Wednesday 20th April, 2022
Keep it stupid, simple… or something to that effect.
I’ve been struggling to sit & do some serious work this week. The time has flown by. What’s happening? Could be anything… What am I gonna do to get back to my flow? I’m gonna simplify my career. (at least my own vision of it)
As a DIY artist, you need to be everything for yourself, your audience, & the industry around you. You also need to be everything for your future self too. This is straight up overwhelming… all of the time. Nobody can be everything to everyone & yet, here we are. It can be easy to get lost in the admin weeds… Organisation, metadata, storage folders, etc… they’re all great to have done, but they aren’t what pays the bills… they aren’t what keeps you motivated. As an artist, your job it to make art… everything else is a means to facilitate that.
I’m currently very guilty of procrastinating. So much time have I poured into spreadsheets & lists. To be fair, it’s come in handy for me & the artists that I work with, but still… what I REALLY need to focus on first is my art. Firstly is recording the album with Brian & my live performances. These two things make it to the top of my do to list. Then there are my commitments: Patreon, College, other Artists. These three come next on my to do. With these in mind, & an additional category for over all ‘Nathan Mac’ stuff, I have 6 categories to think about. In this way, I only have to be 6 things.
Album - recording artist/project manager
Live Performances - performing artist
Patreon - content creator (music & video production)
College - student
Other Artists - manager
Nathan Mac - manager (of self)
At all times I’ll have a stupidly long list of things to do for each of these categories… but my trick lately has been to write only the next step down on my to do list. Then I can easily plan out a day around the work I’ve to do. Of course, curve balls are a daily affair. Some days you wake up late & wish you were never born. Some days you become extremely inspired at 2am. Then there’s the constant interjection of your personal life. A lot of us love the inconsistency of our jobs… we can get bored with simple routines. What we gotta do then is keep the distractions to a minimum. Foster that focus, & find our own little systems for motivation, structure, & a healthy mentality.
For me, I keep this journal to focus my thoughts & actions. It’s something (mostly) consistent in my life… so I can always use it as a weekly landmark to orient myself & remind myself of how fast a week can go. When I’m away from a day job or college, I need to impose a structure to my day… Start work at 9am, lunch at 1pm for an hour & stop working at 6pm. These three points give me so much clarity in my day. They force me to sit at a desk & at the very least do nothing. Doing nothing for yourself is better than doing nothing for no reason.
In other news…
I’ve had an entire year of Patreon… & it’s been the biggest influence in my career beyond my decision to pursue music. Patreon has shifted the way I look at my career & my future. After some serious thought, I’ve decided to shake things up over there. I’ve noticed that my Patrons don’t engage much with the posts I make… is this a bad thing? Not really. It shows me that, of the Patrons I have, most are just looking to support me. They don’t need lots of exclusive content. With this in mind, I’ve decided to open up my Patreon to the wider world. People will be able to watch every BTS video, listen to every ‘not-so-secret’ demo track, & join in on any conversation. It will all remain on Patreon though. I won’t be uploading everything everywhere… I still need a reason to send people over to Patreon. Hopefully they show up for a song or video, then decide to support me. Patreon growth is possibly the best use of my time. In comparison to what I earn from music, it’s worth most of my time, unfortunately. One day, when I break as an artist, then maybe the music will overtake the Patreon. Either way, it’s nice to know that there are options beyond the government & corporations… (here’s a sneaky link to the PATREON)
I’m gonna bounce now, & leave you with all of that.
How can I sum up this week into one sentence???
“What you have to do will overshadow what you’re 'meant' to do… fight this.”
Nathan
