5 Lessons from my First Month of Musical Self-Employment

September was my first month as a self-employed music teacher, promoter, and performer. During this past month I’ve spent a lot of time learning hard lessons, enjoying windfall, learning more hard lessons related to that windfall… riding September’s jerky projected income levels gave me motion sickness more than once. But I learned a lot of valuable lessons. I hope they’re useful to you.

Lesson 1: Even positive change can be… creepy.

There’s a certain amount of stress that comes just from adjusting to a new lifestyle, even if that lifestyle is totally desirable. When I dropped my day jobs, suddenly I was left with about thirty to forty extra hours every week that I was responsible for filling. No time clock. No outside direction. It’s still eerie to wake up in the morning, enter my study, and think, “Well, what’ll it be today?”

Lesson 2: Procrastination kills.

Self-employment is definitely not all fun and games. There’s constant temptation to put off those bothersome little tasks that seem daunting or uninteresting.

I’ve learned, though, that putting things off just relays them to the back of my mind, where they drain power from everything else I attempt to do. Since I’m a one-man organization, I have to be on-track and brilliant at every aspect of what I’m doing. I’m the entrepreneur, promoter, guitarist, singer, secretary, the recording technician, the copywriter, the blogger, the lyricist, the PR guy, the accountant… I can’t afford the habit of getting behind (although, you bet that when I’m able to afford something like a personal tax accountant toronto, you bet I’m going to hire one!). In a related thread:

Lesson 3: Time management gets harder when you have more time.

I expected to love waking up in the morning and being my own boss. And I do love it, most days. But as improv guitarist Fred Frith said during one interview:

“Freedom doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. It means you are responsible for your own limits.”

It’s true when you’re improvising music, and it’s true when you’re improvising a life.

There are only about eight hours a week in which I’m obligated to be at a certain place at a certain time. And while I’ve learned that I don’t like to structure my daily schedule too rigidly, I do need at least a few clearly stated, measurable goals, both long-term and short-term, to keep me on track. Otherwise, it’s way too easy to fill up an entire day with busywork and nervous twitches (like checking e-mail every five seconds).

Time management was simpler when time was short. I’d get home after a fourteen-hour cafe shift and think, “I’ve got to grab the guitar right away. I’ve got to write some lyrics. I just lost all that time to coffees and panini and selling wine! Where’s that harmony textbook…?”

Lesson 4: You’ve got to draw the line somewhere between work and the rest of your life.

As I mentioned before, I no longer punch in on a time clock. Sounds great, right?

The catch: if you never punch in, you also never punch out. This has been especially true during my rocky first month, when income was wobbly and I had to hit the ground running.

I work from home right now, so there’s a blurred line between work and play. I really enjoy working from home but I hate having all the clutter in my house. I’ve also made the decision to get a high quality office chair to use when I’m working as I currently have to work on an uncomfy wooden seat! When I started to get backache, I decided it was time for an upgrade! The living room is full of sheet music and lesson plans. My reading chair is stacked with books that I’m reviewing for this website. Everywhere I look, my work is there. Which means I’m constantly thinking: “Am I blogging enough? Is this lesson plan going to interest my students? Is the second verse of that song I’m writing going to hold up?”

The second this article is posted, I’m going to go clean up all the clutter and get organized. My spare bedroom will become the dedicated office, where I write and compose and work. And if that doesn’t make a difference to my stress or productivity levels, then I may have to think about looking for something like a prefab office shed that can be built in the garden, so I have a workspace that is situated away from the main house and my personal life. At least everything would be clean this way. But I’ll just see how I get on with having the spare bedroom as my office. The living room will be clean, uncluttered, nearly empty except for some cozy places to sit and read.

Honestly, on the whole working from home has been fantastic, but there have definitely been some challenges! One thing that has helped though is setting up a virtual office. Before I set up my virtual office I would get a lot of letters, parcels, and packages related to my business sent to my house. Although at first, this was fine, as things became busier I decided to set up a separate work address to show my clients that my business is serious and that it is well established. My virtual office has even allowed me to set up a mail forwarding address and this has been incredibly convenient. I suppose what I am trying to say is that if you are going to be working from home for a long period of time, then there are some fantastic tools like virtual offices that you can use to make both your workload and the logistical side of running a business a little easier.

Lesson 5: Money is freedom. Respect it.

When you’ve got a little money, it’s tempting to spend it on temporary pleasures: wine, a nice dinner, other impulse buys.

If you’re more fortunate than I’ve been so far, maybe you’ll be able to afford these luxuries. But if I’d given up these things even just a month earlier, September would have been easier.

Take your daily coffee, for example. Many of us spend $3 or more every day on a latte. By the end of the month, that accumulates to a $90 expense, $180 if you have two daily coffees. Almost $200 for coffee per month? That’s almost as high as my billån (car loan). And that’s just what some people waste on coffee! How insane is that?

I’m learning-slowly, and with much pain-to part from these “luxuries.” The momentary pleasure isn’t worth the hassle of having to say “Yes” to boring jobs just to recoup the money. The whole point of this enterprise is to be free to pursue my own artistic vision, not to chase the first dollar somebody waves in front of my face.

My new mantra in the checkout line: “Respect your money, and you respect yourself.”

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Nicholas Tozier is an independent singer, songwriter, private music instructor, blogger, and instructor at Ampersand Academy of Dance & the Performing arts centered in Gardiner, Maine. His first album, A Game with Shifting Mirrors, is slated for self-release in Fall 2010.

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