There are days here and there where I just feel so unproductive. I’m just wandering here and about feeling tired and lazy, procrastinating with basic house chores or something similar, and not knowing what to work on, or not feeling like doing anything. I often realise how unproductive I am till late in the day and just tend to sleep early and start fresh the next day…
I don’t know if some of you feel the same? If so do you have a routine or a way to prevent these kind of days to happen? Would love to hear your thoughts on this, hope I’m not the only one feeling like this!
hi
well, when i am going unproductive i do something else
by example if it is a lake of inspiration, i go outside for a walk, watch a film, go near the sea, or the forest sometimes it works and it bring me something clear and new ideas
or you can improvise on your piano to find something, a tune , and idea or a mood
or sometime a try different instrument and just by discover new sound, new preset it brings me idea for a track or tot solve a problem
It’s a really tough one, but sometimes just setting out what you want to achieve the DAY BEFORE can be helpful.
I mean, before you finish working / composing, write down what you want to achieve tomorrow. That way, as soon as you sit at your desk the next day you already know what you should be doing. Sometimes that’s the hardest part - you spend half the time just working out what you should be doing!
Then there’s finding inspiration - a few minutes on Spotify can sometimes help get you into the creative flow…
…and if all else fails…force it! Just start writing, it won’t take long before you’re back in the mood
"I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o’clock in the morning and Mesdames LesMuses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous.” - Tchaikovsky
I actually wrote a short article on getting over “composer’s block” - if you’re really struggling to get in the creative mood, sometimes just approaching it from a more technical, or analytical perspective helps with the aforementioned “forcing”
What an excellent question Romain, and I think we can all relate to this. We are human after all, not robots. I very often procrastinate by doing non-productive work. It’s even harder since I work from home, and as you say starting to do house chores and stuff is so easy. =/
I have tried many different productivity techniques, but the only one that works for me is “deadlines”.
Another thing I do try it scheduling important tasks, instead of using to-do lists. It makes them more “real” as they are in my calendar.
Awesome, thank you so much Jonny. Yes I used to write my goals the day before, don’t know why I stopped. Should definitely go back to this. And thanks for the article I found it very helpful! I’ll be more prepared now when those days strikes me again!
True that! Interesting isn’t, why do we naturally all procrastinate in some way at one point… I’ll try be more serious with setting deadlines for myself, thanks!
I do have my days when I am not motivated but I try to prepare myself ahead of time, that is I try to have a musical idea in my head before I go into the studio or I try to frame my mindset to be very open to music. Mindset is very important for me. The other thing I try to do is write consistently. I may not write everyday but when I do it is on a schdule. For now that means saturday mornings (8-2 usuually) into the early afternoon. Sundays are usually video work, meta tagging, planning and posting social media, trying to read business articles, anything to do with business of the studio besides writing. I find comfort in a regular schedule. So that is how I keep from getting into ruts. But they do happen and I just keep trying until it clicks again.
