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The simple, yet effective magic of making lists

What are you doing today? How about this week? Do you have a set of goals for the days ahead, or are you simply wading through the waters of life while checking things off a non-existent list of tasks you claim to maintain in your head? Are you sure of where you’re going? Do you know what needs to be done?

For the vast majority of my adult life I was lost in nearly every sense of the word. I did not know where I wanted to be professionally, and my aimless pursuit of recognition from the industry lead me to strain relationships with those who cared about me most. If I tried to make up for it I inevitably let things slip on the professional side, which in turn caused the whole cycle to repeat. “There’s never enough time,” I would proclaim. “I’m too busy for _______.”

But that wasn’t the truth, or at least not the entirety of it. The reality of the situation was that I had poor time management skills, aided in part by a complete lack of planning, and as a result I was placing time and energy in places other than where it was needed most. In terms of growth and progress I was essentially walking through life blindfolded with little more than the hope of doing well to keep me afloat. I never knew for sure where I was or wasn’t going because I didn’t have a plan. I simply did, and when I finished one thing I moved to another and another until I fell asleep. When I awoke the next day the cycle would continue as it had every day prior for as long as I could remember.

The funny thing about trying to make your way in this world is that we as humans often ignore obvious tips and tricks because we desire to blaze our own path. This is a mistake as old as time itself, since the first young people tried to escape the shadow of their ancestors. The thing most up and comers fail to realize is that those who succeeded before did so for good reason. Their success was no more a fluke than your own, and there is always something to learn from the paths they traveled. You don’t have to duplicate someone’s behavior in order to learn from their experiences, but you do need to recognize how developing certain skill sets will help you get ahead.

This brings us to lists. Say what you will about Buzzfeed and their overuse of list-driven articles to bring traffic, but you know what? It works. People like lists, and not just for entertainment purposes. Lists make life manageable in a very literal sense. Lists make it easy to organize daily, weekly, monthly, and lifelong goals. Lists also make it possible to plan a day, or two better understand where there are needs going unmet. Lists can help you do just about anything as long as they’re specific, but for some reason many — including myself — feel that are not needed. I don’t know why, even though I subscribed to this way of thinking myself, but I can tell you I have changed my stance.

Every week I make at least 8 lists. The first is week-long overview of goals and projects. These are big idea items, like finishing a new tutorial for Haulix or writing another thousand words for that novel I hope to one day finish. The next seven are lists created before each work day begins. Somewhere between seven and nine every morning I outline my goals for the day. In these lists I am as specific as possible, setting detailed goals and ranking them based on urgency. Under these items I add 2-3 more ambitious goals, just in case time allows for it.

You can do the same, and I guarantee if you stick to the goals you set each day and week you will see results. Any time you find yourself drifting into that lazy river of relaxation you can turn to your list and recognize whether or not that time off has been earned. Furthermore, you will find in time that you are able to accomplish more and more. As you become accustomed to working with lists you will learn to better manage your time, and with that understanding you can better plot each day. Better days lead to better weeks, and before you know it you’ll be making a list of new goals because the ones you set originally were already met.

One last thing: Be patient with yourself. Establishing new behaviors/routines is no easy feat. You have been living life without list making for as long as you’ve been on this planet, so don’t be surprised if you struggle with making lists daily when first starting out. Take things one day at a time and don’t be upset if you fall short from time to time. What matters most is that you continue trying each and every day.

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How to ‘make it’ as a music professional

“How do I make it in the business?” This is the number one question any aspiring professional in any field asks their peers. If you want to tour the country full time you look to someone who is currently performing 200 shows a year for advice. If you want to write the next great novel you talk to an author or two who knows what it takes to finish a book. If you want to be run a record label you look at how your favorite labels operate and build off what they have found to be a proven method for success.

Some might call this an act of imitation, but most would call it research. You have to ask questions in order to learn what you do not already know, and if you’re someone looking to work in entertainment then your first question to any peer is probably some variation of what I wrote above. How do you make it? How do you do this full time? Who pays you? Where did you find a job? Who do I talk to about a job? How do you keep a roof over your head? And so on.

The most frustrating, yet entirely accurate response to any version of the question of how one ‘makes it’ is one that has been around long before the internet:

Find something you love to do, pour everything you can into doing it, and — eventually — it will be what you do.

Maddening, right? But it is absolutely true.

I wrote about music for more than half a decade before I met anyone willing to pay me for my words. The years before that had been spent writing in between class and shifts at whatever miserable job I could find. I woke up early and stayed up late, often splitting my nights between covering concerts and writing about what I had seen so that I could go out and cover something else the following evening. Everything in my life took a backseat to my passion for writing, and even though I wasn’t making much, if anything, through doing it my continued efforts to improve gave me an immense sense of personal satisfaction. I wrote with hopes of becoming a writer just as much as I wrote to make myself happy.

By the time anyone other than PPC (pay per click) vendors were willing to pay me for my work I had already established a presence and personal brand in the world of music. I knew the people I once wanted to be and they knew me. I posted about securing a paid gig and several of those same people congratulated me, but within hours they — and I — had moved on. The news money was coming in soon was nice, but I had to focus on the present in order to reach that point where someone paid me. I had established a routine for writing that remained largely unchanged by the presence of paid work because in my mind I was going to be writing either way. My passion for writing was never tied to money so the fact it was starting to come in was — to me— no excuse to act in any manner than the way I was behaving when it felt like no one cared at all.

Years later and I am now a full-time professional doing what I love in the field I love. The journey to this place was filled with ups and downs, but in hindsight I am able to understand every step of the way was necessary in order to handle the demands, challenges, opportunities that working full time in entertainment can present. I have a thick skin, and I know that in order to be my best self creatively I have to care for mental and physical well being. I understand how to network and I know how to write.

There is still plenty left for me to learn, but every morning when I wake up I know I am able to handle whatever life throws at me because of the time I have invested in my craft. Others recognizes this as well, which is why I am able to have a job and continue building my connection. People know I can handle the work, and they know it is ultimately not money that motivates me, but passion. This industry runs on passion.

Once you harness your passion and set to being the best you can be at whatever it is you want to do the rest will begin to fall into place. It won’t happen today, tomorrow, or even next week, but if you stick with something and constantly work at improving yourself the day will come when you finally lift your head and realize you’re where you always wanted to be. It sounds foolish and maybe even a little delusional, but I am telling you it is the truth because it happened to me in spite of the fact I believed such ideas to be nonsense.

No one wants to tell young minds how few of them will actually grow up and do the work needed to reach their goals, but it is the absolute truth. Most people are not willing to do the work, and of those that are many will only work for so long before they demand the world give them something in return. The world owes you nothing. If you want to be something you have to make something out of yourself. Do the work and you will succeed. It’s that easy and that hard.

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Haulix Advice: What It Means To Be A Professional

Welcome to the very first Haulix Advice column of 2014. We started outlining our coverage in this area back in December and could not be more excited to begin rolling out new content this afternoon. You can expect new Advice columns every week from now on, including a few ‘special edition’ guest columns in the not too distant future. We are always open to suggestions from readers, so please contact us if there is a topic or question you would like to see addressed on this blog. Please email james@haulix.com for more information.

The dictionary will tell you an amateur is someone ‘who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession.’ The origin of the term amateur stems from the Latin word amare, which means ‘to love.’ Amateurs are people who pursue things they love as a pastime rather than a profession. Being a professional, on the other hand, means pursuing the things you love as a profession.

Notice that definition did not mention money? Making money does not make you a professional. Money covers the cost of living and affords you the ability to further pursue your dreams, but it is only a means to an end. Professionals see money for what it is – a tool to aide them in furthering their efforts.

Everyone who chases a dream begins their journey as an amateur hoping to one day become a professional. Whether you long to be the frontman in the next great rock band, or you hope to one day work publicity for the biggest names in music, your journey and that of everyone else in the music industry begins as an amateur. Many, unfortunately, stay that way forever. To become a professional requires great risk and sacrifice, often over long periods of time, and for those that do see it through there is rarely any guarantee of sustainability.

To attempt to become a professional is a terrifying proposal. It requires you to abandon the safety nets you have built in case things don’t pan out and dive blindly into the often treacherous waters of life with your heart on your sleeve. It asks that you put friends and family aside in pursuit of something that is completely foolish and to some insanely selfish, but for whatever reason it is the exact course you have felt propelled towards your entire life. You know deep down you possess the ability to become a professional, but to take steps toward that reality you must change, and for most of us that is the hardest step of all.

We cannot make you into a professional. No one can do that except you, and even then it’s going to be an uphill battle that you will struggle with on a daily basis. What we can do is provide insight and advice on what you can do to become more professional, and over the next several weeks we aim to do just that. Through editorials and list features we will equip you with the knowledge needed to become a professional. Taking steps to become one, however, is entirely up to you.

Follow Haulix on Twitter and Facebook for updates. Look for part two in this series to debut early next week.

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