Hi Dave,
In answer to your question, the music creation process for me is all just a big, beautiful mess! There’s rarely a clear separation between music creation, endless tweaking of what’s been created, and mixing the whole time. That makes it hard to say what I spend the most time on. But I guess I’d have to say it’s the “auditioning” of songs - - in the car, in my headphones, at work, at home, on the computer, etc. I do a lot of listening to my music - - in various environments, on different equipment, probably for several hours a day - - to make sure it’s gonna sound good in as many places as possible. I’m always finding elements of the song that I want to tweak for the next version of it.
Here’s the thing: I create music totally for fun, not for money. That may change in the future, but for now, there are no deadlines attached to my music. So making a song better can be a never-ending process....