High Holy Mass of Contradictions

I'm a relatively organized, efficient person, but I can definitely stand to improve. So a few days into 2007 I thought I'd take a closer look at the whole "Getting Things Done" methodology, and revisit Life Balance from Llamagraphics. GTD is practically a cult, and I'm not interested in going overboard with it, but there's certainly some sound project management and time management wisdom there. But the real kicker is that, in the week or so I've been using Life Balance, I've been having amazing improvements in my productivity.

I tried Life Balance once before, a few years ago. I remember liking it somewhat, but thinking it a bit heavy and clunky for what I felt I needed at the time. Too bad, because if I'd invested the time and effort to learn it then, I'd probably be a billionaire today. OK, maybe not. But I almost surely would've been more effective at both my day job and my songwriting "job," not to mention the other areas I pay attention to.

See, here's the thing. You know the big rocks analogy? That's basically the way Life Balance can work. You set it up with your high-level goals and then iterate them into achievable tasks, which you cross-reference with "places" or contexts. And behind the scenes, the software is keeping track of the importance you assigned to each task and the lead time you specified in order to present you with a viable dynamic to do list. It also presents you with a dynamic picture of how well you're meeting your balance goals by showing you a nifty pie chart of where you're spending your time.

Anyway, I'm using it now and I love it. It's expensive as hell, but I'm thinking I really am going to plunk down the money when the trial is up. Here's my testimonial: this past week and a half at my day job has been incredibly crazy, and I've had to manage my already-full task list and add a whole bunch of extra stuff that just came up. Yet somehow I managed to get it all done AND get songs written and pitched AND keep up with household chores AND make progress on my organization projects around the house AND maintain a reasonable social life. I mean, maybe that doesn't sound like as much as it is: we're talking about insane levels of productivity here. I just don't know if it would have been feasible without using Life Balance to keep me focused on what needed doing next.

I don't know if that makes me sound like a cult member, but whatever. I'm pretty well convinced. I'm getting things crossed off my to do list that have languished there for months, without sacrificing timely response to the current stuff.

2007 should be a year for advances in our songwriting business and on the house renovation front. That's a lot to ask for, perhaps, but I think it's reasonable.

( The down-in-the-dirt details, and the rest of the resolutions )

And right now, I resolve to stop editing this entry and get on with other things. Happy New Year, everybody!

It’s the last day of November, in case you hadn’t noticed, and that means all November writing projects are pretty much at their end. In my case, that signals the end of my 30-songs-in-30-days “NaSoWriMo” challenge, which I have once again failed to complete. But I don’t really care. All I’m really shooting for when I set about to do these things is to make myself write fast and get some ideas down, and I did do that.

I managed to draft 13 songs. I can’t say I really finished even one. But that’s OK. Because this was also a crazy-ass month. At work, we had a major scramble with a deadline of 11/30 (yep, that, too, is today!), and my weekly average number of hours shot way up. I’ve also been sick twice this month, including right now, which is why I’m not expecting to be able to churn out any more than I already have before tomorrow. And my current tummy troubles have me in a really bad mood and I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything. So yeah, not the best conditions for creative writing.

So it’s over, and the count is 13 songs in 30 days, sort of. There might even be a few ideas worth going back and polishing up, which is a bonus because I was really just thinking of this as an exercise. Maybe I’ll try the challenge again in a few months when it’s not looking to be a crazy month at the day job and I’ve loaded up on multivitamins and echinacea.

In the meantime, the month of December is usually a wash for songwriting. Too many weekend activities, too much commotion, not even time to sit idly with my laptop, my guitar, and a cup of coffee and mull over an idea until I find just the right thing to say. So this is probably pretty much it until January. But I’m pretty satisfied with where things stand, so I’ll be happy to take a break and then get back into it come the new year.

Hope everyone else who participated in a writing challenge this month got something good out of it!

Share This

Originally published at The Bee Hive. You can comment here or there.

One of the things we do on my team at work when we're setting goals for a time period is to determine what our areas of focus (or "pillars") for that period are; in other words, what overarching categories of activities take priority. In my personal life, the ( pillars for 2005 are... ).


In general, it seems like most resolutions fall into two major categories: ( tasks or projects to accomplish )( and behaviors to change ).


And of course, like any goals, these are subject to change.

Happy new year, everybody.

Borrowed from tesseract26 and many others; edited for stuff I care about answering. I linked to a lot of stuff throughout; my apologies if any links lead to where you, dear reader, cannot follow.

( Review of 2004 )