OK, so sometimes I start doing new things to help me overcome other things, like procrastination or bad habits related to tidiness. I suppose that's a vague statement. But, I've noticed that sometimes these new habits have tangible results on productivity and general well-being (that feeling of being prepared or secure in a situation, for instance). So, in this thread, I hope to occasionally post some ideas and actions that I've been using to make life more enjoyable. I hope it helps someone at some point.
A few starters:
We all sometimes fire up a DAW and quickly come up with something we think is cool. We save it as, "Ambient Idea 355" or somesuch. That's fine if you really can't be bothered to think about what those four bars of music really ought to be called, but three years from now, when you are moving projects to a new computer, "Ambient Idea 355" doesn't seem to be all that meaningful or useful. And you'll waste time re-opening "Ambient Idea 355" down the road if you eventually saved it as something better, because now you've got two or more files that don't correlate.
Action: Keep a tiny spiral notebook near your DAW at all times. Begin to scribble down words and phrases that appeal to you. Things like "Moon Shot" or "Continua" ... try to add new ones each day. So, when it is time to quickly name that snippet of good music, you draw from your storehouse and mark a line through the used ones. It's amazing how much easier it is to remember what a track is 'all about' when you've named it something meaningful. Or, if you don't like paper, learn a few markdown tricks and use something like Gingkoapp.com to create lists (that have the bonus of being searchable).
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Overchoice is a real threat to productivity. Futurist Alvin Toffler even wrote books about the topic and noted that it's generally not all that it's cracked up to be. So, we all have access to some amazing freeware and amazing payware, both synths/fx and samples. We load our machines and projects up with the stuff and it's hard to narrow down the best choices because our attention is spread so thinly at times. Not always, but it happens.
Action: Since we know that we probably won't stop grabbing freebies or buying VSTs, I've noticed that treating an older laptop as a "source" for the 'lesser' things I don't want on my main machine has been fruitful. I'll fire up that old freebie drum sampler and render something from it into a Dropbox folder that's easily accessible to all my devices. I do this in idle moments when I'm not busy doing heavier artistic thinking/production. And as a percussion junkie, doing this has really added some spice because, since taking the time to like and save something out is meaningful, one starts to realize that such a process is a form of vetting. You save the good stuff, and when you have a decent pile of good stuff, you start to remember what it is and why you saved it in the first place. An action like this is really awesome when you layer up one-shots and render them out as one thing--don't even bother with saving it as a preset--just get the fruit of the work and forget about it since there's no need to junk up your life with a bunch of presets you probably won't need to open again.
