June 20, 2024 • 10 mins
In this episode Travis breaks down the five productivity tips that help him find work life balance and still deliver on a high level for his clients.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- The Importance of Planning
- How to Beat Task Overwhelm
- The Secret to Operating at Your Highest Level
- Why Your Calendar Is Your Super Power
- Deep Work
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Credits:
Guest: N/A
Host: Travis Ference
Editor: Travis Ference
Theme Music: inter.ference
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If there's one thing that will keep you working in the music industry, it's following
through on your word, aka getting
done. And this video will help make sure that happens. Whether you're a
full time audio professional already or working to get there,
these five productivity tips will help you hit your deadlines and balance your
life.
(00:34):
Welcome back to the show. I'm Travis Farents, a Grammy nominated blah, blah, blah doesn't
really matter for this one. What matters for this one is I work three days
a week and I probably mix close to 200 songs a year while doing this
podcast and YouTube channel and being a dad. There's a common
misconception that hard work is better work and that if you're
always working, then you must be productive. Now,
(00:55):
there's no denying that putting hours of hard work in will get things
done, but that definitely doesn't mean that you're productive. I've had seasons in my life
where I cranked 18 hours days regularly, and they definitely helped me learn a lot
and build my career to where it is today. But eventually, it's
just not sustainable. And even if it was, are you really
doing your best work on hour 17? So before we dive into these, I
(01:18):
have to say that I am fully a productivity nerd, but I am also
not perfect at times. I've taken these productivity hacks so far
that I think they've actually made me less productive. But these five tips
have proven to help me every time when I do them, and
that's the key. You've got to do this stuff. If you can't
sit here and commit to actually trying these things, then you should probably just click
(01:40):
on to whatever the latest plugin review is. So with that,
onto the five tips that I do every day that help me
deliver for my clients. First up, have a plan.
Nothing says failure to launch like walking into your studio with no
clue what you're gonna do that day. When I sit down at the computer without
a game plan, I immediately find myself in my email or
(02:01):
down some rabbit hole checking out some piece of gear or productivity trick,
which is pretty ironic, right? But my most
productive days start the day before I try to stay in the habit of
having a shutdown routine to help me close out my day. And part of that
routine is to look at what I was trying to get done that day and
decide what I need to focus on for the next day. And the bonus to
(02:22):
this is that it helps keep overwhelm at bay when you've
got an open loop, like not knowing when you'll find time to finish something.
Then you have this constant layer of stress just wearing you down
a little bit minute by minute. But if you
end your day by planning the next, you can rest easy that
night knowing that you've made time for everything. The last piece
(02:44):
of the have a plan equation is that you need to know what your priorities
are. And remember that priorities are not always goals. Goals
are often more long term. Example, one of my goals right now
is to hit ten k subs on this channel,
but that's not a priority. I have a priority based on that goal,
which is to put out the best content I can once a week. Now
(03:07):
this is a good time to pause the video and ask yourself, what are
my top three priorities? And more importantly, are they reflected
on your calendar? How would they be reflected on your calendar, you ask? Well, because
you do some form of time blocking, right? Which is our second tip.
Time blocking is the act of putting actual blocks of time in your calendar
for specific tasks or projects, essentially planning your day
(03:30):
from start to finish based on what you need to get done. Now, from my
experience, it is possible to overdo this and also very possible to
underdo it. I've tried going over the top blocking five minute intervals and
entering stuff like drive time or lunch into my calendar. When I went that far,
I found that I was mostly just wasting time physically entering all of these
things. And on the other side of that, I've put general blocks in my
(03:52):
calendar for 4 hours that just say podcast, and I find that leads
to very little forward progress because it's so vague.
When you time block, it has to at least be specific enough for you
to know what you're supposed to do during that block. Now, there is a
huge caveat to time blocking though, which is that you need to
understand how long things take you. Otherwise you'll be planning an
(04:15):
unrealistic day. And that's pretty self defeating when you never get what you need to
get done. I've spent years running a timer while doing projects, so I have a
pretty good idea of how long things take me. Let's look at a mix. For
example, I know that I need about 6 hours, give or take, to get a
solid first mix ready to go out to the client. I'll typically break that up
into two days, probably two three hour blocks. And do things take
(04:37):
longer? Sometimes, definitely regularly. But
rarely do they take double or triple my expectations. A couple hours here
or there is easy enough to manage if you're doing some kind of
end of day planning routine. Now, the answer to why time blocking
works lies in Parkinson's law, which states that
work expands to fill the time available for its completion. This is
(04:59):
essentially why we're always racing to hit a deadline, even if the project has
been going for weeks. If you don't set bounds on the work,
it'll drag on. I experienced the power of setting time bounds
firsthand when my daughter was super young. You'd be surprised how much
you can get done during a two hour infant nap if you set out with
a plan for that time. So, to summarize, if you understand your time and
(05:21):
block things in your calendar properly, then you can avoid overcommitting yourself.
And when you get really good at time blocking, schedule yourself some
downtime, which is our third tip. If you want to be more
productive, then you've got to be operating at your best.
The only way to do that is to actually take time off to
rest. If you push yourself to the limit every day, I
(05:43):
guarantee that you are not getting work done as fast or as well as you
could if you weren't. This quote from Greg McKeown is a pretty good rule
of thumb. Don't do more today than you can completely
recover from tomorrow. I caught that in an interview he did with Matt D'Avella,
I think, and they were discussing his new book, effortless, which was immediately added
to my reading list. And in that conversation he brought up a concept that really
(06:04):
resonated with me. He mentioned having not just a lower bound for
the amount of work, but also an upper bound, basically a
maximum. And he used an example from history, which was super interesting.
Two teams of explorers racing to be the first to reach the South
Pole. One, a british team who basically trekked as far as they
could every single day, regardless of the weather. And a norwegian
(06:26):
team who did no more than 15 miles every day,
even if they were physically able to. So by having that upper
bound, the norwegian team maintained a steady pace for
the entire journey and ultimately reached the South Pole
first, more than 30 days before the british team did. But more
importantly, they also had the energy and stamina to
(06:48):
return to their ship, unlike the british team,
who never made it back from the South Pole. Now that's obviously an
extreme example, but I think the point is pretty clear. In today's
super connected world, it has never been more important to make sure that you are
eventually done for the day. You need that upper bound so
that you can go home and recharge. And by the way, leaving the
(07:10):
studio and then checking your email on the couch all night, that doesn't
count. That keeps your brain in work mode the whole time. And I'm super guilty
of this. I often think about work long after I'm done, but I have
found that when I'm diligent about doing my shutdown routine,
I'm way more likely to actually be done working and be present for my
family. So you've got to close those open loops for yourself. Which brings us
(07:32):
to the next tip. Write things down. Now, it
sounds basic, but we just don't really do it. Here's an example.
What's the next thing you need to do for a current project? Who do you
need to text back? What do you need to invoice for? What do you currently
need from the grocery store? Okay, so how many of those things
I just mentioned do you have written down? If you had all that bouncing around
(07:53):
your head, then I'm guessing you also complain about having a hard time focusing.
David Allen, one of the OG productivity authors, says it best with
the mind is for having ideas, not holding them. Our brains
might be super powerful, but psychologists suggest that they function best
when only focusing on a few things, like two or three. So
if you want to be more effective at everything you're doing, then you don't want
(08:16):
to be storing every commitment and task you have in your mind.
Get all those things down on paper, calendar, or in a task manager
so that you can focus on the task at hand without your mind telling you
to get milk on the way home. Anytime I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it's
usually because I need to do a huge task brain dump. Getting
all that down into a database and then assigning a time to do it
(08:37):
immediately relieves a ton of stress. So as you can
see, this is where all these steps start to come together.
If you're planning and in control of your schedule and you have a trusted to
do list, it all starts to snowball into actually becoming
more productive. And lastly, you've got to do
focused work. If pro tools crashes, the first thing I
(08:58):
do is grab my phone and start swiping,
which is probably the worst thing I could do. I was in the zone
and now I'm going to wander down 30 different rabbit holes. Here's a
shocking statistic that I think will really hammer the importance of this home. It
takes an average of 23 minutes to
refocus after a distraction, so that computer glitch and
(09:20):
swipe fest essentially just cost me a half hour, which is pretty
crazy. So here's what you do. Don't check your email while you're in the
middle of one of your work blocks. In fact, make a time block for
checking email, because it is the ultimate distraction. Next,
silence your phone. Better yet, leave it in another room or on the couch
behind you. Now, a lot of people might say I can't silence my phone. What
(09:42):
if my kids school calls or something like that? If you've got an iPhone,
the focus modes are now customizable. They have been for a while. I have one
called work. The only notifications that come through are from my
wife, my parents, and the home security and babycam apps. Remember,
99% of the notifications that pop up on your device are
not urgent, and they can for sure wait until you are out of
(10:04):
your deep work block. I mentioned earlier how much work I could get done during
one of my daughter's naps. This is why I had so little focused work
time then that I had to be sure that there were zero interruptions.
So now that you're a more productive music professional, it is time to fast track
your career. Shave a couple years off your journey with this video here.
If there's one thing that will keep you working in the music industry, it's following
through on your word, aka getting
done. And this video will help make sure that happens. Whether you're a
full time audio professional already or working to get there,
these five productivity tips will help you hit your deadlines and balance your
life.
(00:34):
Welcome back to the show. I'm Travis Farents, a Grammy nominated blah, blah, blah doesn't
really matter for this one. What matters for this one is I work three days
a week and I probably mix close to 200 songs a year while doing this
podcast and YouTube channel and being a dad. There's a common
misconception that hard work is better work and that if you're
always working, then you must be productive. Now,
(00:55):
there's no denying that putting hours of hard work in will get things
done, but that definitely doesn't mean that you're productive. I've had seasons in my life
where I cranked 18 hours days regularly, and they definitely helped me learn a lot
and build my career to where it is today. But eventually, it's
just not sustainable. And even if it was, are you really
doing your best work on hour 17? So before we dive into these, I
(01:18):
have to say that I am fully a productivity nerd, but I am also
not perfect at times. I've taken these productivity hacks so far
that I think they've actually made me less productive. But these five tips
have proven to help me every time when I do them, and
that's the key. You've got to do this stuff. If you can't
sit here and commit to actually trying these things, then you should probably just click
(01:40):
on to whatever the latest plugin review is. So with that,
onto the five tips that I do every day that help me
deliver for my clients. First up, have a plan.
Nothing says failure to launch like walking into your studio with no
clue what you're gonna do that day. When I sit down at the computer without
a game plan, I immediately find myself in my email or
(02:01):
down some rabbit hole checking out some piece of gear or productivity trick,
which is pretty ironic, right? But my most
productive days start the day before I try to stay in the habit of
having a shutdown routine to help me close out my day. And part of that
routine is to look at what I was trying to get done that day and
decide what I need to focus on for the next day. And the bonus to
(02:22):
this is that it helps keep overwhelm at bay when you've
got an open loop, like not knowing when you'll find time to finish something.
Then you have this constant layer of stress just wearing you down
a little bit minute by minute. But if you
end your day by planning the next, you can rest easy that
night knowing that you've made time for everything. The last piece
(02:44):
of the have a plan equation is that you need to know what your priorities
are. And remember that priorities are not always goals. Goals
are often more long term. Example, one of my goals right now
is to hit ten k subs on this channel,
but that's not a priority. I have a priority based on that goal,
which is to put out the best content I can once a week. Now
(03:07):
this is a good time to pause the video and ask yourself, what are
my top three priorities? And more importantly, are they reflected
on your calendar? How would they be reflected on your calendar, you ask? Well, because
you do some form of time blocking, right? Which is our second tip.
Time blocking is the act of putting actual blocks of time in your calendar
for specific tasks or projects, essentially planning your day
(03:30):
from start to finish based on what you need to get done. Now, from my
experience, it is possible to overdo this and also very possible to
underdo it. I've tried going over the top blocking five minute intervals and
entering stuff like drive time or lunch into my calendar. When I went that far,
I found that I was mostly just wasting time physically entering all of these
things. And on the other side of that, I've put general blocks in my
(03:52):
calendar for 4 hours that just say podcast, and I find that leads
to very little forward progress because it's so vague.
When you time block, it has to at least be specific enough for you
to know what you're supposed to do during that block. Now, there is a
huge caveat to time blocking though, which is that you need to
understand how long things take you. Otherwise you'll be planning an
(04:15):
unrealistic day. And that's pretty self defeating when you never get what you need to
get done. I've spent years running a timer while doing projects, so I have a
pretty good idea of how long things take me. Let's look at a mix. For
example, I know that I need about 6 hours, give or take, to get a
solid first mix ready to go out to the client. I'll typically break that up
into two days, probably two three hour blocks. And do things take
(04:37):
longer? Sometimes, definitely regularly. But
rarely do they take double or triple my expectations. A couple hours here
or there is easy enough to manage if you're doing some kind of
end of day planning routine. Now, the answer to why time blocking
works lies in Parkinson's law, which states that
work expands to fill the time available for its completion. This is
(04:59):
essentially why we're always racing to hit a deadline, even if the project has
been going for weeks. If you don't set bounds on the work,
it'll drag on. I experienced the power of setting time bounds
firsthand when my daughter was super young. You'd be surprised how much
you can get done during a two hour infant nap if you set out with
a plan for that time. So, to summarize, if you understand your time and
(05:21):
block things in your calendar properly, then you can avoid overcommitting yourself.
And when you get really good at time blocking, schedule yourself some
downtime, which is our third tip. If you want to be more
productive, then you've got to be operating at your best.
The only way to do that is to actually take time off to
rest. If you push yourself to the limit every day, I
(05:43):
guarantee that you are not getting work done as fast or as well as you
could if you weren't. This quote from Greg McKeown is a pretty good rule
of thumb. Don't do more today than you can completely
recover from tomorrow. I caught that in an interview he did with Matt D'Avella,
I think, and they were discussing his new book, effortless, which was immediately added
to my reading list. And in that conversation he brought up a concept that really
(06:04):
resonated with me. He mentioned having not just a lower bound for
the amount of work, but also an upper bound, basically a
maximum. And he used an example from history, which was super interesting.
Two teams of explorers racing to be the first to reach the South
Pole. One, a british team who basically trekked as far as they
could every single day, regardless of the weather. And a norwegian
(06:26):
team who did no more than 15 miles every day,
even if they were physically able to. So by having that upper
bound, the norwegian team maintained a steady pace for
the entire journey and ultimately reached the South Pole
first, more than 30 days before the british team did. But more
importantly, they also had the energy and stamina to
(06:48):
return to their ship, unlike the british team,
who never made it back from the South Pole. Now that's obviously an
extreme example, but I think the point is pretty clear. In today's
super connected world, it has never been more important to make sure that you are
eventually done for the day. You need that upper bound so
that you can go home and recharge. And by the way, leaving the
(07:10):
studio and then checking your email on the couch all night, that doesn't
count. That keeps your brain in work mode the whole time. And I'm super guilty
of this. I often think about work long after I'm done, but I have
found that when I'm diligent about doing my shutdown routine,
I'm way more likely to actually be done working and be present for my
family. So you've got to close those open loops for yourself. Which brings us
(07:32):
to the next tip. Write things down. Now, it
sounds basic, but we just don't really do it. Here's an example.
What's the next thing you need to do for a current project? Who do you
need to text back? What do you need to invoice for? What do you currently
need from the grocery store? Okay, so how many of those things
I just mentioned do you have written down? If you had all that bouncing around
(07:53):
your head, then I'm guessing you also complain about having a hard time focusing.
David Allen, one of the OG productivity authors, says it best with
the mind is for having ideas, not holding them. Our brains
might be super powerful, but psychologists suggest that they function best
when only focusing on a few things, like two or three. So
if you want to be more effective at everything you're doing, then you don't want
(08:16):
to be storing every commitment and task you have in your mind.
Get all those things down on paper, calendar, or in a task manager
so that you can focus on the task at hand without your mind telling you
to get milk on the way home. Anytime I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it's
usually because I need to do a huge task brain dump. Getting
all that down into a database and then assigning a time to do it
(08:37):
immediately relieves a ton of stress. So as you can
see, this is where all these steps start to come together.
If you're planning and in control of your schedule and you have a trusted to
do list, it all starts to snowball into actually becoming
more productive. And lastly, you've got to do
focused work. If pro tools crashes, the first thing I
(08:58):
do is grab my phone and start swiping,
which is probably the worst thing I could do. I was in the zone
and now I'm going to wander down 30 different rabbit holes. Here's a
shocking statistic that I think will really hammer the importance of this home. It
takes an average of 23 minutes to
refocus after a distraction, so that computer glitch and
(09:20):
swipe fest essentially just cost me a half hour, which is pretty
crazy. So here's what you do. Don't check your email while you're in the
middle of one of your work blocks. In fact, make a time block for
checking email, because it is the ultimate distraction. Next,
silence your phone. Better yet, leave it in another room or on the couch
behind you. Now, a lot of people might say I can't silence my phone. What
(09:42):
if my kids school calls or something like that? If you've got an iPhone,
the focus modes are now customizable. They have been for a while. I have one
called work. The only notifications that come through are from my
wife, my parents, and the home security and babycam apps. Remember,
99% of the notifications that pop up on your device are
not urgent, and they can for sure wait until you are out of
(10:04):
your deep work block. I mentioned earlier how much work I could get done during
one of my daughter's naps. This is why I had so little focused work
time then that I had to be sure that there were zero interruptions.
So now that you're a more productive music professional, it is time to fast track
your career. Shave a couple years off your journey with this video here.
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