058 – How to Develop an Effective Routine as a Musician or Music Entrepreneur

If you want to achieve anything of significance, you must work on it consistently. But how is consistency achieved? How can you discipline yourself to work on your most important tasks daily? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share the importance of routine and how to develop one that helps you move quicker towards your goals. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – Developing an effective routine and how to achieve consistency 00:53 – I don’t have the perfect routine but I’m working on it 01:26 – Your routine should change based on your goals 01:43 – Steps you can take towards building your personal routine 01:56 – #1: Determine what your goals are 02:17 – #2: Understand what your goals will require of you 02:53 – #3: Plan your ideal week 03:38 – #4: Stick to your plan 04:11 – Routine will help you build consistency, momentum, and traction Transcription: Thanks for joining me. Today I wanted to talk about developing an effective routine. Now, you may have heard me talk about consistency quite a bit on the podcast, as well as in my book, The New Music Industry. I do believe consistency is important, but you may be left with this question: “How do I achieve consistency?” Well, it is achieved through routine. Now, routine is something that sounds relatively commonplace but it actually requires quite a bit of self-discipline to execute. Sticking to a routine allows you to find your groove within it, and to achieve more because you’ll be doing tasks daily instead of whenever you feel like it or whenever you have the free time to do them. I admit that I don’t have the perfect routine right now for reasons I’ve already shared with you in the last few podcast episodes, but it’s still something I like to use as a tool. Earlier this year, I had a very regular routine of going to bed at 1:00 AM and waking up at 9:00 AM. This is something that worked well for me with all the assignments that I had. When summer came along, this became unsustainable, because there’s a major difference between the daylight we get here in Canada between summer and winter. So, in a way I’m kind of finding a new routine based on what I’m trying to accomplish in the next few months. I think this is an important point for you to understand. Your routine should change based on your goals and what’s required of you. You shouldn’t just stick to a routine that you’ve already established, unless it’s getting you to where you want to go right now. Ensure that your routine supports you. Don’t become a slave to the routine. Here are few concrete steps you can take towards building your personal routine, because I can’t tell you what’s going to be most effective for you. You must determine that based on what you’re trying to accomplish. Number one. Determine what your goals are if you aren’t clear on them already. You can certainly skip this step if you know what your goals are for the next year. But without knowing what you’re aiming for, you can’t develop an effective routine around it. If you don’t have goals, it’s like starting a journey without a destination in mind. Yes, if you keep going, you’ll end up somewhere, but it may not be where you want to end up. Without knowing what you’re aiming for, you can’t develop a routine around it.Share on X Number two. Take the time to understand what these goals will require of you. What will it take to achieve these goals? What will you need in terms of connections, resources, time, and so on? Time is obviously the most important consideration here as it pertains to creating your routine. I find setting goals is a bit of an art form and rarely if ever can we set them perfectly, because we don’t know how much time or effort it’s going to take to reach those goals. So, the better you understand what it’s going to take to achieve your goals, and the better you understand yourself, the better equipped you will be to set a realistic schedule for yourself. Number three is to plan your ideal week. This is an idea I got from Michael Hyatt’s blog. I think it’s a really great exercise to go through. You can use a piece of paper or a spreadsheet, whatever suits you best. The idea is to turn your vision of a perfect week into a workable schedule, even if you can’t entirely live by it right now. You want to take some time to map everything out hour by hour, whether it’s lunchtime, workouts you’re going to be doing, shows you’re going to be playing, marketing duties you’re going to be doing… You want to put it all into your weekly schedule. I would suggest leaving some margin in your schedule, because ultimately you just never know what’s going to come up and you may want to prioritize different people or different activities based on where things are going. Number four. This is the most critical piece of the whole thing. Once you’ve made your plan, stick to your plan. As you began living by your plan, you’ll likely discover certain areas that need adjusting and you can always alter your schedule as you begin to see those omissions and problems with it. But your routine and plan is of little consequence unless you persist and keep going with it. It’s unlikely that you will execute perfectly, and that’s not the point. The point is to have a plan and to follow it and to tweak it as necessary. Routine will help you build consistency. Consistency will help you build momentum. Momentum will help you build traction in your career. Routine will build consistency, which will build momentum, which will build traction.Share on X Upgrade to Members Only Audios for more exciting, exclusive training.