By Maggie Sims

Creating a healthy work-life balance and maintaining it, can be incredibly overwhelming and challenging, especially within an industry as demanding and fast-paced as the music industry. Between juggling deadlines for work and staying in the loop with industry trends/updates, while also keeping up with our physical and mental health, it can feel like a struggle to find the perfect balance for all things work and life related. While it is a challenge to find this balance and maintain it, there are many helpful tools to do so- you are not alone in this!

Setting Clear Boundaries

The first tip for creating a healthy work-life balance in the music industry, is to set clear boundaries. It is so important to separate work hours from personal time to avoid overworking and burn out. Try to reserve the work-centered worries and tasks to have their own time to shine; not amidst spending time with friends and family, while relaxing, or while eating. Enjoy the moment- don’t allow work to creep into your relaxation time!

Hobbies Outside of Music

The next big tip for a work-life balance is to pursue/seek out hobbies outside of the realm of music. Engaging in activities outside of your scope of employment will allow for creative freedom and mental relaxation, which will in turn positively feed productivity and focus when working on music-related work. Who doesn’t want to try new hobbies? Now you can and do not have to feel guilty about it.

Optimal Sleep Schedule

The last tip, but certainly not least valuable, is to prioritize rest! Sleep is our time to recharge and fuel our bodies and brains. When we receive optimal amounts of sleep, we are able to execute tasks and work more effectively and productively, while exuding less exhaustive effort. Setting a sleep schedule and being disciplined in relation to when we go to sleep and when we awake, is crucial for consistent, effective work-life balance. With enough rest, we are able to complete out daily tasks and leave time at the end of our day to relax, reset and recharge.

Written By Kate Cosentino

Work life balance-the hardest balance to strike. There’s never enough time to live all of the lives I want to live, much less to check every box on my list or else I’d be a famous singer/songwriter, professional roller skate dancer, polyglot with the cleanest house you’ve ever seen. But alas— I’m only a fraction of that dream human being. In elementary school, I remember reading The BFG by Roald Dahl and learning that his mythical “Big friendly giants” did not have to sleep-saying, why sleep when you can live double the amount of time? That thought has always stuck with me. Life is so amazing and I don’t want to waste a second! It’s no wonder I’m a a three on the enneagram and I feel every single second cramming each one as full of as much productivity as possible. With that being said, I am constantly studying ways to combat my need to fit everything into the 7 days a week. Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is the most recent book to change my life layout.

Covey divides his schedule into quadrants to be re-evaluated weekly (or however regularly you want).

As you can see in the image above, Quadrant 1 represents things that are both urgent and important. Examples include: deadline driven projects, urgent occurrences (like a car crash or leak in a pipe). Quadrant 2 are things that are important but not urgent. These are the things I typically care the most about like making music and working on my passion projects and career. Quadrant 3 is urgent but not important like maybe a call you have to answer or upkeep tasks you have to do. Finally Quadrant 4 are things not as urgent and not important so your Netflix and your Fortnite. Below is what a lot of my quadrant activities look like:

For me, Quad 1 & 3 are ever present so I use my planner to make sure I prioritize items in Quad 2. For example, I block out an hour or so daily for physical activity/exercise. That is not an urgent task but it is important to my mental and physical health. I also have to block out time where I’m working on me and my music because no one will give me that time but myself. Covey also suggests blocking in a healthy amount of leisure time from Quad 4. I think that is important or else you risk burning out and living in Quad 4. If I work too hard without a break I will get lost in movies and TV shows because I have no more brain power to keep going. If I schedule in fun nights with friends or time for my favorite show during the week, I get a healthy break that makes me more motivated to keep working.

I personally love using a physical planner with color coded pens and highlighters. I assign each quadrant a color. Quad 1 is pink, Quad 2 is purple, Quad 3 is blue and Quad 4 is yellow. It helps me visually how much time I am spending on each activity. This works well in Google Calendar where you can color coat activities as well-with the added bonus of a notification to your phone or two your email. Personally I love having the visual of these planners and blocking off time so that I don’t get too far behind on any of my goals—especially if they’re not urgent. And it makes sure I’m balancing work and play!

If you want a physical planner yourself I would recommend the Happy Planner of the Passion Planner. They come in varying sizes and layouts. I love the fun stickers and designs! Happy planning!

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