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So Many Projects, So Little Time
If you’ve been following the blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m a workaholic. This has tapered off a bit in the most recent weeks as a lot of projects have finished up (two albums were released) and I’m enjoying more leisure time these days (playing lots of Dragon Quest IX), but I still try to stick to a schedule every weekday and get various things done on the weekends. Here’s how I do it!
Weekday Part 1 – Morning
Every morning I get up, take care of my usual tasks (cat care, getting ready for work, working out), then I try to get some work done in the 2 hours that I have left before having to leave for work. Most of the time, it’s coding for sites or taking care of orders for Concatenation Records. I’ve been sneaking some Dragon Quest IX in at this time too.
Weekday Part 2 – Bus Ride to Work
Armed with my laptop, I either work on music or designs that will soon be showing up here on the site and on certain items at a place I still need to sign up for. If it’s sunny, I have to work on music because I can’t see what I’m doing with the designs otherwise. If it’s really sunny, I have to stick to creating new synth textures in Reason because I can’t see to do anything else on the screen.
Weekday Part 3 – Work
Well, it’s kind of hard to work on my own projects when I’m getting paid to work for someone else! I do have time at the office to ponder upcoming goals for the week and I can break out my laptop at lunchtime if I want to, though I usually don’t.
Weekday Part 4 – Bus Ride Home
By this time, I’m usually pretty worn out from work and all I can muster is working on Reason textures. Suffice it to say, I’ve been getting a lot of them created over the past few weeks.
Weekday Part 5 – Night
Once I get home, I get something to eat and either vegetate (aka play Dragon Quest IX) or work on some music. The last few weeks of work have been fairly brutal and I’m still recovering from that, so it’s been DQIX all the time. Things are starting to taper off at the office, so music should be coming back into the forefront in the upcoming weeks.
Weekends
The weekends are relatively free-formed, though I try to get some things out of the way early Saturday morning so I don’t need to think about them over the rest of the weekend. I usually try to knock out the blog on Saturday morning, but Dragon Quest IX has been slowing me down on that front quite a bit lately.
I’m still focused on my investments, as my investment choices for the week are usually the first thing I take care of. It has been getting easier and easier to choose which stocks I’m going to invest in, since I’ve exhaustively researched my watch list and current stocks.
I’m looking for and purchasing stocks that are currently trading with a P/E ratio below 15. I’ve heard elsewhere that anything below 20 is a good deal, but about half of the stocks on my watchlist are below 15, so I go for those. I’ve also divvied up my stocks into their respective industries, and I’m going for certain percentages in which I invest. That way, it's easier to choose which stocks to invest in.
I also like to get some music done, but I usually wait until Sunday to do that. I finished up three songs last week, so I’m not in a huge rush to get anything else done at this point, though I’ve certainly got some things started. I’ll be putting in some work tomorrow on some tunes, though I’m not sure which ones. I’ll probably work on the ones for the Summer Nights EP, though I still have two songs for compilations to continue working on as well as a song to start on for the site for September.
I used to load up on things to do on the weekends, but I’ve eased off on that a bit over the past few months. I guess now that I’ve finally found peace with my music projects and have decided to do all of my songs under my own name, everything else is coming into place (which seems to be the pattern) and I don’t feel the need to push myself quite so hard. I’m still going to strive to complete projects, but I plan to enjoy the more casual side of life to a greater degree.
No End in Sight
Even with easing off a bit, I still have a ton of things I want to do creatively, and there’s no better time than the present – well, at least once I finish up with Dragon Quest IX.
Discuss this post at the For the Love of Creativity Forum!
Posted on August 7th, 2010.
External Links
• Concatenation Records – Concatenation Records
• Dragon Quest IX – Dragon Quest 9 for the Nintendo DS – Nintendo DS Games
• Reason – Propellerhead Software – Products – Reason
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