Another day, another article. But that’s the point – and it’s a point that I think more people need to embrace. Discipline is one of the real keys of the music industry and the more you can have it the more you will grow.
It’s crazy to me how much of people’s lives and how much growth they’d have in the industry when they can embrace this. The first core concept is understanding the idea of having no zero days. Then I want to talk about how to build up habits that actually happen. I’ll break down some daily tasks that might help you as a band too!
No Zero Days
So basically I build my entire life around the concept of no zero days. That is to say that every day I need to do at least one thing that moves the need on my career as a music marketer. Even if it’s a small thing, it’s important to have SOME sort of forward momentum.
When you commit to no zero days you’ll find you will really be able to just push yourself over those hills, across those final horizons and make yourself into a success. But if you don’t commit to this, if you don’t commit to helping your band at least a little every day, or giving yourself days off… I just don’t know if it’ll happen for you.
Building Habits That Actually Happen
So here’s my secret to building that actually happens. I put them in my phone calendar, and I set them to repeat daily. This way I see them every day and I can’t escape them. When you do this you get the pleasure of deleting the tasks when you’ve finished them. They stare you down throughout the day so if you don’t get them done you’ll be reminded. This is important.
The first two hours of my day are largely filled with these simple daily tasks. It means that even if I have a terrible rest of the day at least I did some things that meaningfully helped my network in the first chunk of the day and I don’t need to beat myself up too bad.
Daily Tasks That Will Help Your Band
So there are quite a few things that you can add to-do daily on your calendar that you know will consistently help out your band. Again – these are all built so that you can go to bed every night knowing for a fact that you helped to advance your band a little bit. Some of these include:
-Introducing 2 people in the underground to each other every day
-Doing some sort of shoutout to people in your scene every day. (This can be a review, shoutout post, story etc.)
-At least 1 social media post
-Reaching out to 1 new person you want to be friends with
-Writing an email to your mailing list
There are other things you can do of course – and all of them will help – because you are ensuring no zero days!
As you can see discipline is something that comes with force of will and realizing you can not let yourself have zero days. If you write down your daily tasks and have a set of tasks that are outlined that you know will help you – well you’re only going to grow!
MATT BACON
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Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. Having worked with everyone from Glam Rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard, to post Black Metal titans Alcest, by way of legendary thrashers Exhorder as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music, he has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop. Having started his own blog at the age of 14 he views his career in artist development as ‘a hobby that got out of hand’. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. We sit here now, years later with countless tours booked, records released and deals signed, and loving every minute of it.
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