For musicians and composers, the combination of creative, financial, and administrative responsibilities can quickly become overwhelming. Time management tools can help to manage priorities.
Research has explored how we prioritise tasks by looking at whether the task involves significant outcomes, and urgency within a short timeframe. As an example, an important task might be a routine GP appointment and an urgent task, a cancer screening after discovering a mole. Studies highlight the ‘urgency effect’, where people tended to be more influenced by the imminent expiration of a task than its potential payoff.
The Eisenhower Matrix is an example of a tool that reminds us to pay more attention to the payoff of a task and can help mitigate the impacts of the mere urgency effect.
It requires you to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important.
Urgent tasks are time sensitive. They might be simpler than important tasks, such as replying to emails or filling out forms, but we feel pressured to do these tasks first because they require us to be reactive.
Important tasks, by contrast, are more complex and strategic tasks. They are aligned with our goals (see the section on “Realistic Expectations”) and achieving them advances our personal or professional lives. We often put important tasks off because they require more work and even perhaps because we are afraid of failing at them.
Unfortunately, procrastinating over important tasks often means that by the time we get around to them, we have less brain power and energy, and are thus more likely to make mistakes.
Be aware of how you approach a task. Some days you might feel over-optimistic and think that you are more efficient than you are. On other days you might feel overwhelmed and can only focus on the immediate simpler tasks.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a four-category tool, with two columns and two rows. The columns are labelled ‘urgent’ and ‘not urgent’, and the rows are labelled ‘important’ and ‘not important’. Depending on which category your activities fall into, there are strategies for how best to deal with each one.
Activities in the urgent & important category should be done immediately.
Activities that are not urgent & important should be scheduled for a later date – but you must ensure to stick to that schedule and not put them off.
Activities in the urgent & not important section should be delegated to someone else.
Lastly, activities in the not urgent and not important category should be deleted altogether.
URGENT
NON-URGENT
This is similar to the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule which highlights that 80% of results come from 20% of causes. It can be helpful to understand where your focus should be to achieve your goals.
Online project management tools (e.g. Trello, Asana, Google Keep and OneNote) can be helpful. There are also desktop-based programmes such as Monday (more expensive, but useful).
Analogue tools are helpful too – using large pieces of paper (a roll of wallpaper works) with big markers and drawing mind maps for projects. Using Post-it notes to break down complex tasks into actionable steps, or having a calendar on the wall to block out time for certain projects helps too. For creators with neurodivergent traits, having visual cues around the room can help them to stay on track.
Once you have prioritised your tasks using the tools above, set boundaries for your work to ensure you maintain your work-life balance. It can help to identify your personal energy cycles – are administrative tasks easier in the morning? Perhaps you’re more creative in the evening? Being clear about how you work best can help you to be more effective with your time.
Decide how many hours you will work each day. Review your administrative tasks and see what can be automated – emails, invoicing and scheduling can often be managed with online tools.
Schedule your time with an online calendar. Sort incoming emails into subfolders or categories and use your calendar to decide when to look at certain folders.
Invoicing can be managed through online accounting systems like QuickBooks and Xero.
Finally, consider delegating or outsourcing tasks that are outside your expertise or too time-consuming. Hiring a virtual assistant or collaborating with other freeelancers can be a smart move. Delegation allows you to focus on the work that you do best and that generates the most income.
A really good planner can help you to identify the most important tasks that need to be done each day and week and offer a review after each month of what went well and why and what needs to change.
