3 ways most musicians waste time

As a band or artist, time is a highly coveted resource, and shouldn’t be squandered. Here, we look at three ways in which artists are using their time incorrectly.

Guest post from Fiona Z

I hope your September is starting out strong, happy, and healthy.  It’s been an interesting last few weeks as I’ve watched major fall tours cancel, leaving my clients’ tours currently up in the air. I don’t know what the outlook will be for live music this fall, but my hope is that people can come out to shows and enjoy live music again. It might be wishful thinking for that to happen this year, but one must hope, right?

For today’s note, I decided to look back at my older blog posts (I’m almost at 100 posts!) and see what could be updated. I was reviewing one on how musicians can waste time on coordinating rehearsals. So, I thought I would revisit that topic and dive into the top 3 things I see what musicians waste time on.

1. Sticking with traditional methods and not investing in online tools
For example: I dread giving out paperwork to bands, promoters, and venues when there is no online signature tool. Most folks don’t have a printer anymore, and most don’t know how to add a signature to a document via their computer. So, without the ease of being able to sign a document online, naturally getting those documents back to me takes much longer than needed.

Find processes in how you run your business and look at where you can streamline them. You might be surprised at the many low-cost, sometimes free options you have to make your business run faster. Have your VA do the research for you to save that step!

2. Doing everything on your to-do list yourself
I love to-do lists, but I understand that I don’t need to do everything on that list myself, or in the same day. If you’re about to tackle a release or a new project, take the 30 minutes to just jot down everything that’s involved, no matter how messy it looks. From there, you can map out who could do those things and also prioritize the tasks that must get done during a certain time frame or before another task can be accomplished.

If you’re creating a list more to put out some current fires in your business, pick 1-3 urgent tasks and make sure to resolve them that day. Save the next important items for tomorrow, or delegate to your VA what they can handle that day, and save the rest for tomorrow. Always just try to do the next right thing for your business.

3. Not investing in support
Both of those time-wasters above involve not using a support person or a team of helpers. If you’re at a point in your business where you are doing more day-to-day work than working on your craft, recording, focusing on the revenue streams for your business, you’re not using your time efficiently. You have to be focused on the parts of your business that only you can do – and that’s not updating inventory in your store, creating a new flyer for your online show, and setting up a release for distribution. 

You don’t need a full-time or a part-time person on staff – sometimes the support you need can be found with a quick job post on Upwork or Fiverr to take it off your hands that week!

These three things will apply not only to any independent musician but any business owner because if you are a thriving independent musician, you are also a business owner. You must think of yourself that way if you want to have success in the industry.

So, utilize your resources and run your successful business!

Cheers,