Managing time is tricky. It’s in short supply and is, in terms of the average human, a finite resource. There are books and web sites loaded with detailed instructions that claim to maximize the use of time. The methods are attractive. The systems are seductive. But the unasked question is: what is getting done?
The assumption on the part of any productivity guru is that there is a task worth doing. This task is important and must be done but there are so many other tasks that are important that some method must be applied to managing them. A survey of an average day for an average person would shed some painful light on these poor givens.
Many tasks that accumulate are ones that we simply don’t enjoy. Mowing the lawn or handling the finances. If looking over credit card and bank statements were entertaining would as many people be in debt as are? Probably not. But those tasks must be done. So perhaps a TODO list is a good thing. But that’s hardly the daily grind. And more to the point, those aren’t the kinds of things that people spend effort budgeting time toward. When it’s time, it’s time and the task gets done. This is the crux of the matter: when an item is important, it gets done. A person who budgets time for making dinner is badly broken.
Creative work bubbles regardless of the task at hand. Words are scribbled in the spaces left between the more mundane daily activities. Songs are written, paintings planned. When the time is right, the piece is completed because it is important. Stopping a great novel from being written is as difficult as stripping away the time spent driving to and from work or shopping for groceries. That is, if writing that novel is important. If it isn’t, then all of the magic in the world won’t make it so.
Having a child has been revelatory on many levels but the most concrete part of my existence that it has changed is my concept of the priority. When my son needs something, he needs it right now. Putting him off is not an option. This strange new rule to my game has made me far more proactive than I have ever been. On the one hand, everything gets planned. On the other, each plan is subject to improvisation and change in the most real of real time. I set aside my studio time and little windows where I think I might be able to sneak in some work on this project or that so that I’m ready if the opportunity presents itself but I’m fully aware that these opportunities are fragile and can fall apart instantly. This creates an appreciation of the moments that do work out unlike anything I’ve ever known. I’m always ready for things to work or fail. This readiness maximizes the chances when I get them and removes that ugly sense of disappointment or failure when I don’t. It’s probably a great boon to my getting things done.
None of this means that I can mix with my headphones and expect it to sound like anything other than garbage when it hits my car’s speakers or the monitors in my studio. Having studied the production of digital audio for how many years now I should have known better. In fact, I do know better. But I got greedy. I thought that I could cheat it somehow and produce something great by flying using instruments alone. Great for pilots in the dark, awful for sound engineers.
So I start over. Run the faders back down and see how long it takes to make things sound good. Patience. It will get done because it has to. It’s important to me.
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