I've been answering a lot of subscribers that are struggling finding enough time to spend in the studio.

And it made me think...how good are you at managing your time?

Like really...if you had to be honest with yourself.

Is every minute used to its most optimal effect, or do you waste a bunch of time doing nothing?

I bet you're the latter. You try to be productive but then you get drained and start watching those random auto-play videos in your Facebook newsfeed. When you only have 30 minutes to spare in your schedule I bet you waste it away.

And then you wonder why you don't have any time to do any mixing.

Because if you're going to practice your mixing you're going to need at least a four hour block of time right?

WRONG.

You know there's this thing called the Save Command right?

It means that after a certain amount of time you can save your work and come back to it?

It's this brand new function. It was invented at the same time as the seatbelt, the indicator signal and the toilet flusher.

You know, things people could use all the time but don't for some reason!

My point is that even if you only have 30 minutes to spare you can still get a good chunk of mixing time in if you plan it right.

If you already had a session you needed to start you should AT LEAST be able to get a rough static mix going with faders and panning. And then if you have extra time to spare start slapping EQ on your busses and start EQ'ing all those instruments together.

Who cares if you don't get it perfect right away. Just wait until you have a new 30 minute block and continue.

I'd even say it would be smarter to do things in small increments as you always approach your mix with fresh ears and new ideas.

So take back control of your time and start using every single minute in your schedule to get better.

Say you had 30 minutes to spare every weekday you could plan them like this:

• Monday - Get all the sessions ready for mixing so you have more songs to fall back on for practice if you want.
• Tuesday - Do a static balance, panning and the grouping of instruments to busses to simplify your mix.
• Wednesday - Overall EQ, both on busses and instrument tracks.
• Thursday - Compression and any cool plug-ins you want to try out.
• Friday - Add reverb and delay to the mix to give it space.

Et voilá! You've mixed one song this week. It might not be perfect but it's a lot better than mindlessly watching videos on Facebook right?

Take back your time and plan to improve what you actually want to improve. Mindless procrastination never helped anybody.

Also, if you want to use two of those 30 minute blocks to learn how to make all your instruments cut through your mix, check out the hour-long EQ walkthrough included in your ultimate guide to EQ:

www.EQStrategies.net