How to avoid distractions as a music producer
If you are similar to the majority of music producers within the music industry, you will no doubt become distracted from time-to-time from your production schedule when creating new tracks. It’s human: it happens to everyone. Whether it’s an email, phone call, a message from friends, or anything else, there’s a lot of things that can take away your time from working on your craft. During this article, we’re going to discuss how to eliminate distractions in an effective way that will allow you to focus on your production work throughout the day.
Have you been experiencing a lack of motivation whilst producing? Maybe you’ve been unproductive due to external factors such as a bombardment of messages and demo submissions? Within society, we’re at a point where our cell phones have become such a pivotal part of our lives. Despite the ease of communication between colleagues in the music industry, it can be a massive distraction with regular social media updates.
Elimination
There are now many apps and programs which are specifically dedicated to the concentration of the mind. This could include mediation and also yoga (among other activities). By downloading one of these and creating specific times in which you can work, it will help you become a lot more focused in the times that you’re supposed to be producing. Alternatively, putting your devices into aeroplane mode will block external communications (such as Facebook messages) from coming through.
Order
Having a set order to your day can be a great way of efficiently completing tasks one-by-one to stay productive. This is because working on multiple projects at the same time throughout one day can cause your energy levels to become depleted, and for procrastination to occur. However, narrowing your attention to one task at a time will sufficiently increase your productivity levels so that you can become more disciplined.
Schedule
Many distractions we face are due to the instantaneous ability to connect with pretty much anybody around the world. For example, the opportunity to email & message almost any music producer that you can think of. As well as scheduling time for production, consider also scheduling times for checking emails & messaging with people. By doing this, it will give you the chance to focus on your work during set hours, but also to allow yourself some relaxation throughout the day.
Prioritize
Pretty much everybody within the music industry has a long list of things they need to carry out for the day. Whether it’s sending emails, attending meetings, or sorting out content schedules. However, it’s understandable that not everything can be completed. Therefore, prioritizing your schedule into items of importance will allow you to complete any urgent items, and finish any other tasks later during the day.
Personal assistance
Finally, you could delegate some of your tasks to a personal assistant (which can easily be found on the likes of Linkedin, Fiverr, or Upwork. This way, you can focus on your important tasks and let somebody else simultaneously handle anything else within your schedule.
Find the cause
Once you have figured out the cause of your distractions, you need to look at eliminating them so that you can be more productive in the future. Is it people messaging you on Facebook? Turn off your wifi on your phone. Is it Netflix playing in the background? Turn it off. Can’t focus in the summer heat? Consider taking a vacation to a colder country and working from there. Essentially, you need to find the problem and provide a solution.
Preparation
Those who are prepared are the ones who are successful. This is because they have a clear strategy on exactly how they will go about achieving their dreams. Create a clear & strategized vision of the exact steps you need to take in order to achieve your dreams. By preparing a list of what to do, and the people that can make it happen, success comes to you a lot easier.
Deadlines
Finally, creating effective deadlines for every single one of your tasks is a great way to maintain efficiency and minimize distractions. Once you are in a steady workflow, a good tactic is to give yourself a period of time that’s almost impossible to that you’re forced to work harder to achieve it. For example, if you think a task will take you 3 hours, try to accomplish it in two. Although you may not actually achieve it within the set time frame, it will undoubtedly build some great efficiency habits. It does take a lot of time to break bad habits and lose distractions – it won’t be overnight. However, by understanding what distracts you & why you become unfocused, it can make it a lot easier to drop these distractions to become more productive.
Although you may have been distracted in the past, it’s not too late for things to change. Focus on the positives of not being distracted, and everything will become much easier during the process of concentration. Don’t look at your phone & other devices in order to stay mentally prepared for whatever activity you need to overcome.
