Back to time management. Actually, I wish there were a better term to use than that — it’s so business-y and one of those terms that future generations will snicker at as being so “turn-of-the-century.” But it’s the best shorthand I’ve got at the moment, and I don’t mean for these posts to be real long, so shorthand is a plus.
Should it seem that I’m writing from some position of wisdom about managing time — maybe just for writing about it at all — let me explicitly state that I’m no expert. If anything, I’m writing about it to help organize myself and reinforce good habits against bad old ones. Negotiating the many things I need to do on a daily basis is my big preoccupation lately — because I know that when I’m on my game life is better.
OK, now that I’ve made my disclaimers, I’ll get back to where I left off last time.
Photo: Les Chatfield via Wikipedia Commons
There’s your personal life (and really, that’s a whole bit of organizing in itself, a vast category), and there’s your job(s). That leaves dealing with craft and career.
I think they’re of about equal importance. Ideally, for every hour I spend practicing or recording, I should spend an hour connecting with people online, writing posts, seeking out reviewers and gigs, and taking care of all that unsexy stuff like rights and royalties and licensing. (For the record, I’ve got a lot of work to do in those last areas.)
50/50 hasn’t been my ratio — I’ve really been more like 80% craft and 20% career — and I can tell you from experience that it’s not enough. Being good’s not enough. Being great’s not enough. Maybe it is if you’re also very lucky. But if you’re not, or you want more control over your destiny, you gotta put the time into finding and cultivating your audience.
What’s the use of doing work that no one hears? Yes, I can make music for its own sake and that’s certainly part of it. But I need listeners. Feedback from listeners fires my work. Knowing that what I’m doing is going to be heard makes me work harder to make it worth hearing.
That’s about as much as I wanted to write for this post, so I’ll continue with more about craft next time. If you have any comments or want to share any thoughts or techniques, I’d love to hear them. Thanks for reading.
Oh, I should mention that I posted a new track on my netlabel Workbench Recordings this week. It’s called “Inkblot” and it’s by Philip Lynch, who wrote it and sings and plays all the guitars on the recording. I played bass and drums and produced, recorded and mixed it. Here’s the link to that — hope you enjoy it.
Pingback: Switching Gears, Part 3