Love em or hate em, deadlines are a motivating (and determining) factor for an artist’s success. Track + remix deadlines, festival submissions, podcasts, grant deadlines…for those rare, hyper-motivated individuals who always finish things in advance, they may not be stressful. But for most of us: the procrastinators, the dreamers, and the doers, deadlines act as a regulating force within our lives to get things done.
The trickiest thing is managing deadlines vs. inspiration. Especially with creative work, there is an inherent duality to this. Obviously, the work needs to be done on time, but it also needs to be of the highest quality and totally inspired. How does one accomplish such a mission?
A logical starting point is to actually put those deadlines into your calendar, and then make a timeline to strategize what you actually need to do within a certain framework of time. Obviously, this becomes more complicated the more stuff you have to do at once. Your mission: to figure out how to focus task-by-task until everything is done, paying attention to detail and making sure that the work is of the highest possible quality, while meeting the deadline.
Once you put things into a calendar, you can start to prioritize how much time you you will actually need for each task. A wise friend once told me that when working with deadlines and to-do lists, the best way to manage things is to get the easiest things done first (so that you get that satisfying rush of having completed something) and then are motivated to efficiently take on bigger tasks. The most challenging part of the equation—with creative work at least–is that it requires consistent, unwavering effort over the medium and long-term to truly get results.
A detailed time-management strategy is necessary, including a weekly, monthly (or even yearly) dedication to straight-up practising in preparation, regardless of any deadline. For example, I usually try to practice/work on music 3-4 times a week, regardless of any external factors. If I’m adding a deadline to the equation, I will add 1 or 2 extra practice sessions per week for 2-3 weeks leading up to that deadline, to make sure that I am well-prepared. With music-making and preparation for performance, consistency is key and the long-term will always win over the short-term. In fact, overdoing preparation and practising for too long, too intensively right before a performance or deadline can actually be detrimental to the end result.
Why? Because our ears and our brains are susceptible to fatigue and don’t hear as accurately after long, repeated exposure to sound. The brain becomes tired as well and can’t think/process as accurately.
So, the best thing you you can do before a deadline is to actually get prepared in advance. Try to structure it so that you practice more days—and give yourself slightly shorter sessions, before a deadline—so that even if you were working intensively over a few days’ time, that you at least have some downtime in between to reflect and process.
A good strategy is to leave a 24-to-48 hour buffer between the actual deadline and the time that you intend to finish the project or preparation.
This will ensure that if anything goes wrong, you have a little bit of extra time to lean into (or if you’re a perfectionist, it will give you a little bit of extra time to review or get one last mini-session in before you actually have to submit or present what you are working on). It might sound insignificant, but this could actually be the difference between getting a massive grant to work on an artistic project/doing successful performance versus a mediocre one.
