Creating a 10x schedule to maximize your productivity

Many producers have a strong ambition to become the greatest of their generation or to gain millions of views with every single release that they put out. However, with distractions being plentiful due to social media (and other factors), procrastination is at an all-time high. In this article, we’re going to discuss some ways in which producers can create a mindset & schedule so that they can maximize their productivity in order to fulfil their ambitions.

Being successful is often the result of outworking, and outperforming every single person that you are competing against. With a multitude of producers all wanting to be in a certain Spotify playlist, or to play at a festival, competition can be extremely tough within the entertainment industry. Therefore, operating your brand like everyone else is simply not an option. Instead, it is a necessity to work hard, have a lot of talent, and stop at nothing in a bid to achieve your ambitions.

The “10x schedule” is a simple principle which basically states that if you write 10 times more than what you normally would into your schedule, you’ll work a lot harder & more efficiently in order to achieve as much as possible. Most people desire success in their music careers, yet aren’t prepared to put in the hard work that’s required in order to achieve their dreams. This is where the 10x schedule comes in: it allows you to prioritize your important tasks for a day so that they can be achieved extremely quickly. For example, instead of simply saying that you want to write a new verse for a track, you could add in extra activities such as potential promotion plans, distribution plans etc. As there are more tasks that are required to do, your brain psychologically aims to achieve each task as quickly as possible.

Being in the music industry, it is probable that you’re going to be setting goals that are difficult to achieve. Therefore, it’s certainly worth setting your expectations extremely high from the very beginning. This simple practice will force you to work harder in order to achieve your dreams so that any expectations of yourself are fulfilled. As an entrepreneur within the music industry, producers have to realize their career isn’t stable due to market conditions etc – and so they have to constantly be working hard in order to keep themselves in a financially secure position. After all, You will either work to accomplish your goals and dreams or you’ll be used to accomplish someone else’s goals and dreams.

One activity that’s worth including in a 10x schedule is networking. If you aspire to release music on the likes of Monstercat & Dim Mak, you should be regularly speaking to, and developing relationships with employees at the companies. Although it’s a cliche saying that you are the average of the 5 people you speak to the most, it’s completely accurate. By spending as much time as possible networking with people in a higher position than you in the industry, it will force you to work harder in order to be on a similar level.

Another action worth taking note of is your ambitions. What do you want to achieve? Is it a million streams? To play at Tomorrowland? Or something else? You have to commit to a dream in order to take enough action to achieve it. Therefore, it’s highly recommended that you find a dream, and figure out the actions later. If you want to play at Tomorrowland, network with DJ’s who regularly play there, and with the event organizers to potentially get a slot at a future show.

As the 10x schedule clearly implies, you should also be setting targets that are ten times more than what you originally planned. Because you will be working towards a much higher target, it’s probable that you’ll achieve your original goal a lot quicker than initially expected – as you’ll be putting in the work ethic needed to achieve the higher goal.  For example, if you want to gain one million streams, aim for 10 million. People within the music industry often do not set their goals very high – and so they quickly become complacent once their ambitions are achieved. This principle forces producers to operate at an extremely high level of speed & execution.

Finally, the amount of work within a task can be extremely off-putting for a producer – and so they never achieve a certain task. After all, trying to achieve a number one hit single isn’t extremely easy to do. However, instead of focusing on the workload, concentrate on how fruitful the results will be for your career. That will easily motivate most producers within the industry to accept the work, and simply get on with the job. After all, the potential benefits that they can reap from the results are truly wonderful.

By creating a 10x schedule for your music career, your productivity can be extremely boosted to a point in which you are extremely efficient at speed & execution of a task.