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This is a guest post written by Caleb J. Murphy, from the blog Musician With a Day Job. Caleb writes about running a successful music career while still holding down a day job. For more information about Caleb, check out his bio below.

Life is busy. I’m guessing your days consist of:

• A job/career position
• Taking care of kids, and/or…
• Going to school

But what if I said, despite that, you could still have a career in music?

In fact, what if I said you had no excuses not to?

Well, that’s what I’m about to say. 

So here’s how you can build a music career, even if you have just one hour a day…

You Have More Time Than You Think

It might seem like you don’t have time to pursue music. Or that you don’t have enough time in a day to even think about music. 

But I assure you, you do. Let me break it down.

In 7 days, you have a total of 168 available hours. 

Let’s take away 56 hours right off the top for sleep. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 60, you need at least 7 hours of sleep every night. So, to be safe, let’s say you get 8 hours of sleep a night. 

Then you have to subtract 40 hours a week for your day job. If your job is taking more than this, you may need a new job. 

An overly demanding job will make it harder to pursue a career in music. Not just because you’ll have less time, but because you’ll also have less energy and brainpower to make music. 

And your commute? Let’s say that takes 2 hours round trip, 5 days a week. That’s 10 hours a week for commuting.

You’ll also need time to wake up, get coffee, shower, get ready for the day, which probably takes 1 hour. Then let’s say you need 1 hour at the end of the day for dinner and decompressing. That’s a total of 14 hours for pre-work and post-work time.

You’ll also need time to invest in your relationships, “me time,” and other social happenings. Let’s assign 14 hours to personal time for the week (an average of 2 hours a day). 

So far, we’re at 134 hours for the week.  

That leaves you with 34 hours every week to make music. That’s a lot! That’s almost the equivalent of a second full-time job.

And I get it — this schedule can vary widely. 

People (like me) have kids. Spouses or significant others may require more social time. Extroverts probably scoffed at my allotted 14 hours a week of social time (what can I say, I’m an introvert).

Even if you spend 28 hours a week on personal time (instead of 14) and you volunteered at your local charity for 10 hours a week, you’d still have 10 hours left to make music. 

That’s more than one hour a day to build your music career. 

Psst…. If scheduling time is a challenge, try one of these planners! It will take your scheduling to the next level and help you prioritize the important things in life.

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How To Build Your Music Career…Starting Today

Now let me get practical. 

Below are some methods I’ve found super useful in my music career. And they can help you build your career in as little as an hour a day. 

Schedule music time

Time is like a river. It will carry you in one direction unless you swim against it. Keeping a schedule is how you swim upstream. I’ve learned you have to schedule time for music or time will schedule you. You can’t just wait for inspiration to hit you.

When music is your side gig, scheduling your music time each week or each month can drastically improve your productivity and creative output. 

So open up your calendar app or pull out your paper planner and find times you can make music. Put those times in your calendar. Hold yourself to them. 

For me, my music time is in the evenings after my kids go to bed. 

Remember, you have more than 7 hours a week to work on music. 

You’ll also want to take into account your chronotype, which refers to how your circadian rhythms ebb and flow. Your circadian rhythm determines when your brain and body want to go to sleep and when you’re awake.

People have different chronotypes — night owls, early birds, and those who are most productive in the afternoon (I don’t understand these people). 

If I were not musically productive at night because of my chronotype, my music-making time would be a mess. So try to schedule your music time based on your chronotype. You may not have a lot of flexibility with this, but do your best. 

Want to know what your chronotype is? Take this questionnaire to find out. 

Chunk your goals

Chunking is a method that helps you remember long strings of information. But it’s also a way to make your music career feel much less overwhelming.

We use chunking with phone numbers and birthdays. We use slashes or dashes to break up the string of numbers so they’re easier to remember. 

So let’s apply this to your goals. 

What do you want to accomplish this year? Chunk it into tasks you can do today.

Where do you want to be in 5 years? Break that up into checkpoints.

You could even keep it simpler. What goals do you have for this week? And what can you do today to make them happen?

Chunk your goals into smaller bits. You’ll get more done and be more in control of your career. 

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Decide on your income streams

You need multiple revenue streams as a musician. The old way of making a living in the music industry is dying, soon to be dead. 

And diversifying your income is a smart idea. Just ask the millionaires.

Bestselling author Tom Corley studied the revenue streams of millionaires. Of the people he studied, most of them had at least three income streams “prior to making their first million dollars.” (Many of those streams were forms of passive income).

+Related: 18 Ways Musicians are Actually Making Money

So, if you’re looking to make money from music, why not do what has been proven to work? Millionaires, in large part, created their wealth from multiple sources. 

How do you decide which music-related income streams to pursue? In today’s technologically advanced world, you have so many options. 

I have a method called the Rule Of 2s that can help you. 

Here’s the gist of it:

1. Synthesize your ideal music career into two big elements (ex. making original music and coaching other musicians)
2. Brainstorm two ways to make money for each of those big elements
3. Come up with two daily tasks for each income stream

This way, you’ll end up with eight things you can do today to move you toward making money from your chosen income streams. 

+Related: 18 Ways Musicians are Actually Making Money

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Watch: 5 Ways Musicians Can Make Money Without Touring

Create a long-term plan

Part of scheduling your music time, chunking your goals, and deciding on your income streams relies on your plan. 

You need a long-term plan as a musician. And this plan needs to show you what you can do today to move forward. 

Here’s how I created a plan for my career:

1. Decided on the “big picture” for my music
2. Broke that big picture into clearly attainable, small, output-based goals
3. Came up with tasks I could do on any day that would move me closer to my goals

When I solidified a plan for my music career, it changed everything for me.

Now I know where I’m going. I have goals that tell me how I’m progressing. And I know that what I do today is making a difference.  

Start with one thing today

Once you figure out the things you can do today, your perspective will change. 

You won’t be overwhelmed. You’ll have more focus. And you’ll be less likely to burn out. 

So just focus on today. Deal with the tasks on your desk right now. Tomorrow will come soon enough. 

It’s okay to take baby steps. If you’re doing music on the side, small movements are the way forward.

Even if you have just one hour each day, you can totally build a music career.

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