How To Rescue Your Time And Get Your Life Back
June 1, 2008
7 Comments
A couple weeks ago I wrote about the time required to become an expert songwriter. That advice could have been just as well for any craft, not just songwriting. And the number of hours that I referenced, 5,000, was arbitrary. There is no magic number. But if you’re not an expert yet, you can be sure that there is a number and it’s probably higher and farther than you wish… assuming you wish you were an expert right now.
While I’m clearing things up, I used the word “expert.” The research supports the correlation between practice and expertise. Just saying.
If you “get” that spending lots of time practicing your craft is a good thing, then good for you. You’ll be happy with what I have to show you. If you don’t get it, then it can only be for three reasons that I can think of right now…
- You’re resistant to, or afraid of, committing to your craft. If so, that’s a valid feeling and you’re not alone.
- You’re lazy — unwilling to work or use energy — and have deluded yourself into believing that you don’t need to work at developing and mastering your chosen craft. This too is totally common and nothing to be ashamed of.
- You just don’t want to be told what to do. If this is the case, maybe the timing just isn’t right for you. Maybe you shouldn’t commit just yet. I’m sure you have your reasons.
If any of those points describe you, heck, even if they don’t, read The War of Art. Maybe that will inspire you to break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles.
Enough said. Moving on.
Rescue Time is a free application (Mac,Win,Linux) that has become very important to my weekly GTD review. It’s helping me put some metrics to my writing goals.
Rescue Time tracks your activity at your computer. If you’re working, it logs it. If you’re slacking off, it logs it.
It uses application, category, and tag based tracking. This means you can track how you’re spending your time by the application, the tag you give to your applications and websites you visit, and by category.
You really start to understand your computer habits fast when you see the results of your time in a pretty bar graph. It can feel intimate. This is your life you’re looking at!
Here’s an example. Logic Pro is my main compositional tool. Within Rescue Time’s interface, it’s listed under the Audio/Video Tools category. I’ve also tagged Logic Pro with the keywords, composing, audio, work, mixing, music, recording, and creative.
When I look at Rescue Time’s data, I can see how much time I’ve spent using Logic Pro, or how much time I’ve spent in the Audio/Video Tools category, or how much time I’ve spent composing.
When you see how much time you’ve spent at something relative to something else — like composing vs. surfing the internet — you really get much needed perspective on how your actions line up with your goals.
So I’ve set up a goal to compose at least one hour a day. Every time I reach my goal, that is, when I’ve used Logic Pro an hour or more, Rescue Time sends me an alert.
I’ve even set up some negative goals. I’d like to spend less than an hour on Twitter each day. (a goal I’ve met ever since I started it, knock on wood.) If I were to go over my alloted time, Rescue Time would either email me or text message me, depending on how I set it up.
As you can see, if you would like to reach an hourly songwriting goal, tag the applications that you use to write songs and set it up in Rescue Time. It’s simple.
Back to the expert practice advice.
To reach 5,000 logged hours of songwriting, starting now (June 2, 2008) at 10 hours a week, you’ll get there on Thursday, December 28, 2017.
Looks like I’d better get back to writing now.
If you want to be notified the next time I post something, sign up for email alerts or subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...Average Words Per Song And The 80/20 Rule
December 26, 2007
2 CommentsIn preparation for my 2008 song-a-week project, I wanted some numbers to give me an idea of how much writing I would need to do. Using the 80/20 rule—only 20 percent of my writing will make the cut while 80 percent will go into the waste basket—here is what I came up with.
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen averages 281 words per song. Nothing Like The Sun by Sting averages 206. The Beatles’ Abbey Road averages 102 and Let It Be averages 139.
This means that if a song has between 100-300 words, I’ll need to write 500-1500 words. Not a very difficult task when you look at it that way. So far, this blog post has 127 words. Now, this won’t include object writing exercises. Object writing is like a warm up before exercise. It just loosens the muscles and doesn’t count into the actual sets and reps you will do.
In terms of musical content, I’ll need to write five different choruses and five different verses. I’ll probably choose the best chorus first and then write five different contrasting verses and choose the best one.
This give me a really good rough idea of how much writing I’ll be doing in the new year. Wish me luck!
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading ...The Best Of Graham English 2007
December 24, 2007
0 Comments
It’s time for my yearly reflections and celebrations.
By far the most popular and most controversial post of 2007 was The Zen Of Attraction. I’m surprised at the attention it received because I wrote it as an aside. Some people loved it and some people hated it. But what was most interesting for me was how many people hated not the article, but me. I mean these were just simple ideas that are totally debatable. This post led me to define some comment rules that include no personal attacks. I’m willing to debate ideas but not whether I’m a good person or not. It was a very interesting experience!
The second most popular post was iQuickTwitter - My Quicksilver + Twitter + iChat + Growl Hack. This little app got some serious link love from TUAW, Ars Technica, and many other fantastic blogs. And a big reason why I didn’t blog as much as I did in 2006 was because of Twitter. If I ever had something short and simple to say, rather than try to develop it into at least 250 words, which I previously believed warranted a blog post, I would just post it to Twitter, which has a limit of 140 characters. I think my strategy will change some in 2008. My new Lifestream category will probably see a lot more action whenever I find that 140 characters is not enough. The most significant change is that I won’t keep such a tightly controlled niche blog. The only thing tying this blog together is that I am writing it, not the subject matter. So if I feel like saying something, this blog will take priority.
Along similar lines as iQuickTwitter were my many posts on automation. Some of them were conceptual, like Automation As Part Of An Integral Life Practice and Automating The Quality Of Your Attention. While others were specific and geeky, like IM Status: Update Your Skype, iChat, Or Adium Status With Quicksilver, Top 5 AppleScript Productivity Hacks for WordPress Bloggers and Podcasters, and Blogging With Quicksilver And AppleScript. I’ve really grown to see automation as an important part of life that I need to revisit again and again.
Some of my favorite songwriting articles were Applying The 80-20 Rule To Your Songwriting, my Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast, The Secret Alchemy Of Songwriting, 5 Sure Fire Ways To Kick-Start The Songwriting Habit, Rewriting Song Titles For Practice And Inspiration, and What Makes a Good Song? My biggest disappointment of 2007 was the small amount of completed songs. I finished only about half a dozen songs and published just one of them, which I’m quite proud of, “When The Wall Falls Down.”
I also didn’t write about ear training or music theory nearly as much as I did in 2006. But I have a few favorites, such as How To Use Tension And Release In Your Melodies, my Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast, Playing Outside: The Dominant 7 Pentatonic Scale, and Ear Training or Listening Practice?
Two great moments of 2007 were getting my new MacBook Pro and iPhone. The new Mac inspired a whole new series of podcasts called Graham English Talks and introduced my own videos, like The Best Of Dwight Schrute Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The iPhone inspired Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies For Your iPhone and made my tech life much more streamlined.
2007 was definitely a year of social networking. Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, Stumbleupon, and many other social networks occupied a large part of my time online. And there were many benefits like making new friends, reconnecting with old friends, finding a larger reach for my articles and music, and discovering new forms of self-expression. It confirms how important relationships truly are.
Which leads me to the very best of 2007, You! My life wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling without the special presence of you. The support of my readers and listeners has made the tough times easier and the good times even better. I sincerely hope that we stay connected through 2008. Thanks for sticking with me through 2007. w00t!
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5) Loading ...How To Use TextMate As NetNewsWire’s External Blog Editor
October 8, 2007
0 Comments
I used to be an Ecto user but I have since seen the light and call TextMate my be-all-end-all blogging tool. The only thing I missed was being able to use Ecto as my external blog editor while reading feeds in NetNewsWire. Not anymore!
Thanks to the Circle Six Blog for the superior coding kung fu.
In TextMate, show the bundle editor and create two new commands:
Name: Determine Script Location
Save: Nothing
Command(s):
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -rjcode -Ku
%x{ osascript "#{ENV['TM_BUNDLE_SUPPORT']}/lib/blogselection.scpt” }
Input: None
Output: Insert as Text
Activation: Key Equivalent: ⌃⌥⌘5
Scope Selector: text.html
Name: Insert Quote from NetNewsWire
Save: Nothing
Command(s):
#!/usr/bin/env ruby -rjcode -Ku
print %{Place the file "blogselection.scpt" in #{ENV['TM_BUNDLE_SUPPORT']}/lib/ }
Input: None
Output: Show as HTML
Activation: Key Equivalent: ⌃⌥⌘5
Scope Selector: text.html
Now create and save the following Applescript. Click here to open the script in Script Editor.
Execute the first command to determine the script location. That’s all for the setup.
Now, whenever you find something in NetNewsWire that you want to quote, tab over to TextMate, open a new blog post (HTML), and run the command (⌃⌥⌘5).
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...
I’m a Facebook fanatic. I joined immediately after they opened to the public. In the beginning, there wasn’t much to talk about. None of my friends had joined and there really wasn’t that much I could do there. But since then, the buzz has caught my friends’ attention and Facebook’s extendibility has grown consistently, giving me a lot to play with.
Since I’ve been catching myself updating both Facebook and Twitter separately, I figured I should revisit my workflow and see if I can tweak my current level of automation.
It wasn’t difficult. I just added a couple lines of code to iQuickTwitter and now I can update Twitter, Facebook, iChat, and Skype with a single command. If you dig it, be my friend and let me know.
Graham English @ Facebook
Graham English @ Twitter
Click here to open the script in Script Editor.
If all you want is to update Facebook with Quicksilver, try this:
Click here to open the script in Script Editor.
If you try to please everyone, somebody is not going to like it.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...