People often ask how I do so many different things in my musical life. I often curtly reply, “it’s easy…no kids, no house, no money and I’m home all day… So what else is there to do?!?!”
But time management is something I’ve always been cognizant of in my life. I’ve touched on this in a variety of blog posts over the years, but I realize that I’ve never actually really shared my daily schedule in all its detailed splendour! So here goes…
6:00-6:30am – Wake up, drink a glass of water, take a shower.
6:30-7:30am – Wake Lisa up. Do my first 15-minute meditation of the day, make breakfast while listening to music and go through social media.
7:30-8:00am – Lisa and I eat breakfast as we listen to an audio book.
8:00-8:15am – Brush teeth and shave.
8:15-9:00am – First walk of the day along the lake.
9:00-11:30am – This is where stuff get’s done! – emails, composing, producing scores and parts, meetings, practicing, recording, editing, planning, teaching prep, check-in on social media, write blog posts…basically whatever’s on the TDL, is worked on now!
11:30am-12:00pm – One or both of us cook lunch (no sandwiches here, both of us are on a strict paleo diet).
12:00-12:30pm – Eat lunch and watch a TV comedy – it feels great to laugh in the middle of the day.
12:30-4:00pm – Second block of time to get stuff done (see list above).
4:00-4:10pm – Break – eat an apple and read some news online.
4:10-5:00pm – Get stuff done!
5:00-5:45pm – Second walk of the day along the lake in a different direction – good to get a different view.
5:45-6:00pm – Second meditation of the day.
6:00-7:00pm – Last chance to get stuff done while Lisa prepares dinner.
7:00-10:00pm – Eat dinner. Watch a movie, documentary, TV drama, or sports. Or, go out to concert or show.
10:00pm-6:00am – Sleep
So this is basically a typical weekday at home. I forgot to mention that I stand up from my desk, walk around and get a glass of water at the top of every hour, that’s a 5-minute endeavour. Sometimes I need to go out during the day so one of the two walks gets sacrificed and the above list gets shuffled around, but most days I’m able to stick to this.
On Saturdays and Sundays, I teach piano off-site from 9:00am-6:00pm, so my walk there and back counts as one full walk plus I take a 30-minute lunch break. Basically, the beginning and end of the weekend days is the same as what’s above.
We take one day off per month. Yes, I know it should be more, perhaps one day.
In preparing this blog post, I can see that I’m a pretty lucky guy. I get to do what I love and spend most of my days in a week with the one I love. That being said, I often yearn for more time focussed on just the creative projects. But making music is truly an infinite endeavour. Darn, why do I need to sleep, eat well, and exercise??? Imagine what I would accomplish otherwise:)!
