In this episode of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and co-host Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) discuss productivity for music school owners and teachers. They kick off with an exciting announcement about their new private Facebook group, “Performance-Based Music Programs and Rock Schools,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
John and Mandy discuss the essence of productivity, especially for the self-employed, highlighting the importance of self-accountability, time management, and setting personal goals. They share personal anecdotes and strategies, from using weekly planners and semester planners to adopting robust database systems that streamline administrative tasks.
John introduces his time-blocking method, which helps alleviate decision fatigue by organizing tasks into 15-minute increments throughout the week. Mandy shares her approach of maintaining a comprehensive weekly planner and semester planner to stay on top of her responsibilities and delegate tasks effectively.
In this episode:
- Productivity and Self-Accountability
- Decision Fatigue
- Tools for organization
- Strategies for balancing tasks and setting deadlines
Listen in for practical tips, real-life experiences, and productivity hacks that can help you maintain balance, stay organized, and ensure the smooth running of your music school. Don’t forget to visit their website for a FREE downloadable time-blocking schedule template and other resources!
Episode Transcript:
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Welcome to the Rock School Proprietor Podcast. Before we get into the discussion
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today, I wanted to make a quick announcement about our new private Facebook group.
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It’s not going to be exclusively related to the podcast, but really more about
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the topics that we discuss.
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And it’s open to any music school owners or teachers.
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It’s called Performance-Based Music Programs and Rock Schools.
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Long name. Maybe we’ll reconsider.
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But we’ve already got some really talented smart studio owners in the group,
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and I invite you to come join us.
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Again, the Facebook group Performance Based Music Programs and Rock Schools.
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Music.
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Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. I’m John Kazicki,
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and joining me as always is Mandy York, co-host. How are you?
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Good. How are you doing, John?
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Doing good. Doing good. We’re going to talk about productivity today and productivity hacks.
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Hacks but before we get into our
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hacks i don’t i mean what is a
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productivity hack it’s not really a hack it’s just like a strategy figured out
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for yourself yeah yeah so productivity i think in large part and and especially
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for folks like us who are self-employed it’s largely connected to self-accountability,
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right?
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Managing your own time, setting personal goals and personal deadlines,
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prioritizing all the tasks at hand.
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I remember, geez, this was years and years and years ago, but I was working at a skate park.
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And when I worked at the skate park, it was either my boss or the manager was
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like hey go do this go do this when you’re done doing that go do this other
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thing and when you’re done doing that like go sit at the front desk and wait
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for anyone to come in so it was.
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I was dictated what I was supposed to do when I was supposed to do it.
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And no one’s telling us what to do and when to do it.
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So I think it’s all like this personal stuff. Yes.
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Yeah. I mean, when you own your own business, you, we’ve said this before, it comes down to you.
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You wear all the hats and the business doesn’t come in. The money doesn’t come
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in unless you are making it happen.
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It’s all on you. You got to keep going. Right. And for now, I don’t teach very
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much anymore, but I know you are very active in your studio teaching.
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Obviously, those things when you’re teaching, it’s very scheduled.
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You have to have this class at this time. And so you’ve got a whole routine
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that you have to keep. But everything else, everything else related to running
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the business, you also have to find time for that.
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Your clients need the schedule because they need to know when to come to class.
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But again, no one’s giving you a schedule for when you’re, well,
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maybe when you’re running payroll, but when you’re, you know,
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sending out promotional emails or updating website,
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no one’s giving you the schedule and deadlines for that. Right. Right. Yeah.
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And teaching’s the easy part. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but I would say that sometimes
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while the teaching is the easy part and it’s fun, it can be exhausting a little bit.
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There’s a bit of a performative aspect to it.
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Oh, yeah. I think any teacher can relate to that. Right.
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And like emotionally draining at some times if you’ve got a lot of students back to back.
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And then when you come out of that. So, okay, I’ll ask you this question.
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It’s sort of a broader like for listeners also. So do you find yourself or allow
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yourself to get distracted when maybe you feel tired or you feel anxious?
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Maybe you don’t know what to work on or you feel overwhelmed by the amount of
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work or you don’t know what to prioritize.
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Yes. Yes. Yes. I’ve been there. Okay.
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I mean, because sometimes it feels like there’s so much. There are so many hats. Yeah.
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You know, you teach for three hours and then you sit down at your desk.
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And I have difficulty with that. I don’t know if you remember.
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It’s been a while since we talked about that. But I think you are better at switching gears.
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You know, I think you are. I have a hard time. Teach for three hours,
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sit down, and then I’m like, okay.
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What am I supposed to do? What’s my priority today? Yeah, that happens sometimes.
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Or it used to happen more often than it does now, but. Okay. Yeah.
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I think a lot of that is decision fatigue also.
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Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, like you have to make so many decisions.
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And because no one’s making those decisions for you, right?
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Again, no one’s telling you do this, then this, then this.
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It’s just all these things, right?
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And you have to make a decision on when to do them, how to do them,
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what’s the most important.
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Oh, P.S., also, there’s going to be a half a dozen fires that come up where
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other people in your business are asking you, hey, what do I do about this?
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What do I do about this? When should I do this? When do you need this?
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I think decision fatigue sets in. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That is a really good point.
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So, that’s, I mean, where I’m going with this is to avoid the decision fatigue,
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I think we need some sort of strategy and some sort of plan to try and have
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these tasks prioritized and planned and like when you’re going to do them and
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give yourself deadlines.
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Lines and it can be overwhelming, you know?
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And on top of that, I mentioned like, do you find you get distracted, right?
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Like we’ve all been there where you’re like, you pick up your phone to reply
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to a text and, and then you’re like, oh, there’s an email.
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Oh, wait, what’s going on in social media?
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Yeah. Right. Yes. I, our phones are designed to distract us. Mm-hmm.
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That’s a tricky one. It really is. Maybe not a subject we should get into.
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But knowing that like, okay, we use our phones for productivity,
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but also they’re not necessarily designed for productivity, right?
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Or at least a lot of the apps are not.
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But it is important, I think, to give yourself space to get distracted.
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Like when you need to sort of unplug or unwind.
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Maybe write music or
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play music or spend time with your kids or family
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whatever so that’s all
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to say i think it’s a real like
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crazy yarn ball that everything’s wrapped into we
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have to figure out how to be productive and how to
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prioritize so productivity hacks right yeah
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yes so i’ve
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got mine but i’m i’m curious to know what yours are
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like how you organize and what you use to
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to like keep on top of all this yeah well it’s
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taken a while like i said you know in the beginning it’s it is just kind of
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you’re being pulled in all the different directions and you get excited about
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one aspect yeah of the business right and so which is great that’s why we do
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these that’s why we do this Yes, we’re excited. We’re having fun.
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And, you know, maybe we, oh, yeah,
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but I, maybe I should be updating my website. Gosh, it’s so outdated.
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But I was focusing on this and excited about that. So…
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Meaning you get it in your head that like, oh my gosh, this thing will be great.
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This, I’ll start using this, you know, this app or this platform and it’ll solve all these problems.
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And then you fall down a rabbit hole researching it and like figuring out how to use it.
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And like, sometimes it’s just a distraction from the work that you have to do.
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Yes. Yeah. And yeah, I was looking for a solution to a problem.
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I was looking at some different software recently.
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And I feel like I was approaching, you know, these different softwares,
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researching them and looking at them from a mindset of like,
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do I really need this? Or is this more than what I need?
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I kind of think that’s what you’re touching on, right? Yeah, yeah.
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Or thinking that like, oh, this new app or this new platform is going to solve
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all these problems for me. Right.
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Maybe. Yeah. Or maybe it’s just a different way to do whatever you’re already doing, you know?
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And I think sometimes it’s like you invest a lot of time in learning a new platform
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and then you realize like, oh, okay, well,
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yeah, maybe I solved this problem, but now I have this other problem that the
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other platform I was using solved.
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Totally. Yeah. It’s good to have that mindset when you’re going in trying to
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solve problems like that and looking at different software. Yeah.
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What I’ve done is I’ve spent, I’ve taken some time to develop like a weekly
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planner and a semester planner.
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Okay. So I’m a little different than the rock school in that I have semesters. Yeah.
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Three 10-week semesters and then a couple smaller ones.
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And so I’ve developed like a week one to week 10 and it’s 10 pages long and I keep it on a clipboard.
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Yeah. And it, I put even the smallest things on there, like,
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you know, pay the rent, pay the licensing fee, um,
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everything and anything goes on there like i said even the small things because
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that’s i mean our brains like that even you know to not forget but then also
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so your brain gets the satisfaction of crossing something off the list right
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so that has been something i’ve developed within the last,
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i really honed it in like the last year i’d say and it helps me stay on task
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get everything done So I don’t forget things.
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That’s right. I don’t forget little pieces.
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And it has helped me with my admin, with my team. Right.
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You talked about decision fatigue.
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Sometimes I, you know, it’s, it feels overwhelming, overwhelming to me to delegate tasks.
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Tasks you know i am the
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kind of person that’s like i’ll just do it myself yeah right
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or okay i gotta
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sit down you know this weekend and come
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up with a list of things for you know admin to do this week right well when
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you have it all planned out you know in the clipboard that gives your your admin
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your teachers some autonomy to just you know you know what’s expected task take
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Take something. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
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That’s been huge for me recently. I feel like there’s more balance between…
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Not forgetting to update the website. You know, social media is more consistent
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because we’re just, you know, we’ve got the plan written down. It’s there.
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Yeah. And then I’ve got fun, shiny things like, you know, community events or
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whatever else that I’m working on. Yeah.
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But I can go back to the list and say, okay, is there anything I need to think
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about, you know, since I’m, you know, over here this week?
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And I think, I wonder if, are you like me in that when I first started my music school,
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I didn’t have to have all these lists because there wasn’t as much to do,
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right? And so I just got it done.
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It’s all in my head. I can keep track of everything.
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But as things get bigger, there’s more pieces. There’s like so much more to do.
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I definitely reached a point where I needed lists and I needed a way to organize my tasks. Tasks.
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Like I do something similar, except I have an entire year calendar month to month.
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So like January, these are all the tasks and most of them are recurring.
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So, so like whatever I do in January this year, I’m probably going to do in January next year.
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And then like I keep it in, in a Google sheet and each tab is a different month.
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So we’ve got the entire year planned out like tasks for the month.
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So that similar to what you do with the 10 weeks. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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Yeah. Okay. So you do, you do that. What else do you do?
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Like on a weekly basis, there’s some small weekly things, you know,
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Mondays we do this, Tuesdays we do this. It’s good for the team.
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And then I, I keep, I don’t do the yellow, I’m a yellow pad person or I used
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to be a yellow pad person, right? The memo pad.
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I do, I have, I love my new like digital, you know, my digital scribble pad now.
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I’m still largely a pen and paper person. Yeah. But where I can,
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you know, keep track of all my tasks.
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Cross off if i don’t get it done today move it to the next day yeah that kind
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of thing yeah yeah that’s how i work i think these things too because i want
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to hear about what else you’re doing but,
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these things help us maintain the balance which is you touched on in the beginning here right that’s,
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that’s part of the goal of keeping yourself organized yourself organized
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especially in the the beginning earlier on
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when the studio was new like i could
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just keep going and going and going and going right there’s
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always something to do yeah and you’re excited about the growth as well for
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sure yeah but if you see like well that’s on my you know your month to month
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well i’ve got that on my february list it’s okay for me to wait until next month
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to tackle that like or for me you know Well, that’s on Thursday.
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Ashley and I are going to do that together or whatever.
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It helps me to stop today. Right. You know? Yeah.
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It really helps because anyone that’s self-employed, I think,
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can tell you that it is harder to balance.
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You’re not going in and punching the time clock. Yeah. There’s always something to do.
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So when you have these things planned out, it’s easier to turn off.
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Yeah. And I don’t think when everything’s in your head, you think about all
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the tasks that you still have to do.
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You don’t look back and say, these are all the tasks I already did today.
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You just keep thinking about what you have to do.
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At least that’s how I think I am. them so again
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having someone to track all these things and and
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organize them then you can literally take a step back look at the list and say
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oh i did all these 13 things or whatever already today i’m okay to take a 10
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minute break or you know or like punch out for the day or whatever the
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case may be yeah yeah yeah and that’s like
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giving yourself space like i
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mean you know why did we get into this
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in the first place probably to have
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autonomy to have flexibility to be able to spend time with our families and
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our friends and to like create music have time to make music and play music
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those are all the things that really i think most of us got into this line of work for.
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And, you know, as you get busier, that stuff seems to fall off the to-do list.
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But I think we got to put it back on the to-do list. Yeah.
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So, yes, I mentioned any, well, any other hacks that you want to share?
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Well, I think, you know, kind of some smaller things are just having a good
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database that works for you.
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That’s something I wish I had done earlier on. Yeah. Are you talking about student database?
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Yeah. Yeah. For the studio. You know, when I started, I was Google Forms and
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Google Sheets, you know, which works.
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But same, I think.
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And I don’t know, maybe the answer is different for everybody.
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But and I’m certain that I was advised like to, you know, start off,
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get some database software or whatever.
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But I was, oh, no, I’m fine. I can do this.
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It’s fine. fine but then you grow and it’s
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you know having a good database makes things
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streamlined you know it’s faster
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to find the information that you need i love my systems like they they integrate
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with my website and my payment processor and i mean that’s and and my my email
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service you know yeah when you find something that integrates like that to streamline
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your processes keeps you you organize,
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saves your time. So that’s something I wish I had done earlier.
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And I don’t think, you know, there’s no one right answer. It’s going to be whatever
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works for you. Yeah. And you get it to work.
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But I always, I say this a lot to my team and to myself, what got us here is
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not going to get us there.
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And like you were saying, yeah, at first we keep spreadsheets and you know google
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docs and whatever but again at a certain point it’s like is that stuff still
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working for you or do you need something a bit more powerful and.
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Now I’m to the point where I’m always kind of looking at, like,
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is this process that we’ve used for so long, is this still working or do we need to tweak it?
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And, you know, that’s a bummer because you’re like, oh, it’s been working so great.
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But you reach a point where, like, just because of numbers, right?
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And that’s a sign of success.
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But just because of numbers, it might not work anymore. So, again,
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got us here, not going to get us there.
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Yes. So we have to come up with something else. And it’s that conundrum,
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like, you’re growing, you’re really busy, and this, so this isn’t working for you anymore.
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Yeah. And now you have to put all this time in to, like, update it. Right.
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But remind yourself it’s worth the investment. You need it, you need it to grow. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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Yeah. Okay. So I mentioned that I do the yearly calendar.
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And that was really, like, that was just kind of a process of,
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over the course of a couple years, just tracking what I was doing every month.
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Right? Putting in a spreadsheet, okay, these are the things that need to be
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done this month, then the next month, the same thing.
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So that’s like kind of a running thing that I do, but that’s big picture.
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A lot of this stuff that we’re talking about is more day-to-day.
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Like we talked about, oh, all of a sudden your staff is asking you these questions
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and all these fires are coming up.
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So, you know, day-to-day with just that stuff, it might take me a couple hours
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to deal with the things that are completely out of my control and were never on my to-do list.
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So it’s even more important from week to week for me to keep track of what I
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need to do. And I think I do something very similar to you.
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I don’t use a planner, but I think the system that I use, you could have a planner.
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It’s basically the same thing. But every week, Like I have an Excel template
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that just shows Monday through Friday, and I’ve got it broken down into 15-minute increments.
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This sounds really anal retentive right now, right?
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But I also block off times that like, so I mean, I’ll show it to you,
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Mandy, but like I’ve got Monday through Friday. Okay.
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Two sides. I’ve got morning and I’ve got like afternoon and evening.
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And I block off times that there’s like, nope, I’m not doing anything at this time.
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And then on the bottom of the sheet, I’ve got my little space to put to-dos, right?
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So every Monday I sit down with the sheet and I say, well, what do I have to do this week?
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And I don’t even think about it. I just like write down on the to-do list.
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These are the things that I have to do.
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And then from there, I just estimate the time I think it’s going to take for
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each one of those tasks and start plugging them in where I have time.
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You know, if I’ve got phone calls or appointments, they get on this calendar, they get on the sheet.
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If things come up during the week, I know, okay, I got to put it back.
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I got to put it on the to-do list, right?
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And figure out a place to plug it in.
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If there’s something I don’t get done that week, it automatically transfers
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to next week, you know? Just rewrite it out.
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So that’s how I stay organized.
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I’ve been doing this for a couple years at this point.
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And what I’ve found is when I don’t do it, those are the weeks where I’m like, oh, what’s going on?
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What am I doing this week? When I get lazy about it.
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Oh, yeah. Or when I’m just like, when I don’t sit down on Monday or early in
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the week to plan it out, that’s when I forget things.
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That’s when things just don’t get done. I’m less efficient.
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You have to be your own boss. Right? Yeah. And put out your task list.
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Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. So, I mean, exactly.
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I guess you kind of summed it up. It’s sort of like me saying,
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all right, Kaziki, these are the tasks you got this week.
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Yes. You know? And then I switch hats and I go do them. Yeah.
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You’ve showed me this before, and it is so organized.
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And I’m impressed how you estimate the timing and plug everything into the calendar.
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Estimate’s the key word. Yeah, I think that’s really cool.
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And I’ve thought about that, but I just have to make my list.
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And I put it in order of priority.
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And maybe it depends on how much caffeine I’ve had that day.
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I don’t know how much I get done. And then whatever I don’t,
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I roll over to the next day.
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Yeah. I love what you do a lot better, but I’m not quite as organized.
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You know, and I don’t always stick to it.
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But what I’ve found is it alleviates that decision fatigue for me. Yeah.
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Again, when I do have a really long to-do list, I mean, again,
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I can get intimidated by it.
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I can look at it and say like, okay, I’ve got all these tasks to do.
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I really should do one of them. Which one should I do?
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If if i remove myself from
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like from feeling
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exhausted or that’s why i do it like early in
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the week when i’m i’m still fresh and i just sort of estimate again how long
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it’s going to take me to do it when am i going to get it done which day of the
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week am i going to do it based on when it needs to be done that way i don’t
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have this long list of things that i need to do and have to figure out on,
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you know, Wednesday at 4.30 when I’m like kind of burnt out already,
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what am I going to do next?
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If I’ve got it already plugged into my calendar, like, you know,
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like, okay, this, I’m doing this now. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect.
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I like it. So, I mean, what I can do, I can share, where I’m happy to share
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this little template that I have with any listeners and just kind of break down how I do it.
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Again, it’s not like, it’s not perfect, but it works for me.
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And you have the file. No need to reinvent the wheel. Just take John’s file.
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Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a simple, like, I think I have it on Google Sheets. Yeah.
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And I just gray out the times where it’s like, nope, I’m not doing anything.
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Like Fridays, for instance.
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Fridays, I generally will leave work early, right? I’ll come in here and I try and get out early.
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So I just gray out everything after a certain time on Fridays.
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So I know, No, like nothing goes there. Yeah. That’s it. Yep,
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that’s awesome. Good for you.
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Hey, quick. Yeah. Do you work at home a lot?
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I do. Yeah? Yeah, in fact, most of my morning work and like what I consider
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when I’m kind of most productive is in the mornings.
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Okay. Yeah, at home. So you kind of get the kids off to school and do some morning
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work? Yeah. Okay. Exactly.
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All right. Yeah, and you know, it makes for long days.
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Sometimes if I am at the studio at like until like seven or whatever,
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but again, I block out time for like, I don’t take any phone calls between say like 11 a.m.
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And 1.30 p.m. on Tuesdays, you know? And it’s like, that’s my time to have lunch
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and if I’m cleaning the house or whatever.
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So again, I know it sounds super crazy to have the entire day structured like
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that, but it allows me flexibility, as crazy as it sounds. Yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That decision fatigue, I like it.
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I like how you’ve identified that, and that’s what this alleviates.
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Yeah. Totally. well so that’s that’s
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my my take on it i mean again i can’t stress enough
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like when i don’t do this i’m just
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not as productive you know and and that’s that’s not a good feeling because
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then i feel pressure the following week or whenever so productivity hacks i
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think we’re gonna wrap this one up yeah all right it’s good it’s important all
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right we’ll see you next time on rock school Proprietor Podcast. Thanks, John.
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If you have topic suggestions or questions, please email us at info at rockschoolproprietor.com.
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Always love to hear from you. And check out our website for that downloadable
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productivity hack, the time blocking schedule.
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It’s at rockschoolproprietor.com. Show notes and transcripts that are there as well.
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I’m at rock.school.proprietor on Instagram and John Kazicki on LinkedIn.
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If you enjoyed the show and gained insight from our conversation,
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then we count that as a win.
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As always, all we ask in return is that you pay it forward, share the show with
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someone you think needs to hear it.
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Music.
