Do you ever get to the end of the day and wonder where the time went? You went into the day with the best of intentions and with plans to get stuff done but it seems you lost the day and got next to nothing done?

If that’s you I want to give you 3 ways to get lots more done in the studio.

Strategise

Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution only to find that it’s all over by day 5?

There’s a simple reason for that, many of us confuse strategy with wishful thinking. You decide you are going to make an album, write a new song or get that TV trailer mix done and before you know it you are paving the road to hell with good intentions.

It’s simply not enough to say to yourself you are going to do something, you need to have clear and measurable goals attached to it. For example, many people say they are going to exercise more, that means nothing, but if they say they are going to walk 5Km three times a week, that means something. The wishful thought has become a plan, there are goals you can hit… or miss.

So if you are going to write a new song you need to do more than think that. Speak to any songwriter and they will tell you that waiting for inspiration to hit isn’t a strategy, it rarely does. Whereas, if you say that you are going to spend two hours each morning working on new ideas with the aim of having one new song a week, that is a strategy. You can take it a step further and add rewards to your plan. For example I don’t have a coffee until I’ve finished my current task, for you that may be no coffee until you’ve written a song, verse, or line! The size of the task doesn’t matter, it’s being clear about what you are going to do and when.

I’ve adopted the James Clear strategy from his book Atomic Habits when it comes to focussing on a task, he breaks it down in even more detail. If I’m going for a run then the night before I put all my running gear, including my shoes, outside the bedroom door. When I get up it reminds me of my intention to run and I do it. Of course I could ignore it, but the reminder is there, if it wasn’t I may forget. I rarely avoid running using this method.

This method can extend to any part of our life. It may mean having a pad and pen on the desk with the guitar on its stand to remind you to spend time song writing. It may mean having the session you will be working on as a link emailed to you the night before. Whatever it is, do something to remind you to do these things.

Too many people don’t have any kind of strategy to help them get more done, often we wonder into our studio, mix room or edit suite and think, “I have a ton of work to do today, let’s see how far I get.” That’s just asking for trouble, what makes it worse is we don’t prepare for the day because we have no plan, which leads me to the second way to get more done.

Organise

For many creatives the word organisation seems alien. For some it’s even regarded as the enemy of creativity - shouldn’t we just let it all hang out and go with the flow? Good luck with that.

Organisation isn’t the enemy of creativity, we do it all the time. We arrange songs, layout tracks in sessions, label versions of mixes, in reality music is nothing more than the organisation of notes in pitch and time. Modern music has taken that a step further and now many of us ensure our notes are aligned to pitch and our rhythms to grids. So, considering organisation as the enemy of creativity is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If we are going to be more creative that means organising our time and space to ensure we are as productive as possible.

Let’s look at space first. Some of use thrive in clutter and others in order, there’s no right or wrong way to organise you studio as long as it works for you. Just make sure there aren’t any trip hazards that make being creative harder than it has to be. In my article The Smarter Recording Studio - How To Be Creative With Fewer Interruptions, I wrote about how reorganising my space had helped to improve my productivity;

“I recently moved my home studio around, which meant taking it all apart and putting it back together again. What become apparent as I undertook this exercise as how many ways I was wasting time because of poorly designed parts of my studio workflow and not working as smart as I could.”

In conclusion I wrote;

“All of the things I've highlighted above seem small, if not trivial, but combined they all help to remove distractions, if not headaches that slow down the creative process. They can be applied to both home and commercial studios and will help you work smarter rather than harder.”

Space is one part of the puzzle, time the other. Some of us are morning people and we work better before the sun rises, other people are most productive when burning the midnight oil. It’s important to figure out when you are at your most productive and plan your day around that. When you have found when that time is then block that time out for creativity and block other things out of it. Which leads me to my last point.

Prioritise

You are in the middle of a vocal edit or a mix and in the zone and then ping, buzz, warble. Or have you ever been watching a tutorial and seen notifications appear on the screen?

We live in a world where distractions are coming at us from everywhere, our mind is like a lone solder pinned down by message snipers on every side and somedays we wonder if we are going to be able to hold them off.

The fact is we can’t. We are in effect trying to rub our tummy while simultaneously patting our heads, it’s not impossible, but it’s bloody hard! Science confirms it’s the case too. In her article The Myth of Multitasking Nancy K. Napier Ph.D. writes;

Think you’re good at doing several things at once? Reading and listening to music? Driving and talking on the phone (hands-free, of course), or texting while sitting in a meeting? Think again.

Research in neuroscience tells us that the brain doesn’t really do tasks simultaneously, as we thought (hoped) it might. In fact, we just switch tasks quickly. Each time we move from hearing music, to writing a text, or talking to someone, there is a stop/start process that goes on in the brain.

That start/stop/start process is rough on us. Rather than saving time, it costs time (even very small micro seconds). It’s less efficient, we make more mistakes, and over time, it can sap our energy…So next time you think you’re multi-tasking, stop and be aware that you are really switch-tasking. Then give yourself a time limit (10 minutes, 45 minutes?) and focus on just one task and see if you can’t complete it better, faster, and with less energy.”

My phone has been in silent mode for several years, I don’t use voicemail, it’s turned off and my notifications are muted on all my Macs using Do Not Disturb. I try to read emails a few times a day rather than having it open with notifications pinging me. I once asked my wife, who works in the legal profession, what was a reasonable time for an email reply to come back in her team. She told me in some cases a few days, sometimes a week. I nearly spat my coffee, I have people who think I’ve died if I don’t reply within hours! However, I somehow think they’ve got it right and I’ve got it wrong.

If multitasking is not possible then something has to suffer, either we work slower or we do substandard work. I can’t imagine any of us would want a surgeon checking their social media while operating on us. Or a pilot to be watching a YouTube video while completing pre-flight checks. These are extreme examples, but if we are professionals then surely our client deserve our full attention. Or if we are engineers or producers in a studio we should be concentrating on the performance, not checking our Instagram. I’m often trying to get hold of someone who will reply “sorry in a session, can I call later?” There’s only one answer to that question and it’s yes.

Summary

Achieving lots more in the studio isn’t magic or a list of tricks, it’s about having a strategy and a plan, not a wish list. It’s about organising our space and time to maximise our productivity and it’s about removing distractions from being able to give our very best.

Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels