A good songwriter knows when to stop writing.

We’ve all got hard drive space taken up by demos, half written songs and even fully finished tracks that are gathering dust and probably won’t see the light of day.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could end up with more finished songs that we’re happy with so they can be released?

Before We Begin…

It’s important to know that this is totally normal and will most definitely be a part of your songwriting journey.

You will end up with songs that don’t get finished and could be considered as time wasted. But that doesn’t need to be the norm…

Deadlines

It’s kind of a dirty word right? It can send chilling memories of overdue school homework running through your spine.

But when making music, deadlines can be your best friend.

The issue with making music is that there is no such thing as a 100% perfect product, it just doesn’t work like that. There will always be more you can add, things you can change, and ideas you can throw at it.

This means it’s very hard to know when a track is finished.

So with that in mind, when you start a new song, give yourself a strict deadline. It could be a day, a week, a month; only you can figure this out (See Parkinson’s Law below). But set a deadline that is both realistic and puts just enough pressure on you to get it to a point where you’re happy with it.

Then stop. Consider it done and move on.

Parkinson’s Law

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

In other words, if you give yourself a day to complete something, it will take you a day; if you give yourself a month, it will take you a month.

Giving yourself less time could be the answer to getting more songs finished.

STAYING OBJECTIVE

The biggest downside to working on a song endlessly until it is ‘perfect’ is that after a while, you simply cannot hear what is good and what is bad.

You get too close to the song and lose all sight of what made it enjoyable in the first place.

You can only enjoy working on something for so long and so making sure that you set a deadline somewhere inside of that window increases the chances that you end up with something you still enjoy listening to.

Hopefully there is something in here that resonates with you and helps you finish more tracks.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think so please let us know or you can leave a comment below.

Take Care

Jump & Turner