The ability to simplify is an extremely valuable skill in todays seemingly complex world.
Let’s look at a few concrete ways of simplifying your workflow in order to help you do what you do better.
1. De-clutter Your Studio/Workspace
This is obvious, but important and a good point of entry.
The principle is easy:
- Get rid of anything you don’t need.
- Have a good place for everything you do need.
Also think about what you could change in order to improve your workflow. Is there something holding you back?
Do you have sufficient light? Maybe you need a new chair or a better MIDI controller?
Remember your workspace also very much exists inside your computer. Deal with that too. The above rules apply there as well.
2. Automate Backups
Making backups manually is tedious work, not to mention an extremely unreliable way of securing your work and digital life.
You should not trust yourself to do backups manually. Especially since you really don’t want to be thinking about doing it anyway.
Luckily backups are not difficult at all to automate.
I have written about it before in greater extent – read the full article “My Easy Automated Backup Strategy” here.
3. Create a Simple File Structure on Your Computer
When you are working you need to be able to find files and folders quickly.
Create a simple and logical file structure. Avoid long chains of subfolders.
Set up shortcuts so that you can get to your most used files and folders super quick.
Don’t let miscellaneous crap accumulate on your desktop. Instead, have specific folders for incoming and outgoing files and clean those folders up regularly.
4. Choose Intuitive Tools
When looking to buy new tools and software, don’t only think about the features.
Think about the design of the user interface, too. There are huge differences between different products.
Some things are just plain difficult to use.
But more often it’s not really a case of one tool being better than the other by default.
What really counts is how a particular tool suits your own personal way of working and thinking.
Go for what feels intuitive to YOU.
You should also think about how the product you are looking at integrates with the rest of the stuff you are using.
Your long term goal should be creating an ecosystem of tools and software where everything works together in harmony.
5. Read The F*****g Manual
Before you invest in any new tools though… Make it a habit of reading the manual first.
There is often information in the manual that can greatly speed up and enhance your workflow.
Yes, read the manual BEFORE buying something.
It will help you make a better informed decision. And you will get more out of your investment if you choose to go for it.
If you haven’t read the manuals for some of the tools and software you are already using, make it a priority to study them as soon as possible.
Simplify and Thrive
Simplifying is an underlying concept that affects your productivity on a very fundamental level.
To learn more about it check out my online course “Smart Productivity for Musicians”(update 6th Jan 2018: course not available anymore).
An entire chapter dedicated on simplifying and re-thinking your workflow has just been published.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
– Hans Hofmann
Ilpo, can you make your next article about positivity ? I want to hear what you have to say about working through the difficult times. Having a really tough time pushing through this point in my life, and it’s right when my music is getting good! I finally have a polished and professional sound and I could be pumping out a lot of tracks, but my motivation is low. I just have this mental block that stopping me from making music. Do you have anything on mindset?
Hi, I have learned a lot about motivation from a book by Daniel Pink called “Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”.
Will also be touching down on those topics in depth in the Smart Productivity for Musicians course and will also write about it here in the blog in the near future.
I can agree with the first one. I recently bought a 16 in 16 out soundcard used, because I thought I needed it. Then I spent about a day and a half plugging in everything into it, creating the most complex in/out structure with audio being passed to various machines and out of them and stuff and eventually I just realized that it was getting way too complex. I couldn’t take it apart because it would take an hour to plug it back in (at least), and the routings inside multiple apps (Logic,Live,Renoise,PureData) were getting harrowing.
I eventually bought a simpler soundcard and let all that fancy stuff just lie around. Then I eventually got fed up with the whole thing, took the whole thing apart and just plugged a couple of things into the soundcard and put everything else away. It’ll be there if I need it, but having too much is even worse than not having enough.
When I moved to Ireland for 20 months, the luggage was so expensive that all I could bring were speakers and a racksynth and a soundcard – and that was enough. After I’d been mucking around with that setup for about 4 months, I introduced a synth as a synth+midikeyboard and a drummachine on another travel. That way I felt like I wasn’t neglecting the racksynth, got as much as I could out of it, and was much faster, much more productive and was really digging into my gear quite a bit. I felt like that “kill the crazy setup and go minimal” thing is really the only way to go if you want to get a grip with gear. Sure, it’s cool having the knowhow to plug everything in and wire everything in, but the thinner you spread yourself, the less you’ll accomplish and the less control you have.
In fact, what led to me taking apart my massive setup was that I spent about 2 days trying to figure out the total cost of buying a 12U rack, what I should plug in there, should I get a 8U or a 10U or a 12U, could I plug everything in, what about the patchbay, and a soundcard with an adequate amount of inputs – the first day I got a splitting headache and stressed out, the second day I spent about two hours trying to draw it out and figure out what I really needed – it would’ve cost me 1200€ to set up and I was having issues with space and just realized, this is.. not.. fun.. and scrapped the whole idea and went minimal. 4 inputs, 6 outputs, one synth and one radio plugged in. That’s enough. Anything else is overkill, for now. Maybe in the future – but maybe get comfy with that minimal setup first.
Also, the room felt better when I removed something like 15 cables from the setup and hid away multiple midicontrollers and synths and midi cabling and whatnot.
And now I can process radio through the synth or just sample it on-the-fly and I’ll probably have much more fun than trying to figure out if I need to buy a new table and what the setup should be like in the future. Really, no point in letting the setup get so out of hand that you never use it and it’s just gathering dust.
Word! I can definitely relate to that. Spent so much time planning my live setup, planned way too complicated at first, ended up buying stuff that only creates more complexity. Now I’m down to just two machines (sampler and drum machine) and even dropped the mixer as I can chain the units. Feels great. I might expand at some point but there is still so much to learn and master even with this small setup.