Splitting Your Time

As we all know there are two sides to this game. The creative and the business. To be successful we can't spend ALL of our time on either. As independent label owners and producers we have to learn to split our time wisely. This can be very hard for those of us with the gift of being prolifically creative but we have to learn to step out of the studio and into the office if any of our creations are to ever get any real attention. It is also vital that we find help. No one can do all the work but even in having a good team you still end up having to do the follow up work. I've written a lot of songs and produced a lot of records but I'm just now getting to the point of being disciplined enough to spend more time in the office. Here's my solution. Take the first four hours of the business day from 8am to 12pm on Monday through Wednesday to do radio calls, grant calls, setting up interviews and Internet promo work. Take a lunch and go into the studio after lunch for writing, production or mixing and you have your evenings for gigs or night sessions. You should also design specific plans and goals for each project you embark on. I've found myself being in the midst of working on a bunch of great music with no specific direction. I mean the music may be great but the artist may not be ready financially or otherwise to truly sell the product. So I have to decide what projects are truly worth my time and focus on a full plan to see them all the way to success. That includes publicity, marketing, video shoot, radio placement, magazine reviews & interviews as well as putting together a killer live presentation to tour with. This is a lot but if you are not willing to due ALL of this for each project then you are wasting your time. We can't become successful by just playing gigs or staying in the studio. Someone has to handle the business and if you allow others to tell you that they can handle it for you . . . well we have years of horror stories from artists that got ripped off because they had no knowledge of their own business. So let's start learning to split our time so that we can not only create great art but see that art realize it's full potential. Enjoy the journey.

The Truth

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