Well, it happened. We got off schedule! We said we were going to post once a week and what do you know, we freaking mess up & missed last week. I guess it was just a matter of time. To be fair, last week was a release week (ahem, have you heard “Bad For Your Health” yet?) and we had to come up to New York for 1.5 million meetings, but STILL. Excuses! However, I’m not too worried about it.

I’m not worried about it because I have an entire year’s worth of posts planned out to write. I’m not scrambling for a topic or figuring out what to post and when. Planning stuff out is an easy, FREE, way to make your life less miserable and wayyyyy less stressful. In theory, we COULD just fly by the seat of our pants and figure out a topic each week, but what happens when the ceiling is falling in and we have 27 other things to do? Yeah, it doesn’t really work.

This can absolutely be applied to basically every other part of your career.

On my end, when I have a release scheduled, I create a 6-12 month promotional plan (and on occasion a bit longer). I didn’t do this when I first started managing people and I honestly think it showed. We were always playing catch up and doing things just a little too late. I break the plan down by month and make sure I check off every single item on the list before the month is up. Looking at it as one massive timeline allows me to get creative and see where the holes are. Plus, now that we have more of a team working on our releases, it helps everyone know what we’re up to and what’s coming up next.

This does come more naturally for Type-A people, but it can definitely be a learned trait. This was an incredibly foreign concept to Ron a few years ago and now he doesn’t walk into a recording session without each day mostly mapped out. It saves time, money, and headaches.

Let me also be clear about something - ALMOST NO ONE IN THE INDEPENDENT WORLD DOES THIS. We are constantly getting praise for being organized and having a plan. I’m always like “wahhhhhaaaat??? This is JUST a timeline of action items” - but it’s true. Rarely anyone shows up to a meeting with a plan. So why not give it a shot? 

Go forth and plan!

 REASON TO IGNORE THIS ADVICE: NONE! No seriously. Just make a plan and check shit off.