Hi,

I’ve spent the last few weeks of the holiday season recharging, reflecting, and thinking about the year ahead. I’m on sort of a James Clear “Atomic Habits” kick after finally reading the book and have been thinking a lot about the importance of process and systems.

I thought it’d worth sharing some things I’m thinking about for 2025.

This newsletter highlights:

• How systems contribute to success

• 10 music industry job roles

Let’s dive in ⬇️

This post can be considered somewhat of a Part 2 to the Atomic Habits post from last year. I’ve always been pretty organized (my brain tends to think logistically and process oriented most of the time) but Atomic Habits really opened my eyes to how foundational having a system is for achieving success.

It’s fascinating to me (and kind of blows my mind) that the difference in someone’s dream outcome, life, or goal can literally come down to having a system or process for achieving that goal. Talent + skill are a huge part of the equation but so are the habits and systems for getting there.

As I was reading Atomic Habits and thought about the areas of my life where I’ve been able to find success (and through watching others), I came up with kind of a framework I’m going to try and follow more in 2025. I think it can also be applicable and helpful for artists, creators, and their teams.

Step 1: Create a system + process that allows for scalability

Step 2: Have the discipline to follow that system

Step 3: Move with speed (sense of urgency) and consistency while following that system

Step 4: That speed creates momentum + inertia that creates opportunities

Step 5: Capitalizing on those opportunities

Let’s dive into each one and look at 2 examples for each step:

a) an artist creating, releasing, and marketing their music consistently

b) a content creator building their audience

1) Create a system + process that allows for scalability

Artist: coming up with a dedicated process to record, mix, and master music while also creating content for that music.

For example…

The artist buys a home studio set up and records their own music. Their system for recording is doing it themselves which allows them to record at scale as often as they want to.

For mixing and mastering, they find an engineer who is open to a bulk deal and make an agreement for however many songs they want to release that year (for sake of example, let’s say 20 songs).

The artist sends the engineer music in batches of 5 songs along with notes for each song. The artist plans on finishing multiple songs before releasing the first one of the year so they don’t have to scramble to release consistently.

Artwork is made with 1 graphic designer using a template for each artwork and slightly tweaking it per song (they build a system for art) and content follows a template as well - each song is accompanied by X number of short form clips filmed on the artist phone or by the same videographer.

The artist now has a system for creation - each part of the equation has its own formula that can hopefully allow for scalability. It may require some potential compromises but those compromises open the door for efficiency, scalability, and speed.

Instead of finding a different graphic designer for each song artwork (potentially 20 different designers for 20 songs), and waiting for each one to respond / send revisions, they build a system with 1 designer.

Creator: A creator buys their own recording set up (camera, light, backdrop, etc) and creates a structure for how their content is filmed. Each video follows the same formula and the filming of the videos also follow a formula - the creator shoots 1 day per week (for sake of example, let’s say on Saturdays), then uses Sundays to edit all of the videos for that week, and then they upload 1 video per day that following week.

There is a system and formula for how they are operating - it’s not random or when they feel like it.

2) Have the discipline to follow that system

Artists: Discipline here could look like…

Writing and recording on a consistent basis, even when having an “off day” or not being in a great mood that day.

OR

Sticking to the content game plan you created that’s scalable, as opposed to deviating and trying to do some super intricate huge music video with tons of logistics, uncertainty, and would likely take away resources from other things. (This is assuming it’s an emerging artist by the way with limited resources btw).

Creator: Discipline here could look like…

Sticking to your content shooting and editing schedule so you can upload consistently and not leave anything up to chance.

3) Move with a sense of urgency

Artists and creators: Setting a deadline for your graphic designer, videographer, engineer, etc to have everything completed and reverse engineering when you need assets by to align with your release schedule.

Deadlines will help you stay on schedule and move with a sense of urgency.

Consistently pushing the ball forward and building momentum.

4) That momentum creates inertia which creates opportunities

Artists and creators: as they start releasing consistently, they will inevitably start building momentum in their respective fields.

The artist may build momentum on their social media with posting new releases consistently as well as on their streaming platforms - consistently keeping their profiles active and hitting the algorithm.

The YouTube creator can build momentum on YouTube with their consistent uploads along with their social media.

As momentum builds, opportunities will naturally arise.

For example, the artist consistently releases music and starts building a fanbase. Their music travels and another artist (let’s say either a bigger artist or an artist at the same level), discovers them and then reaches out to collaborate on a song.

The collaboration is a great look for our initial artist and will help them reach a new fanbase and widen their audience.

5) Capitalizing on those opportunities

An example of capitalizing on the collaboration opportunity mentioned above would be the initial artist getting their verse done and sending it back in a timely fashion.

Every opportunity has a “window” - essentially a timeframe to fulfill and capitalize on that thing before it closes. In this example, the window closing would be the bigger artist wanting to release the song and not waiting for the verse after a certain amount of time.

If the initial artist takes too long to provide the bigger artist with everything they need, the window closes.

Another example could be the relationship that develops between an artist and videographer or content creator.

Let’s say there’s an emerging artist who has limited resources + funding. They come into contact with a videographer who’s affordable, understands their vision, and has availability to work. They do their first shoot together and it goes well - they knock out a few pieces of short form content that the artist loves and the shoot is considered a success. The videographer is down to more.

A window of opportunity just opened. The artist can just rest on that initial shoot and wait until the time is right to do another shoot, or…they can make an effort to do more with that videographer and capitalize on that window of opportunity while the videographer still has bandwidth.

The artist jumps at the opportunity and sets up another shoot, coming up with content ideas that are on brand for him but suit the videographer so they can build momentum and stack up content.

They continue working together and over the course of multiple shoots, the artist stacks up a ton of content that arms them with a good amount to work with to support their music.

When it comes time to release, that surplus of content helps them build momentum, their fanbase, and accelerate faster because they took advantage of the opportunity that presented itself. Maybe down the road the videographer takes on a larger gig and doesn’t have bandwidth to shoot anymore but the artist can look back and not regret doing more with them while they had the chance.

These types of windows of opportunity open up everyday - in music, entertainment, and life. Momentum builds as a result of consistent action that creates opportunities but the big step is to capitalize on those opportunities.

It all starts with having the process + system to have a shot at momentum.

Phew, okay….end of rant lol. I hope that didn’t sound too vague or amibigous.

Essentially - so much of success is having a plan, sticking to it, and then maximizing the opportunities that come from that plan.

Thanks for reading, until next time.

_{Music industry job opportunities}

1) Creative Marketing Coordinator, Flighthouse - Create Music Group

Salary: $19 - $21 hourly

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Apply HERE

2) Marketing and Social Media Manager - Blue Note

Salary: $55 - 85K (Weekly)

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Apply HERE

3) Marketing Director, Blue Note Los Angeles - Blue Note

Salary: $85 - 150K (Weekly)

Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Apply HERE

4) Coordinator - Music Services UK & EMEA London - Netflix

Salary: Unlisted

Location: London, United Kingdom

Apply HERE

5) Publicity Manager - Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Salary - $46,000 - $51,000

Location: Cincinnati, OH

Apply HERE

6) Production Coordinator - West One Music Group

Salary: Unlisted

Location: Hollywood, CA

Apply HERE

7) Venue Booking/Settlement Coordinator - Live Nation Entertainment

Salary: Unlisted 

Location: Cambridge, MA 

Apply HERE

8) Podcast Executive Producer - iHeart Radio

Salary: $100,000 - $125,000

Location: Hollywood, CA

Apply HERE

9) Junior Manager, Viral Marketing - Warner Music Group

Salary: $68,640 - $70,000

Location:  Los Angeles, CA

Apply HERE

10) Marketing Manager - Avant Gardner

Salary: $80,000 - $90,000

Location: New York, NY

Apply HERE