Finding Balance As a Music Freelancer | Ashley Danyew

As a musician, your work demands creativity, focus, and energy—sometimes all at once.

From teaching to practicing, performing to dealing with all the behind-the-scenes admin work, it’s easy to feel burnt out creatively, lose focus, and lack motivation.

You’re balancing multiple jobs and projects at any given time. But it’s not just about being productive—it’s learning how to find clarity and reset your focus.

Pushing through when your attention starts to wane isn’t always the best strategy. Instead, what if the key to doing better work was knowing when to take a step back, when to take a break?

Researchers suggest that strategic breaks can help reset your focus, improve concentration, and prevent burnout. But not all breaks are created equal. The right kind of mental reset can leave you feeling recharged rather than distracted or drained.

In this post, you’ll learn nine simple ways to take a mental break when you need one and reengage your focus and attention in the middle of the work day.

1. Go for a Walk

In the 1980s, researchers and psychologists at the University of Michigan, Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan proposed the Attention Restoration Theory (ART), which indicates that spending time in nature can improve your focus and concentration.

Cal Newport talks about this in his book, Deep Work. He writes:

“Walking on busy city streets requires you to use directed attention, as you must navigate complicated tasks. . . .When walking through nature, you’re freed from having to direct your attention, as there are few challenges to navigate (like crowded street crossings), and experience enough interesting stimuli to keep your mind sufficiently occupied to avoid the need to actively aim your attention. This state allows your directed attention resources time to replenish.”

It’s not just walks through a lush, green forest, either. The researchers found that even walking outside in harsh, cold conditions (though it didn’t always put the subjects in a good mood) led to better results on concentration tasks.

Build this into your day—first thing in the morning, after lunch, or mid-afternoon when you feel your attention waning. Or plan a few quick walks throughout the day.

In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Daniel H. Pink cites research indicating that taking 5-minute walking breaks every hour can boost energy levels, increase focus, positively influence your mood throughout the day, and minimize afternoon fatigue. He writes:

“These ‘microbursts of activity,’ as the researchers call them, were also more effective than a single thirty-minute walking break. . . .Regular short walking breaks in the workplace also increase motivation and concentration and enhance creativity.”

Worth a try, right?

2. Learn When You’re the Sharpest

Another insight from Daniel H. Pink’s book is acknowledging that our cognitive abilities do not stay the same all throughout the day. He explains:

“During the sixteen or so hours we’re awake, they change—often in a regular, foreseeable manner. We are smarter, faster, dimmer, slower, more creative, and less creative in some parts of the day than others. For most of us, those sharp-minded analytic capacities peak in the late morning or around noon.”

After that, it’s time to take a break.

Give yourself time during lunch to catch up with your favorite blog, watch a webinar, listen to a podcast, or read a chapter of your current book (need some suggestions? See my 2025 book list here).

This is a helpful way to add more reading into your day, work on professional development or continuing education, and spend your break time doing something meaningful and intellectually stimulating (instead of simply scrolling through social media).

In sum, if you have control over your schedule, take into account when you feel the sharpest—when you do your best creative work—and choose which activities or projects you want to do during that time. Protect the time when you do your best thinking for things that matter. Save admin work, emails, etc. for other parts of the day.

3. Write It Out

How many tabs do you have open in your browser right now? (13 for me, I just checked.)

We do a similar thing mentally by working on multiple projects at once, flitting from one task to another, checking email, and answering text messages throughout the day. This may give you the feeling of having too many mental tabs open at once.

In her book, Don’t Overthink It, Anne Bogel explains:

“Open cycles consume mental energy, occupy brain space, and beg us to monitor them as ‘jobs in progress.’ Our brains get anxious when too many cycles remain open, because it takes energy to maintain them. They register as clutter to our brains. We’re using mental energy and our limited working memory trying not to forget about them.”

A solution?

Write it all out. Everything you’re working on, thinking about, and don’t want to forget to do. Jon Acuff says, “A list is the fastest way to bring clarity to chaos” (source: Soundtracks). From there, you can organize things by task, prioritize what’s most important, and set deadlines. This is the mental equivalent of closing tabs and you’ll be amazed how much more focused you’ll feel working on the task at hand.

4. Get Organized

We all have different approaches when it comes to organization.

Maybe you have your scores alphabetized by composer last name and then by work or collection title. Or maybe you’re content having a shelf to stack your music and you don’t really care about having any kind of system beyond that.

Maybe you keep folders for all your students to track their assessments, repertoire assignments, performances, and compositions. Or maybe you keep one general folder for your entire studio.

Regardless of the level of organization you prefer, you may find that a cluttered work environment affects your productivity and ability to focus. This is similar to no. 3 above—every item, book, Post-It note is a reminder of something. It pulls your attention, distracts you from what you’re trying to work on, and keeps you cycling through the list of all the things you need to do.

If you’re feeling distracted or overwhelmed, take a couple of minutes to clean up around your studio, desk, or office. Sort through that stack of papers, put books away, file receipts, etc. Copy notes you’ve written to yourself on Post-Its and other pieces of paper onto one master list (like we talked about in no. 3).

Cultivate an environment that’s conducive to practicing, teaching, writing, planning, etc.

5. Exercise

We all know the benefits of exercise. But who has the time? One strategy you might find helpful as a busy musician is to schedule exercise strategically in your day and use it to your advantage.

Authors (and sisters) Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski explain, “We are built to oscillate between work and rest. When we allow for this oscillation, the quality of our work improves, along with our health.” (source: Burnout)

It’s a win-win. And this is where the strategy comes in:

“A growing body of research has established that we do our best at any given task for only a limited amount of time, energy, or attention, then our performance drops off, our attention wanders, and our motivation evaporates. But resting after a depleting activity eliminates the effects of fatigue.”

The secret? Physical activity counts as rest.

All that matters is that you’re taking a mental break from the work you were doing. So purposely scheduling exercise after a period of work can give you the break you need while also completing the stress cycle, which transitions your body into a resting state. (source: Burnout)

Also, who says you can exercise only in the morning or at night? If you have flexibility in your schedule (and especially if you work from home), take time in the middle of the afternoon to exercise. Take a long walk, go for a bike ride, or go for a quick run. You'll come back to your work feeling refreshed, relaxed, and energized.

6. Change Tasks

Another way to reset your focus is to change tasks.

Choose something that doesn’t require a lot of mental engagement, like filing papers, going for a walk (as mentioned in no. 1), folding laundry, or prepping for dinner. Taking time to slice, dice, and chop can be therapeutic and productive in its own right, but it also gives your mind time to think through something and problem solve—subconsciously or consciously.

If you’re feeling stuck, experiencing writer’s block, or hitting a wall in your practicing, don’t just push through. Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a step back, evaluate, and get a new perspective on the issue.

By changing tasks, you’re giving yourself a break from the activity while allowing your mind to ponder and reflect, which can be really constructive.

7. Unplug

Maybe this goes without saying, but when you’re feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, unfocused, distracted, or unmotivated, the first thing I recommend is unplugging for a little while.

We are bombarded with information and feelings and opinions all day on the internet and it’s only getting noisier. It can be a lot to take in and process, for anyone. We weren’t meant to be connected all day, tethered to everyone in our digital social circles with notifications dinging for our attention.

Put your phone in airplane mode for a while or—better yet—leave it in the other room while you’re working so you’re not tempted to check in.

Close out of your email, sign out of social media on your computer, and maybe even work offline for a while. Depending on what you’re working on (writing lesson plans, composing, writing a paper, planning your spring recital, etc.) you may not need the internet for a few hours. Work analog with a pen and paper or take your laptop outside.

It’s okay to unplug.

Related post: Are You Running on Autopilot These Days?

8. Get Out of Your Own Head

When you’re self-employed, you spend a lot of time working alone.

This can be a haven for introverts (hi, it’s me), but even I can get stuck in my head sometimes: Replaying a situation over and over, feeling unsure how to move forward, getting stuck in a project, weighing a big decision, overthinking something, etc.

If you’re prone to feeling this in your music work, here are a few things you can do:

Make a phone call or text a friend
Meet a musician or teacher friend for coffee, lunch, or a walk
Work at your local coffee shop or at the library for a few hours
Join a co-working space and go a few times per week
Find ways to collaborate with others (colleagues, musicians, teachers) on certain projects
Ask a friend to do a silent co-working session with you (you both work independently on your own projects, but you have the accountability and support of someone else working with you)

9. Listen to / Play Music

Some people enjoy listening to music to music while they work. Others find it to be a distraction. I can’t listen to music while writing anything—emails, blog posts, podcast episodes, etc. (especially music with lyrics!), but I do sometimes enjoy listening to music when working on admin tasks that don’t require as much of my attention (or at least the writing side of my brain).

This can be a good way to unwind and take a mental break and it gives you an opportunity to reconnect with music. Turn on your favorite playlist, put on a Spotify mix, listen to a Tiny Desk concert on YouTube. Or, if it's feasible, take out your instrument and play for a little while.

Related episode: Do You Play Your Instrument for Fun?