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nyykiWhen I went through Pathways, I learned a process for helping to organize task lists. I do it in a spreadsheet, and the columns are as follows:
Task
Deadline
Status
Money Needed
Resources Needed
Preliminaries
Obstacles
Specific Steps
Category
This task list has blossomed into five worksheets, (Main, Tech, Musical, Writing, and Gaming -- Moving has gone away and the remaining items from this page are peppered throughout the other sheets) I broke them down into different sheets so I could better organize them and so I could work on things for specific moods.
On the musical sheet are several things that need to happen in the studio, along with songs that need to be sequenced, mixed, burned, and then cataloged for a band project or two in the future. There were 18 songs on the list, which I planned to get sequenced last winter break before the big move. That didn't happen, because things with the move got seriously wompy-jawed, so I went ahead and put them off to this winter break.
On Monday I started the process with a tune called Back Home Again. It's sort of a Dave Matthews type song, somewhat contemplative, and it took me a day and a half to finish it. Then I started work on Poppet, a song inspired by a former roommate. (Waves to El Jefe) It's a hard rock/Metal tune about using a spell to make someone bad in one's life unable to hurt them anymore. That was finished yesterday.
Today was real progress. A tune called Crashdown, which is a hard rocker with some odd lyrics, fell by the wayside today, and I also finished Hourglass Girl, a sequence of a song my band used to do. Tomorrow is heading off to school to take a theory entrance test, then some shopping for the party coming up, so I probably won't get much done tomorrow, but that still leaves Thursday and Friday and Sunday pluse next week and all of the time until January 20th to get things done, so I'm ahead of the curve. Four tunes are down, and that leaves fourteen, plus a couple of others I've identified as incomplete that didn't make the list. So there is definite progress.
This feels good. I finally have the studio room I want -- plenty of space, things aren't crammed into too small a spot, there's room for others to play with me in the room, and I feel comfortable in it, even with the poor climate control and the folding metal chair I have to sit on. (Still looking for better seating options, but I'm reluctant to put a space heater in there because I'm hitting the power pretty hard already without adding to the mess)
I still have things to get done, though, and a friend is showing up on the 26th to help me out in there and get things moving forward. I have to do some things with the computer, troubleshoot some connections that still aren't happy, and the live rig needs configuration -- nothing has been done on it. I will always accept assistance from people interested in helping me out and learning a thing or two about digital music production. But at least I have the basics in place to get these sequences done, and when it's all said and done, I'll have about eight or nine albums of material ready for upload to CD Baby or someplace similar with just a bit of help from other musicians.
Getting things done is a very satisfying feeling, and seeing the total of entries in the spreadsheet is wonderful.
Task
Deadline
Status
Money Needed
Resources Needed
Preliminaries
Obstacles
Specific Steps
Category
This task list has blossomed into five worksheets, (Main, Tech, Musical, Writing, and Gaming -- Moving has gone away and the remaining items from this page are peppered throughout the other sheets) I broke them down into different sheets so I could better organize them and so I could work on things for specific moods.
On the musical sheet are several things that need to happen in the studio, along with songs that need to be sequenced, mixed, burned, and then cataloged for a band project or two in the future. There were 18 songs on the list, which I planned to get sequenced last winter break before the big move. That didn't happen, because things with the move got seriously wompy-jawed, so I went ahead and put them off to this winter break.
On Monday I started the process with a tune called Back Home Again. It's sort of a Dave Matthews type song, somewhat contemplative, and it took me a day and a half to finish it. Then I started work on Poppet, a song inspired by a former roommate. (Waves to El Jefe) It's a hard rock/Metal tune about using a spell to make someone bad in one's life unable to hurt them anymore. That was finished yesterday.
Today was real progress. A tune called Crashdown, which is a hard rocker with some odd lyrics, fell by the wayside today, and I also finished Hourglass Girl, a sequence of a song my band used to do. Tomorrow is heading off to school to take a theory entrance test, then some shopping for the party coming up, so I probably won't get much done tomorrow, but that still leaves Thursday and Friday and Sunday pluse next week and all of the time until January 20th to get things done, so I'm ahead of the curve. Four tunes are down, and that leaves fourteen, plus a couple of others I've identified as incomplete that didn't make the list. So there is definite progress.
This feels good. I finally have the studio room I want -- plenty of space, things aren't crammed into too small a spot, there's room for others to play with me in the room, and I feel comfortable in it, even with the poor climate control and the folding metal chair I have to sit on. (Still looking for better seating options, but I'm reluctant to put a space heater in there because I'm hitting the power pretty hard already without adding to the mess)
I still have things to get done, though, and a friend is showing up on the 26th to help me out in there and get things moving forward. I have to do some things with the computer, troubleshoot some connections that still aren't happy, and the live rig needs configuration -- nothing has been done on it. I will always accept assistance from people interested in helping me out and learning a thing or two about digital music production. But at least I have the basics in place to get these sequences done, and when it's all said and done, I'll have about eight or nine albums of material ready for upload to CD Baby or someplace similar with just a bit of help from other musicians.
Getting things done is a very satisfying feeling, and seeing the total of entries in the spreadsheet is wonderful.
