* Avoid eating and working. If what you are doing is so important that you cannot step away and enjoy your food for a few minutes, then it is not worth doing.
* Leave your phone outside. Just turning it off is not enough because it’s too easy to to grab it and turn it on to check something. The time where you have the urge to check it is time where your brain processes details and sparks creativity. Letting the outside world distract you from this focus will suck the life out of your creative potential. Turn off your phone and the music will turn out better and you get more gratification and peace from the focused time spent. It will feel like you accomplished something.
* Stop spinning your wheels getting sounds on the whole song. When I watch newer engineers, the biggest waste of time is that they play the whole song and try to get their EQ and compression settings to work for the whole song (THIS IS USUALLY IMPOSSIBLE). They’ll do this all day long! Instead, just loop a small section (usually the loudest) and make your settings there. With a little volume automation you’ll usually find that those settings work pretty well on the rest of the song and you’ll have time at the end of the day to spend with friends.
* If you are tweaking levels and settings by very (VERY) small amounts, there are bigger issues that need to be solved. Plus those tiny changes won’t matter anyways if you change anything else in the mix. Start with a large paint brush and use the little brushes at the very end.
* Sleep. Again, if you don’t have enough time to get enough sleep, what’s the point? What a lot of people forget is that they will work faster and make better decisions if they sleep. You will also hear better if you sleep well.
* Have someone else in the studio with you at least 1/3 of the time. It’s weird how when someone else is in the room you become very sensitive of the things that suck with the production. Another person can also help you stay focused and waste less time. Laughing is nice too 
A lot of people that send me stuff to listen too, I can pretty much tell if they worked on the project alone or with other people. Most music that is done all alone can be very difficult to relate to and seems very “one-dimensional”.
* Avoid working with artists that are not motivated to be their best. They will make YOU pick up the slack, but YOU need all your energy to do YOUR job the best.
* Close your eyes when you are listening. What you hear is what matters.
* Follow your heart. This will make your time in the studio less soul-sucking.
