How do you manage your time?

P.Chiddy, post: 29427, member: 4036 wrote: Hi guys,

One area that I have always struggled to perfect is time management.

What I want to know is how you make the most productive use of your free time with regards to DJing?

– Hunting for new tracks
– Learning the tracks inside out
– Practising mixing / creating new mixes
– Learning new skills
– Organising your music

Those are just some of the things off the top of my head that I use my free time doing, but it can be a headache prioritising sometimes. So what is your priority order? Do you have a set schedule or method you follow? Is there anything else I haven’t listed that you make time for?

– Researching the industry (Like reading the articles on this site for example or other blogs) I think its pretty important to knwo whats going on with new technoloy, different techniques etc;

I use to have a schedule like that I made. liek for 2 hours i would practice beat juggling and another hour practing mixes etc; but I have never been one to stick to a schedule

So now I kind of just go with the flow but I always make sure I have a purpose when I’m sitting down. Lately I have been doing more lists that I check off. For instance on my list right now is….

1. Finishing Maschine Mikro Mapping for Traktor
2. Finish “Save us Track in Maschine”
3. Add cue points/beat grid all tracks in Traktor
4. Get songs together for next mix

This way I can work on each at my own leisure and they take up quite alot of time however I know I always have something I can do. With regards to downloading music I dont even have it on the list cause I pretty much do it al the time. If I hear something I really like I have to get it right away. I wouldnt wait for a particular day to download it.

I work 55 hours a week at my full time job in graphic design so the free time I have has to be properly!

I think it’s a question of putting in time for what needs working on. I would force myself to be honest with what I really need to work on for the day/week, be it song selection, getting deeper into the software and my controller’s capabilities, or reading up on industry trends (and wondering if I should go along with them or not!).

There is no set way of how to work on your skills or how you manage your time. The only constant is that regardless, you have to make time to work on them.

My workflow for catching new tracks might be useful for you. I listen to internet radio or mixcloud streams when I’m at work. Anytime I hear something that jumps out at me, its a great sign I should get it. I pause my work to use Shazam to identify it or I write down the name of the show. All these tracks go into my ToDo program where I have a special list called “Tracks2Get” if I have trouble finding the song, I move it to a list called “Dig Further”

The ToDo list program I use is something called The Hit List, although I’ve also used Things and some people swear by Omnifocus there are also lots of other free applications out there, but they don’t have the features I need.

As for finding time to do the things you want to do, DJing or otherwise, that’s a whole ‘nutha topic. Google “Getting Things Done” often abbreviated to GTD. Many people swear by this method. I found it helpful, although I’m not religious about it. I bought the book about a year ago when I felt my life was getting overwhelming. Its written for Type-A management people, but still useful for us creative types.

Two things I really got out of it: One, you need to really trust whatever system you create for organizing all the “stuff” you want to do. If I don’t trust my To Do system – I’l start worrying about missing out on something. Second, if I can’t do anything about a task, (like buying a cool track I heard in the middle of work) I need to get it out of my head, and into my To Do system so I can come back to it later.