Overwhelmed.How to organize everything and what I need to do

[wen]

I just spent a half hour or so looking through some of the archives here looking for tips on organization, and feel even more overwhelmed.

I did find Richard's thread about spreadsheets, and I copied and pasted some of the comments into a document I started to save from Facebook and the forums and PMs that were really helpful, into a Word file. But there's the time involved in changing the text to black from white etc. and now it is quite a large document.

My main question is: ****How do people keep track of all the good ideas they get from other Taxi members?? ****

The rest of this is going to be pretty boring and self-absorbed, lol. You may not even want to read it and I wouldn't blame you. Maybe it's just me trying to get a handle on the true scope of the problem and how to solve it. But hey, if you wanna read it, be my guest!

I have notebooks, like 10 of them, some spiral bound and some looseleaf (preferred, for more flexibility) from notes from Taxi TV, the Rally (well, at least I typed up all my Rally notes), etc. I will hear/read something, put it in a notebook, and then try to go back and find it later... hopeless! Even though I made some folders in my drawer, sometimes things fit in more than one category... uck! I need an executive assistant!

I have around 300 songs in my spreadsheet. Every time I try to go through it and pick out the better songs, or categorize them so I can actually peruse it when considering listings, I very soon start saying to myself, oh hell I don' t know. that one's good... Nah, it sucks... OK that one for sure, it's Indie.. or is it.. Oh hell, I don't know (repeat)

It feels like I have to spend a week just organizing all the papers and notes. Well, maybe that's just what I need to do. And maybe, if I have shelf space, maybe 3 ring binders is the way, or really meticulously planned out file folders.


But moving forward, I need to come up with an overall procedure, and also document it as Debra Russell suggested


And, in the meantime, I need a way to juggle the following:
*Watch Taxi TV on Mon and Wed.
*Go back and watch Michael's shows on recording on Taxi Tv.
*Watch Ronan's recording shows on YouTube.
*Really get Studio One down, as well as Kontact and Native Instruments Komplete.
*Work on training my ear to hear things better.
*Figure out what my best niche(s) are and exactly where I want to end up in film/tv
*Figure out how to target listings better.
*Get more familiar with the main genres my stuff falls into so I don't have to think so hard on the a la's.
*Listen to more indie in particular and break down songs by tempo, instruments, riddim, topics, emotion... what else...
*Follow Berklee to see if they have any more free courses, like ear training, haha.
*Improve my recording methods and better apply effects like compression and eq
*Read the books I have on mixing
*Read Robin Fredericks books and do the exercises [I used some of it to write the last song, Rollin Man, at least!]
*Get a solid method for recording/mixing a good harp sound
*Learn how to record stuff quickly... in 2-3 days or less
*Work on my vocals sounding less like music theater
*Get the uke back in hand
*Keep three harps tuned and keep my chops up on harp and keyboards
*Get Stylus or whatever, for loop editing
*Learn how to do strings so I can do cinematic and even, epic music
*Realize my dream of (don't laugh) U2 and/or Moby-style harp
*Get my Story of Dick's Brain music comic book series done and build the website
*Browse the Forum and give back to the community
*I'd like to play out sometimes; that mostly means practicing songs but also staying out late :/
*Keep up with my house, car, garden, cooking, exercise, trying to meet people in this new town I'm in, and of course, my job.

I don't even have kids to worry about!!! How do you folks DO it?

Executive assistants please apply

Wen

[andygabrys]

how many years do you have to do all that?

it makes me feel lazy just reading the list

[Kolstad]

I don't organize these things. I trust my brain processor, if it's worth anything, it'll stick.
The test is in your choices when you are writing a song, tracking and mix it afterwards. That's when you see what you have picked up from all of these activities. The more you produce, the more you will apply, eventually, as you encounter the issues you struggle with.

[Len911]

I've got a case of spirals,lol, I've got 4 piled next to me now. I've got loose-leaf notebooks for all the manuals I've downloaded. I've been empty on ink for awhile, so now I just download the pdf manuals and store in a pdf manual file on a hard drive. The spirals I use for ideas, mainly because I don't want to search a stack of them. Most things online, I just bookmark and organize into folders in the browser. I'm sort of a hybrid, I like to write things down, and read physical copy, yet it's probably much easier to use the computer, searching is much easier! I prefer databases over spreadsheets, they just seem more intuitive. That's one thing about computers, if you just dumped everything into one folder, you can still find it pretty easy with search.

* I'm not organized at all,lol! Years ago I used to write a "to-do" list, but at the end of the day, I was always stressed by the tasks that weren't accomplished and realized I actually got more things done by not making a list and just doing things when I thought of them. I still do make a grocery list though. Also, if I say to myself that I'm going to wait until the last possible minute to do something, I usually end up doing it much sooner.

It's easy to fall into the trap of taking notes and organizing, and then never referencing the notes again, or if you do, you remember the essence anyway, like if you run into the situation, you might not remember the exact procedure as written in your notes, but you will remember enough to be able to do a google search. It's easier to have the manual by your side and look up the current task than to try to read and memorize it in one sitting.

And what's wrong with anarchy, or trusting your own brain? In the end it's really all about what you really want to do, and less about what you should do, and in either case, if you don't do something, someone else will eventually,lol!

Take it easy on yourself!!

[eeoo]

Holy cow, what a paralyzing list! For me, I concentrate on writing and recording and the rest tends to fall into place and everyting I don't do that I sometimes think I should? F*^&%$^ it! What's the bottom line? What do you want to spend your time and energy doing? Prioritize that.

My 2 cents...

eo

[6bq9]

I like to start by clarifying in writing what my goal is. There will be subgoals, but there has to be one overarching goal that those subgoals support or conflicts between goals will stall you out. For instance: playing live music more and writing new music more can cancel each other out quite easily. Are you playing live to get feedback on new material to submit for listings, or are you writing new material to play live just to play live? Both are valid, but with limited time you can't do both. If you are playing live to get feedback (singer/songwriters especially need to do this) open mics and 20 minute slots will get the job done. If you're doing a full on show - well you know where that can go.

Once you know what your main goal is you can ask yourself, "Does this support achieving my main goal?" about everything else. Do you really need to learn everything about Native Instruments Komplete in order to accomplish X?

[coachdebra]

For organizing content that I find on the web - whether it's blog posts or taxi comments or whatever, I use evernote to grab the content and then add a keyword or two to help me find it again.

But I think what you're really asking is a time management question. I'd take that list and create 3-4 larger categories and then block out a few hours each week to focus on each category.

I also think setting goals is critical - because if you don't know why you're doing these things (what's the outcome you want), you won't be able to assess which things are going to get you to your goal, and which are just a lot of busy-work that you're doing because you think you "should". And you'll have no way to prioritize which actions to do first. And both of those things are guaranteed to create overwhelm.

Time management and project management are in my areas of expertise - feel free to PM me or submit a question for the Ask Coach Debra call of you want more specific support.

Your coach,
Debra

[DesireInspires]

I don't organize these things. I trust my brain processor, if it's worth anything, it'll stick.

^ Listen to this!

Organization is not always a good thing.

[jazzstan]

The "RULE OF 3" rules! Each day pick 3 things from the list. If you get 'em all done, go back to the list and pick 3 more. And "thinking about the list" cannot be one of the 3!!

[brentmagstadt]

Wow, yes....

Well, couple things on this topic. Though overarching it all... is time management, definitely.
- Of late, I have found myself against the wall, stretched very thin with my 'real' job and my writing. I use Debra's method of selecting a small number of things I CAN do in the day. (While super valuable, you may have noticed that surfing the taxi forums is not one of the things I do very much, though I wish I could more... every time I'm up here I get value) Invariably on that short list is at least one 'writing' task (not mixing, not mastering, not business... ), because it's the thing I love most. It might be as simple as demo'ing crap on acoustic into my H4N, or much more involved than that. Point is... I'm writing.
- For track selections when considering pitches, I always place any track that is ready (ie mastered) into a separate folder on my desktop (\MASTERS) when it's complete. I then have a specific playlist in iTunes and move these tracks in, and tag them appropriately - whatever works for you, ya know. This makes it easy to surf my possibles to match against an opp. (I also of course have a spreadsheet with details on all tracks, so I know I can go there if need be, too, for different info like publisher, key, bpm, blah blah blah...)

Inevitably, I'll get interrupted in the course of the day. At which point the difficulty is, day after day, to get back on task. This is my biggest challenge by far, every day, given the rest of my life outside of this discussion.

Good luck; you'll figure out what works for you.