If you want to kill creativity and possibly your reputation with clients, then there is no quicker way than holding things up with unnecessary delays. Here are our top 5 ways of avoiding that.

1. Make sure you have all your gear in tip-top condition. Take time to fire up everything on a regular basis, or at least stuff you haven’t used for some time if you think you are going to use it. The line ‘it was working last time I used it’ isn’t going to help you or impress people working with you.

2. Make sure you have everything you need, you should have plenty of spare cables, don’t run everything on a bare minimum, if one fails, then you need a back-up to hand.

3. Back-up. I could write this one daily and someone will still ignore it. If you loose a session or even a track, then start looking for new clients who don’t know the one you are working with.

4. Practise techniques and ideas, make sure you know your shortcuts. Speed will keep you ahead of the game.

5. Get a diary and a watch. Forgetting sessions or turning up late may be your thing and just the way you roll, but it may not be the way everyone else works. Respecting the time of other’s is essential to keep a good reputation. I know people who don’t get gigs anymore because they failed on this score alone.

So there are our top 5, what about you?