How to beat procrastination?

It happens a lot in life and in music making too. What do you do to overcome it? Please share. For example, I found it easier to actually start doing something simple, like trying to recreate a beat or sound from favorite record to build “positive momentum” and go from there. It doesn’t always work, though. What is your recipe?

Ill reply tomorrow

Get off your ass!!!

there’s different methods for different working styles and personality types

Setting daily goals seems to work for me, not just any goal but something that results in some form of output.

Whether its a rough ableton session, a chopped up set of samples, a patch/sequence I’ve written down or saved, a video I’ve captured, or just a few minutes of live audio recordings the key is to save and date these artifacts in an organized matter.

For painting/design work it was pretty easy adopting this method since it’s visual but I don’t see it being any different for audio if you’re using digital tools.

I am considering getting a portable recorder (zoom H4N?) to always have connected to the outs of my audio interface recording everything, dumping the audio files every few days.

Currently I make sure I name everything properly. Even though the system has its own timestamp I go ahead and put MMDDYY as well as the names of anyone who contributed right in the file name/folder.

I’m sort of rambling at this point but hopefully this will help get the ball rolling, i’m interested to hear what works for everyone here as I’m sure we all get off track once in a while.

Don’t wait for inspiration.
Don’t wait till the “time is right”
Don’t try to make it easier.

Just do it.

1- Quit your 10 hour a day exhausting job
2-Get a sugar momma
3-Ditch personal hygiene and proper meals
4-lol… probably best to just do what he said ↑↑↑

I usually find that procastrination comes to me when trying to finish tracks. That’s the tough part. Getting started on a new track is easy, but finishing tracks, oh lord, that has me cleaning the house, taking the dog for long walks, taking out the trash, calling old friends I haven’t seen in a while, talk to the cat, go to the grocery store - not to mention browse the web.

What works for me is writing up a detailed schedule. It usually looks like this;

1400-1445 - Work on track 1.
1445 - Break - talk to cat, for instance.
15-1545 - Work on track 2
1545 - Break - eat and browse the web for a while.
1615 - Work on track 3

And so on. That works for me. You should write up the plan the day before you start implementing it, so you get a night’s sleep to get your brain and body used to the fact that you’re going to do this. At least that works for me. :wink:

Oh, and if you have a way of rewarding yourself, that can work too. In my binge video-gaming days, I often wrote up say 6-8 hours of this schedule (on my days off, mind you) with creative work (either music making or design-stuff), and then like 3 hours of video-gaming as a reward for having followed the schedule. It’s about self-discipline, of course, but you’ll feel so much better doing that one thing you might feel a bit guilty about doing otherwise (video gaming for me) if you’ve done something constructive first.

Perhaps she can help:

… although not specifically for procrastination, these strategies may provide you with a little direction to kick start the engine or take it up a gear or change direction …

Get a teammate!


Read this book. Just do it. But don’t blame me if you quit your day job. The best book of all for overcoming your creative blocks.

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this is great - simple - and let you use your brain and instinct to direct yourself in the direction you would actually need to go for…letting yourself to decide - because the sentences are like aphorisms that disclose in intimate “decisions/revelations”

But i am the worst of the procrastinators…

I really hope to have the willpower to make some scheduling as Daisuk does…it would help.

Otherwise check his normal day (without looking too much at the gear!!)
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2013/10/11/live-blog-a-day-with-richard-devine/

I discovered years ago that we are ALL ruled by our “Biorhythm”. And therefore, you cannot be creative or (pro)active during your “down” period.

That’s not magic. But it’s like that.

Some people are more affected by their biorhythm than some other people. Some people are less affected by their biorhythm than some other people.

Our Biorhythm is like based on the Elektron step sequencer: it’s cyclic!

There are three main cycles: Physical (23 days), Emotional (28 days) and Intellectual (33 days). When my Intellectual cycles + my Emotional cycles are linked down, I’m in a total procrastination :slight_smile:

Try this link:
[url=“http://www.procato.com/biorhythm/”]http://www.procato.com/biorhythm/

just go in the room, turn the lights on, touch the instruments, listen and press record.

or just go outside or sleep if shit isn’t happening.

showing up is really what it’s about though. if you sit down and press the buttons something will happen.

This thread is great, thanks for all tips!

:+1:

I think setting up a very specific goal/vision may help. But reaching a goal, will need certain things specified. I´ve found out that for me, that is: time, money and most importantly decision.

There´s were I usually lacking, thus I have a few ongoing hardware projects: foot controller, rig setup etc. Of course all projects are all “connected” to each other. Therefore, it takes a lot of money to get the parts. Takes a lot of time, saving up the money and hunting down the parts (preferbly for the least amount of money). And of course it also takes a lot of time to think, plan and make decisions of what the next step is.

It surely doesn´t help finding out in meantime that old gear eventually breaks.

It surely screws things up, when manufacturers are releasing new firmwares or hardware that pretty much makes your old gear redundant.

Decision: continue with old plan or re-configure the whole setup(plan)?

Well, I’m not going to start a debate, but it’s not particularly well documented that we do in fact live by these biorhythms. So don’t pay too much attention to them, I’d say. :wink:
http://www.skepdic.com/biorhyth.html

I have a slighty different approach to get myself going. It depends on the goal I have:

For example if I just want to make something music-related everyday, I will just sit infront of my gear, power it up and start messing with it. A beat of some sort will happen after a while. But if I do that, I mostly know from the beginning that I won’t come up with something that I will be really happy with at the end of the day - nothing release worthy. This technique is fine for learning some gear or trying out new methods. Basically, everything that is more like homework. But:

If I force it too much, I loose my groove.

That’s why I simply try to put me in the best possible mood. Of course that’s not easy after a hard day’s work but it’s doable. I do whatever makes me happy that day. Even if it’s just a cup of tea, something nice to eat or an hour of mayham in GTA. When I’m relaxed and simply feel good (almost empty), I will go almost automatically to my gear and everything will work on it’s own. Then I will get totally lost in a track and finish it without it feeling like work.

Basically, try to feel good as much as possible and when you do, try to make music as much as possible. Then a routine will take shape.

And I’m not talking drugs or alcohol here. Of course, that might work, too, if that’s your thing.

And if you can’t feel good, you have bigger problems than not finishing a track :slight_smile:

Turn off the internet.

I will…

…later…

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’m hoping this will do the trick for me :
http://weeklybeats.com/

Also, the best trick I’ve read (I think it was on lifehacker) to break procrastination is this : Give yourself 10 minutes to start what you should be doing and if it doesn’t work out after 10 minutes give yourself the right to stop doing it.

I always end up working much more than 10 minutes on stuff (music or other things) when I actually begin working on it. But knowing that I give myself the right to quit after 10 minutes somehow makes it easier to actually begin working, which I think is the hardest part of the process. Once you get going… the hours often end up passing by without notice.