
You know if anything is true, it would be that producing music for yourself and music for someone else is almost completely different.
Because as much as you would love to treat yourself as you would with a band, you just can't. It would be lovely to try and tell yourself, "well Im going to rehearse this until I have it perfectly and then track it during production".
But the truth is, you're going to miss things that would otherwise be noticed as an outside opinion.
Some of the best self produced stuff still needed outside help to arrange, mix, program, track and somewhat keep everything in check.
For example, Bjork is an amazing talent and she does alot of stuff on a Pro Tools system at home. However, she has her "personal" engineer do alot of the tracking and managment of sounds, so she can focus on lyrics and just creating the music. Of course, occasionally they stop in at a few studios to track additonal stuff.
I guess the best thing to do is to treat yourself as you would a band, but to also be sparing with yourself.
Like if you have to take an entire day to do drums on one song, to do it in pieces (verse, chorus, etc) then let it be that way. In fact, I would say having a calendar of events would probably help you stay on track so you can focus on the performance as much as humanly possible.
Cause if you think about it pyschologically: Telling someone else what to do is completely different than telling yourself what to do.
So approach it like that. Also, since it's self produced, I would take my time. Like save one week to do all your drum stuff. Then at the end of the week, analyze everything you did, try to put your parts together (minimal editing) to prep it up for the next week. Which may be guitars, bass, vocals...whatever you feel like doing.
So that way, at the end of the month, you actually have an album that you where able to give detailed attention to.
Like it was a habit for me in my early teens to treat myself like a big movie. "Drums one week and every sunday in that month would be editing and performance review".
So it was always:
Week 1 (Drums): Mon-Sat/Tracking. Sun/Editing & performance review. Then I prepared my game plan for week 2.
Week 2 (Rhythm Guitars): Mon-Sat/Tracking. Sun/Editing & performance review. Then the next game plan.
Week 3 (Vocals & Bass): Mon-Sat/Tracking. Sun/Editing & performance review. Next game plan...
Week 4 (Final bits, lead parts, supporting instruments or extra sounds): Mon-Sat/Tracking. Sun/Editing & performance review.
So you see, each successive step set me up for the next step. I would manage to get my basic editing done, plus I could calmly work off the previous week's worth of material. Almost like building a pyriamid. So I was never stressed out, or freaked about what to do next. Because I could always visualize how one part would help set me up for the next part.
Then the next 2 weeks- month was where the mixing came in. So on and so forth.
Think about this for a second:
What do you think is easier:
a) Trying to get to an unknown destination without a map?
or
b) Trying to get to an unknown destination with a map?
I don't know if it will work for you, but I figure I'd share the thought.