Wondering if music can teach you a thing or two about time management?

Are you looking for some thoughtful inspiration when it comes to time?

Music is a universal language.

A beautiful song that is pleasing to the ear, a lovely melody that you can’t stop singing, a catchy beat that moves your feet.

You may not have considered it before, but music can also teach you a thing or two about time management.

In this post, you’ll find some thoughtful reflections from my own musical background and how they relate to time.

These include piano lessons as a child, playing the clarinet in symphonic bands, orchestras and quintets through grade school, accompanying lessons as a teenager, and music theory in high school and college.

You Learn what You Can & Can’t Do in a Certain period of Time.

Just as we have standard measurements of keeping time in our daily lives (seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, decades, etc.) music has similar equivalents (notes with different values, time signatures, etc.).

I won’t go into the nitty-gritty details of music theory, but in music there are certain constraints or boundaries that you have to follow in order to make a song or piece technically correct.

Understanding and working within these constraints is a big part of music theory, which can easily be translated to time management.

Time Management Equivalent: How much work can you physically do in one hour/one day/one month/one year?

You learn to Effectively Use Time Keeping Tools.

In music, a metronome is a tool used to help keep a tempo of a musical composition.

It’s easiest to think of a metronome as a type of musical clock that is set to a certain speed.

For example, if I’m going to use a metronome to help me while I practice a piece, I need to practice interacting with the metronome to ensure I am playing at that particular tempo.

I may need to play a little faster or slower.

Time Management Equivalent: If the clock says 7pm and you need to travel 30 minutes to be somewhere at 7:30pm, will you leave your home at 7pm or not?

You Learn to Appreciate a Time and Place for Everything.

Entrances and exits can be tricky things in music.

If I am playing a solo part in an orchestra and play before or after it’s time for my solo, I probably won’t be heard.

At worst, I’ll disrupt the whole flow of the orchestra with my untimely interruption…oops…).

I’ve got to come in and leave at the right time for my solo to be effective.

Time Management Equivalent: Ever want to speed up time so that you can get that meeting over and done with? Unfortunately you can’t force time…you have to go with the flow and wait for time to pass.

How about you? Which of these musings struck a chord with you? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!