is

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essentially why we're always racing to hit a deadline, even if the project has

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been going for weeks. If you don't set bounds on the work,

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it'll drag on. I experienced the power of setting time bounds

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firsthand when my daughter was super young. You'd be surprised how much

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you can get done during a two hour infant nap if you set out with

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a plan for that time. So, to summarize, if you understand your time and

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block things in your calendar properly, then you can avoid overcommitting yourself.

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And when you get really good at time blocking, schedule yourself some

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downtime, which is our third tip. If you want to be more

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productive, then you've got to be operating at your best.

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The only way to do that is to actually take time off to

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rest. If you push yourself to the limit every day, I

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guarantee that you are not getting work done as fast or as well as you

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could if you weren't. This quote from Greg McKeown is a pretty good rule

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of thumb. Don't do more today than you can completely

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recover from tomorrow. I caught that in an interview he did with Matt D'Avella,

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I think, and they were discussing his new book, effortless, which was immediately added

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to my reading list. And in that conversation he brought up a concept that really

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resonated with me. He mentioned having not just a lower bound for

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the amount of work, but also an upper bound, basically a

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maximum. And he used an example from history, which was super interesting.

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Two teams of explorers racing to be the first to reach the South

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Pole. One, a british team who basically trekked as far as they

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could every single day, regardless of the weather. And a norwegian

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team who did no more than 15 miles every day,

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even if they were physically able to. So by having that upper

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bound, the norwegian team maintained a steady pace for

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the entire journey and ultimately reached the South Pole

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first, more than 30 days before the british team did. But more

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importantly, they also had the energy and stamina to

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return to their ship, unlike the british team,

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who never made it back from the South Pole. Now that's obviously an

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extreme example, but I think the point is pretty clear. In today's

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super connected world, it has never been more important to make sure that you are

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eventually done for the day. You need that upper bound so

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that you can go home and recharge. And by the way, leaving the

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studio and then checking your email on the couch all night, that doesn't

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count. That keeps your brain in work mode the whole time. And I'm super guilty

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of this. I often think about work long after I'm done, but I have

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found that when I'm diligent about doing my shutdown routine,

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I'm way more likely to actually be done working and be present for my

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family. So you've got to close those open loops for yourself. Which brings us

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to the next tip. Write things down. Now, it

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sounds basic, but we just don't really do it. Here's an example.

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What's the next thing you need to do for a current project? Who do you

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need to text back? What do you need to invoice for? What do you currently

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need from the grocery store? Okay, so how many of those things

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I just mentioned do you have written down? If you had all that bouncing around

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your head, then I'm guessing you also complain about having a hard time focusing.

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David Allen, one of the OG productivity authors, says it best with

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the mind is for having ideas, not holding them. Our brains

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might be super powerful, but psychologists suggest that they function best

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when only focusing on a few things, like two or three. So

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if you want to be more effective at everything you're doing, then you don't want

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to be storing every commitment and task you have in your mind.

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Get all those things down on paper, calendar, or in a task manager

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so that you can focus on the task at hand without your mind telling you

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to get milk on the way home. Anytime I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it's

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usually because I need to do a huge task brain dump. Getting

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all that down into a database and then assigning a time to do it

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immediately relieves a ton of stress. So as you can

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see, this is where all these steps start to come together.

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If you're planning and in control of your schedule and you have a trusted to

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do list, it all starts to snowball into actually becoming

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more productive. And lastly, you've got to do

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focused work. If pro tools crashes, the first thing I

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do is grab my phone and start swiping,

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which is probably the worst thing I could do. I was in the zone

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and now I'm going to wander down 30 different rabbit holes. Here's a

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shocking statistic that I think will really hammer the importance of this home. It

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takes an average of 23 minutes to

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refocus after a distraction, so that computer glitch and

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swipe fest essentially just cost me a half hour, which is pretty

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crazy. So here's what you do. Don't check your email while you're in the

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middle of one of your work blocks. In fact, make a time block for

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checking email, because it is the ultimate distraction. Next,

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silence your phone. Better yet, leave it in another room or on the couch

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behind you. Now, a lot of people might say I can't silence my phone. What

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if my kids school calls or something like that? If you've got an iPhone,

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the focus modes are now customizable. They have been for a while. I have one

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called work. The only notifications that come through are from my

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wife, my parents, and the home security and babycam apps. Remember,

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99% of the notifications that pop up on your device are

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not urgent, and they can for sure wait until you are out of

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your deep work block. I mentioned earlier how much work I could get done during

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one of my daughter's naps. This is why I had so little focused work

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time then that I had to be sure that there were zero interruptions.

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So now that you're a more productive music professional, it is time to fast track

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your career. Shave a couple years off your journey with this video here.