(synthesizer music playing)
- There aren't enough hours in the day.
We've all heard somebody say this.
We've probably said it ourselves or even thought it.
Well, today I'm going to teach you
how to get more hours out of your day.
Because as songwriters we have a lot
to accomplish in a short amount of time,
and so often I've heard people say
Ah, I didn't have enough time.
If there was only another hour
the song would have been so much better.
We're going to look at a way to make that happen.
There's four steps to making this happen.
These four steps are
Realizing that your project is made up of little parts.
Two. Identifying individual and team
what I call dependent tasks.
Three. Doing it now rather than later.
And number four, what I call leveraging a 20,
which is going to allow you to have a 25 hour workday.
So, first.
Realizing that your project is made up of little parts.
I find this really helpful,
and just as a mindset and a mental activity alone.
It can be daunting
when thinking about a finished song
when you're starting with about nothing.
Remembering just that little steps
will get your project done.
Just that alone will regear you
to move on to step two,
which is to identify some individual dependent tasks.
These are tasks that
somebody else is either waiting on
or you need somebody else to accomplish
in order to begin yours.
Often in a song we have many of these.
For example, somebody might be waiting on
the finish of a chord progression
in order to start a melody over it.
Somebody might be waiting on a melody in order to add lyric.
Note these tasks because these are often bottlenecks
in a songwriting project and can often frustrate a group.
If you navigate these and address these quickly
you can move on to other parts of
the project that aren't so dependent
on your one accomplishment.
A songwriting group works really efficiently
when somebody accomplishes their task.
If I'm responsible for writing a chord progression
and I know a vocalist is going to work
on a melody over that,
the sooner I get that part off to the vocalist
they can be doing their work
while I'm doing something else.
Which brings us to the idea of
do it now rather than later.
When you think about the dependent situation
I just described, if I put off doing something now,
all of a sudden everybody is waiting on me.
If that vocalist is waiting on my chord progression
and then a lyricist is waiting for that melody
and maybe a producer is waiting to build other tracks
from that vocal.
Everybody is at a standstill if I'm not doing my part now.
So look for these places where other people
are waiting on your task and do them now.
It will make a huge difference in your writing experience.
You will accelerate the process amazingly,
and people will be much happier working with you.
The final point is what I call leveraging a 20.
This is a simple, helpful tool,
which again ties into the previous idea
of doing it now.
Leveraging a 20 is simply a term I've come up with
for saying finding 20 minutes to do something.
Because 20 minutes is not impossible.
We all live busy lives.
However, there's three spots in the day
I've found that are really useful
for finding 20 minutes.
One is waking up 20 minutes earlier
to accomplish a few tasks.
One is going to bed 20 minutes later,
and the other is pulling about 20 minutes
out of a lunch break.
Almost everybody can do that.
If you do those three places,
you have an extra hour of the day,
and that's why I call it a 25 hour workday.
Again, in summing up,
the four main points that will really save you a lot of time
and gain you a whole lot of productivity are
that realizing your project is made up of
small little tasks.
Identifying individual and group dependent tasks.
Doing it now rather than later,
and then leveraging a 20.
Doing all four of these things
will be super helpful for your songwriting teams.