In today’s home studio, it seems as if there’s always something technical to do. Update this software. Install this plug-in. Test the seemingly bad cable. Rewire your pedalboard. Move things around in the racks to make access easier. Back up hard drives. The list goes on and on. In fact, for many of us, the list gets so long that it’s easy to get caught up in doing all the tech chores when you could be making music. And, it’s easy to use tech chores as an excuse for procrastinating.
The solution? Take a tip from pro/commercial studios and maintain a regular maintenance/tech time schedule. The idea is to assign one or two times a month when you will do nothing but get the tech stuff done around your studio — maybe four hours on the first Sunday afternoon of each month. For the rest of the month, ignore the temptation to say, “I’ll just install this one DAW update before I get down to working on my mix.” Save the update for tech time, and make music instead!
Of course, there are those things that must be done to keep your studio operating. Clearly if your computer crashes during a session, you have to stop to get it rolling again! But aside from truly work-stopping occurrences, focus on music during music time and tech during tech time.