 The number one question I'm asked by musicians is how do you keep people on your team motivated, get things done, or keep wells in momentum from occurring? We all know musicians get real motivated for a little while and then have big spans where they do nothing and everybody forgets about them, and then their fan base gets bored and diminishes. Especially since we know that consistent sustained promotion is one of the most important things for building a fan base, this becomes a huge problem for musicians trying to build up their fans. And it is okay that life gets in the way sometimes, but if you learn how to keep people motivated and keep things getting done, those lows will disappear and you'll gain more momentum. With some simple methods and some software, you can not only make tons of progress on your music, but also keep track of what everyone is supposed to be doing and hold them accountable and keep them motivated. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation. So what we're trying to learn today is what the corporate world calls project management. And while I'm an anti-capitalist nerd, I gotta admit when these suits do something right. If you're constantly noticing that people on your team are doing the wrong thing when something else was more important to do or that things constantly fall through the cracks and things don't get done and you lose momentum building up your fan base all the time, what we're gonna go over today is crucial. So the main tool we're gonna be using today is a free software called Trello. Let's get into that. Okay, so this is Trello. This is what I use to organize any team I work on. What I like about Trello versus a to-do list is it has lots of accountability tricks. Like for example, one of the best things that subtly tricks people to realizing on a team that they're being lazy is that it'll send notifications on the mobile apps or even on the desktop app when people are completing tasks so you know you're not making progress when other people are making progress and that bullies people into thinking they gotta work harder. And you know, that subtle trick kinda does work. Anyway, I like this though for a lot of reasons. So what I do when I set up a Trello, and as you can see, I've done it here for my band in Cell Hype Beast. I've made a bunch of categories. So each of these verticals is a different type of task. So we have anyone can do it, which means that anyone on my team, the manager, me or anyone in my group can do the task. This is the work we have to do for the next video we're making. Everyone work means somebody can just pick this and do this. Jesse work would obviously mean I'm doing it. And then the manager work here would be the manager do it. And then when the last vertical we have is completed. And what's good about that is that you can then see when things have been done. And as well, you know where has happened with tasks. And most of all, it's like you can look back, you can know that something didn't get slipped out of the wayside, it got done. Sometimes you're not always thinking of everything, especially when these boards are stacked. What I also like right here is this activity feed. Since as things happen, it'll show you what's been going on and who's been making progress. This is especially good if you had a day or two away from your project, you were dealing with your day job, something like that. You were on vacation. You can look back and see everything that's been happening and know where you're at with things. So let's really get into though, how I like to use this. So I just add a new card. Every time there's a task to do, we can do a task for clean the van for anyone can do it. And so then if I wanted to say, well, the manager's not been pulling their weight, I could add it to their work if I wanted to. As well in there, you can also tag different members of the team. So if it was more than just me and this team, I'd be able to put someone else on this and it would notify them that they've been doing this to however they have their notifications set up. The key is you do have to do this. We should also talk about this. It is super, super important that somebody takes the task of being the taskmaster. No band ever is an equal dispersion of responsibilities. No team is ever it, but somebody has to be the person who's motivating people to get things done. And pushing things forward. And sometimes that is more than one person, but really somebody has to take care of this board and nudge and remind people that they're not getting things done. So one of the other ways to do that, as you can see here is I have a due date on this. And you can do that. That check mark says it's complete if it gets done. But like I like to put the due dates on things by when they would need to be done and like really make people plan it a little bit more. There's all sorts of calendar integrations here for if you want to use this with a calendar and it'll put things on people's calendars and show them when they're due. There's tons of ways to unlock this. So let's get into this a little bit more too is that like for the video work, you could put this in the order things have to get done so that people know what to prioritize. One of the biggest problems I noticed with managing groups is people just do what's easy, not what's actually needs to be done. And that is truly like the biggest problem. So you as the taskmaster can prioritize things and what I like, especially when I've had a boss on this or I'm somebody's boss is I can really let them know what needs to be done because we all know how often those fights happen. But yeah, and then once things are ready, so let's say I have finished the mix of Iowa sketch break. I put that on our completed tab, then it goes there and everybody will get a notification on their app saying that that's done. But what I really, really like a lot about this is, is Trello compared to other to-do apps makes a nice visual way to do it. It looks great on the mobile apps and it really works well for making sure that everybody knows what can be done, which word should be done and every band I talk to who starts using it says it's a miracle for their productivity. So I hope the same thing happens for you. That's it. Am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did, please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artist, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessicanon.com or at jessicanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.