Cornerman

Focus & workflow review time.

I have been redesigning my workflow aimed towards gaining more focus. It’s been a while since I last reviewed my daily, weekly and monthly planning. I have a planning as this is important to maintain my energy over the long term.

As you might know I have braindamage which means I have limited cognitive energy. As does everyone else, mine just drops faster and is more unpredictable.

I can maintain energy in such a way I can more or less predict how good my energy levels will be in the next few days. I have a planning system where I track my energy and can see how I am doing.

It’s a pretty straight forward based points system, for example exercise adds one point, breakfast & morning tasks deduct one. And so on. I have done a few weeks of monitoring and taking notes when I was first in recovery, getting to know how much energy activities cost or how much they give energy, like a half hour power nap or a walk. All in all I can “spend” 28 to 30 points on any day, before the recovery takes to long to be able to “spend” the same amount the next day.

Exact science?

This is not an exact science, there are no guarantees I will be able to sustain this load when I follow my planning but the system gives me a fair chance it will. It’s all about probability really. If I just go hard, there is almost a 100 procent chance I will not be able to do much in the days after, if I follow the chances increase significantly, I have good streaks of several months.

The devil is in the detail, once I am experiencing such a good run I tend to get distracted and forget or ignore my planning, maybe not so much my planning, but the focus, as I recently found out when reviewing my planning after a period of rapid energy loss and bad recovery.

Problem of late, focus.

Once I am feeling good I will deviate from my planning, not so much in spending more hours but taking on more projects, ideas, interests. If I am less energetic I am able to focus on the things that matter the most. The most important project, the fun thing, the hard thing. Whatever it is.

If I have a period of more energy, I tend to lose the focus on the most important things, and start looking at other cool stuff to explore. Which in turn makes everything stall. And nothing, or almost nothing moves forward or gets done.

How do I keep my focus, and why do I lose it so easily?

Attention.

It’s all about directing my attention, which is all over the place on a good day. Which is fine. Your brain needs time to explore ideas and wander. In life goals, interests and priorities change as well. There is however a limit to where you can direct your energy, you can’t deliver your best work on all fronts all the time. You can’t learn to play the piano, learn a new language, build a house, exercise, and do the daily tasks at the some high level. At best, if you can even find the energy to do all of this. It will be mediocre or things take forever to finish.

Which is my problem, too many projects, tasks, activities. So the problem wasn’t the planning in itself. It was the lack of direction and selecting the things most important.

Aligning myself to the important things.

I needed to re-align myself with the things who I value the most. I like working on the most. I have older notes which show you can have a maximum of 3 main projects you can manage. Or activities you love to do is a better description as it doesn’t have to include your day job, but as it’s very convenient if you love your job, it’s nice if it fits. So your job is one, then you have your main interest. Let’s say learning how to play the piano. Or write a book, or rebuild your vintage motor cycle. These are all highly time consuming activities which require focus, consistency and effort.

That doesn’t mean they are fun all the time, it’s just the things you love to do.
So I needed to limit my “projects” again. Make sure they are the things I love to do, the things I really want to put energy and time into and make sure I do them consistently enough to move forward.

So there was no need to rebuild my planning, just select the projects and rethink the steps in these projects and align my activities towards these projects. When I am reading a book, the book should fall into one of the projects. When I have reserved a block of focused work, I am working on the selected projects. This sounds easy enough but if I don’t remind myself of the projects and goals, I tend to divert towards something else.

What has changed?

I didn’t change my planning, I did however added a daily moment of reminding myself of the projects I want to work on and not give myself any other option. And have a few notes in plain sight that remind me of the importance of these projects. Let’s see if it helps.

Another reminder.

If I have a period of higher energy levels it’s also important to not extend myself too much, I can do somewhat more, but I don’t want to overdo it. As it will inevitably lead toward a downward spiral. This is true for everyone. You can get consumed in projects and goals pretty fast, especially of they mean a lot to you personally and require a lot of time and effort. Remind yourself that rest & recovery is essential for being able to show up every day and have the highest chance of doing the work. It’s being consistent that is the most valuable in life, not sprinting a few weeks and than crashing. So be hard and kind to yourself, make sure you prioritize rest, recovery and downtime just as much as the work itself.

Enjoy the process, it might not be fun all the time, but the fun is also in the hard bits.

Max patching – working on my library the expert sleepers edition

Max MSP is getting some more attention lately as I am working more with my Eurorack and have some expert sleepers modules which would be ideal combining with Max.

The expert sleepers setup consists of the ES-9, an audio interface with 16 inputs and outputs, for audio & CV signals. As it is a DC coupled interface, I also have the ES-5 which add a few DC coupled outputs and the ESX-8CV expander adding CV outputs.

Lot’s of in’s and out to play with. So the first new patch I have been building is a simple communications block for this configuration. So I can make the best use of all these in and outputs. Then the possibilities are infinite, designing sequencers, audio manglers, loopers and so on.

All the while learning Max MSP

I have been working on this patch by asking Claude how to do it and adjusting things along the way. I am finetuning it at the moment. If it’s finished I will share it to my repository. If I produce any music with my future Max patches. I will share it as well. Might be a nice combination publishing the patch & the music. Something to think about.

The patch consists of a few independent parts, first a few parts delivered by Expert Sleepers for the 2 expanders, you can find them here Expert Sleepers Max externals.

The rest is build around these eternals, and the logic around the in and outputs, It has been fun using AI as a teacher and help me analyze each step in the building process. It’s a lot faster, only worry I have, will I internalize it just as well as with a more traditional way of learning, i.e. read a lot of manuals, tech docs and trial and error. Time will tell, and with pretty “boring” and basic things like interfacing which is arguably less fun it’s nice to make some fast progress.

Future ideas

The main idea is integration of my Eurorack, sending CV information to the Eurorack and getting audio in and make loops, edits and sequencing. Which will vary per patch idea. Next up is finishing a looper. For now this is a start.

Is learning how to code still relevant?

My journey in computer’s started with programming, which was somewhat essential way back when if you wanted your computer to do something. Especially if money was tight and you wanted something. Software was expensive.

It’s been the start of a fascination with technology, engineering and science.
Making stuff work out of nothing is some sort of magic.

In this day and age there is so much software, free and lower cost in general. So a lot of people just use software without ever getting near a line of code. In this new AI era you van code without knowing a lot (or anything) about coding, engineering and other technical subjects the question is, is learning how to code (or engineering skills in general) still relevant.

Is there any use for learning how to code.

As with all new technology there is always a group of people which are warning for a demise of knowledge in the field of this breakthrough new technology. When higher level coding languages appeared on the scene a lot of people were concerned with a lack of technical knowledge on how computer’s function on a technical level. How this would lead to inefficiency in software and bulky programs which were less efficient. In some respects this was true. But this had more to do with More’s law than anything else. The abundance in power did lead to less focus on small and memory efficient programs.

As time went on these topics are back in full force. Same will be true for coding is my expectation. If you want to build solutions domain knowledge is important, and if a technical engineer has domain knowledge this is a very nice advantage.

Can you build solutions with AI with just a great idea nowadays? Yes, I think you can, however it will most likely be good enough for the first release or at least good enough as a prototype. After this, you will probably need engineers for future updates, new functionality and making sure the solution will scale properly and get new larger goals implemented.

And for this, coding is essential, a basic knowledge will get you only so far. Deep knowledge of coding, or any engineering profession is extremely important for future tech roles in this new Era.

How important is the coding (or any engineering) knowledge?

AI can do a lot, especially logic and straightforward things like coding and the all sort of task. Likely to get better in the future. So why learn how to code and write code yourself. The answer is simple. It’s important to deeply understand language to communicate effectively. And really convey what you want to achieve. The only way to do this is to really know it and all the constructs behind the language.

The most important factor is the fun of learning how to code, the joy when things work, you find that bug that’s been there for ages and just experiencing the flow state when writing. This can only be achieved when doing the actual coding, also it’s a very cool challenge which isn’t easy and takes time. The rewards are there. It also teaches you a framework for working trough problems, ideas and translating ideas into solutions.

Can AI do a lot of things very fast and pretty good, it cannot give you the sheer joy of building things and learning (hard things). It trains your brain and makes growth possible. Learning anything is very important and coding is as good a start as anything.

Simply go for it.

Working on various things, without a plan, is hard.

Trying to get into a rhythm again isn’t that easy, while I am pretty good at sticking to things I am in an irregular state at the moment. Most of the time I work on projects with a goal in mind. Without trying to get to the goals in the most efficient way.

Meant to leave room for happy accidents, new ideas and changes in goals altogether. It still holds a lot of benefits, having goals. It keeps momentum going.

Having no goals, which I don’t really have at the moment, keeps me from gaining momentum. Which for me at least is a basic need for consistency. Even a vague goal is good enough. But at the moment the goals are not there.

Working on various things, mostly technical.

Now when this happens, it’s hard to rely on just showing up consistently as a clear driver is absent. Luckily there is always something to do. Stuff, things, which as a byproduct, result in ideas.

Unfortunately I tend to lean towards reading manuals, figuring out how things work or trying to sort out technical issues. Which is my comfort zone when having no goals or guidance.

Reading about how inspiration strikes it tends to happen while working on your skills and improving the flow of your process. Which is true, but I have a knack for leaning towards learning more and not playing around and just going with the flow.

So I end up with a lot of notes of how things work and theoretical knowledge and not with some recordings for the archive which later can (and will be used) for finished tracks.

That is a problem.

Play mode

I have not yet figured out how to get into play mode. Which for me, should be grasping a device, or a few and just start jamming and recording, all the while forgetting time and space. I just don’t get into play mode that often. For some reason.

I just need to find a way to just play around more. It happens, but mostly when I don’t have any instruments around, resulting in things ending up in notebooks for later recording, which may or may not happen. In an ideal world I would have just recorded everything.

Keep playing!

Returning to old habits

I have been away for a quite a while. Figuring out what I want to do creatively and making some time for other things. I have been doing more offline stuff but I like publishing stuff. Even if it’s just some random thoughts on life.

But I need some form of consistency again and regular writing is a nice way to get into it again. On the music front I have mainly been doodling around with Eurorack and getting lost in patching, which has been fun. I still struggle with finishing music and looking for ways to limit time spent on one project.

Reading interesting books on creativity led me to the book written by Rick Rubin, the creative act, a way of being. Which goes into the creativity and the proces, not just interesting for all artist but everyone, as we all do a lot of creative stuff in our lives.

The book ranges from practical tips to more philosophical musings around creativity. It’s an easy read and everyone will find something in this book. So if you are looking for a nice holiday book, this can be it.

I am hoping this new start will be the beginning of an old habit returning even if it’s just for myself. Then again I hope you will find it an entertaining read.

Slowing down is helping a lot.

It’s been a while, not much to talk about and not much progress in the creative areas as in finished projects, however small.

Is that a bad thing? No, I have been slowing down a lot and have been working on my projects without any planning, just keeping the focus on consistency. I have also been outside a lot, walking around, running, and sitting down with a book. Logging off, and making sure I enjoy everything.

A strange phenomenon of the modern times is that we are communicating a lot and doing less actual work. Contemplating and thinking requires focus, rest and breathing room. Doomscrolling and other digital addictions only distract from consistent work, and doing nothing is an integral part of the process.

It might be viewed as a badge of honor and work ethic to always be (extremely) busy and planning the calendar as full as possible. All of which is counter productive.

I have done more in way less time this period and enjoying things much more. As I am no longer striving for the maximum result, which mostly meant planning as much time as I could manage on every activity and forgetting to take enough breaks to digest and process my ideas, thinking and learning. And while I already planned breaks and rest, this was just too rigid.

The biggest problem as always is keeping the balance and flow. But skipping a lot of distractions has helped a lot. Even as simple as taking a nice walk without your phone is a great idea. Maybe a dumb phone is an idea? Anyway until next time.

Creativity is Infinite

Infinity is a concept and very real at the same time. All things creative are infinite, whatever it is you do in the creatie realm, you can always think of new ways to do things. Exploring new options, paths and forms.

This is exciting and daunting at the same time. As I have limited my set of musical tools as well as limiting my design framework the possibilities seem even bigger than before.

As my brain is thinking more and more about new ways to operate within the limitations. My brain really loves limits.

It’s really cool but I have no idea how I can manage this into finished projects, albums, Ep’s or songs. Part of the fun and part of my anxiety.

All hard things are well worth doing, it’s finding ways around your fear and make sure you get things done. I am slowly getting better at it. Infinity has a lot of energy in the concept, the word or meaning.

Infinity as energy

For me the best way to look at it is as energy, the sheer idea of infinity gives me the energy to work on my projects. It just gives that extra boost whenever I am stuck, however slow my progress is the meat thought of going back and work some more just lights up my mind. This works for me and might work for you as well.

Infinity as energy is applicable on a lot of (hard) things you need, or want to do. It just gives an extra incentive. By making the process of creativity an infinite one, I seem to get into a zone, or flow state. Which I love to be in. I achieve this the easiest with running and exercising, coding and writing. Music is getting there.

There are other concepts or words you can use to build up a mantra for releasing positive energy into your system and get going. I have managed to add it to my daily meditation practice. This makes sure I think about the concept of infinity everyday. This way it becomes an automated response whenever I need a dose of energy.

Give it a try.

Have a great day!

Creative work – finding space & energy for a routine

In my last post I was talking about my need to scale things down a bit and make sure I get into a habit of working on my creative projects, making music being one of them but not just the single thing I like to work on. Especially given my brain damage, when I can’t digest noise and sound I have to have alternative projects to work on.

Mostly my planning involves fixed moments for working on one of my creative projects or outlets. This doesn’t always work and I tend to fall into the short term attention grabbers when I can’t work on the thing I planned.

So I was looking for a new way to plan my projects and still maintain consistency. I have started categorizing my activities into sections. From things I can do most of the days, even when my cognitive energy is low, to activities I need to be in the best possible form, from a cognitive perspective. Basically I made a list from low energy consumption to high energy consuming activities.

While this seems like a thing which is primarily important for people with problems such as myself. Everyone has limits to their cognitive (and psychological) energy on any given day.

Also everyone experiences fluctuations in their energy, from day to day. I think it can help to acknowledge this and have some sort of idea what the things are that you require a lot of cognitive energy for.

Knowing yourself

Maybe a bit of an open door, but knowing yourself and what your energy levels are is very important in day to day life. Knowing how to recharge yourself and knowing when it’s time to take some rest is key. A lot of people are in the dark about that. As they live their lives under a constant pressure from work, life and other impulses they feel they can’t control.

It’s hard carving out the time to figure out how your cognitive energy is and how to know when your are pushing yourself into the red. This can be the start of a learning experience for anyone. And a very useful one. Just reset for a couple of days. Or longer if you feel this is necessary, and possible.

Reset periods are important, rest is essential. So cramming as much as possible into a holiday period might not be the best option. A lot of people who are good at their job, art, or other activity, take long periods of time off. To rest and think about their next steps. It’s a luxury maybe but it’s more productive in the long run. But in our own time and with the free time we have we can all carve out time to rest and reflect to the best of our abilities.

Also knowing what to focus on makes for better results. In the end the return on time invested is bigger.

Getting back into it.

I have been resting more and being more offline more the last couple of months. Which has helped towards more focus. I also have dedicated more time towards reading, meditation, exercise and mental wellness.

I let go of my timeline and start thinking about where I need to improve. My skills in the creative things I want to do is the main thing I want to improve.

So I have switched from getting output done towards the learning process and finish things when they are ready in my eyes. Not comparing things anymore.
It also set me out on a more Japanese way of thinking, imperfection, focus on learning skills and doing things mindfully and with attention.

Now I am slowly getting back into it. Finding more space and energy for doing the things I love.

Quality first

Our systems put productivity first, rather than skills and quality. This is counterproductive. As we all know, but the day to day hectic schedules and target driven processes in most industries lack the room for a quality focussed approach. Still for your own (creative) work, you can do this. Say no more often and make sure the focus remains on building skills, and putting out the best work possible.

By no means this is perfection, as perfection is a dangerous thing. Perfection kills many great idea. As a concept it’s a good idea. Striving towards the perfect end result is great, as long as you realize you have to finish things as well. As long as learning and focussing on the process of making the art, doing the work is there. The end results will get better and better.

Trying to do too much, taking more time

It’s been a while, I have been experimenting with different forms of outlets and doing more writing and research on other topics rather than music and other creative things. Well to be fair, most things I do require creativity.

I got lost like a kid in a candy store and I took a break. I stopped doing all the little projects and archived most of it. Then I just focussed on learning, reading and thinking.

This reset was interesting in a few ways. It made me rethink why I do things, why I get distracted a lot and can’t seem to find the focus when results are not achieved.

Not that it’s a bad thing perse, I have fun doing all these little things. The only problem is that I don’t get to learn as much as I want on the few main interests that I have.

The other thing I learned was that I don’t take enough time, I have always tried to focus on the process, and not let the goals become too dominant. But a lot of the time these goals and the lack of results got in the way.

It might be because everything these days, and have been for decades is result driven. Everything is not aimed at results, not towards the learning process and making the best possible art, product or service. Which inevitably leads to less time for learning and expanding your skills.

While I was trying to make room for learning and not pay as much attention to the results and goals I have, it took over nonetheless. Leaving me frustrated and aiming for other projects which did produce results.

The time off has reset my focus and made it possible for me to let go of the output and result driven path a bit better. I am not there yet, but I am learning to manage my emotions better.

Boredom, the most important kickstarter for creativity

Boredom, or being bored is what most people avoid at all cost. When we wait for the bus we get our phones out. When we think we have a minute to spare some content is never far away.

What does boredom actually do? It creates space for finding new things to do, new things to explore. It leaves room for playing. Simply picking something up and play with it. In our over organized lives this room is often not there anymore. But it is essential for developing new ideas and give the brain a moment to wander around and figure out new ways to get busy.

We have forgotten the beautiful art of doing nothing, really winding down and relaxing in order to give the mind and the body some rest and a reset.

Being hard at work at your craft doesn’t mean you have to be busy every minute of every day. This is a surefire way to burnout and fatigue. Offcourse you can work hard and burn the midnight oil from time to time to finish a project or take advantage of a creative abundance, but take time off in between projects.

When the mind is at rest it never stops, most people forget that these are the moments you have room for planting new ideas. It’s also something you can train. Up to some point at least.

Another part of boredom is you can have space to play, just like your younger years. We have lives with instant gratification but if you put the distractions away and get to that playing mode, cool things can transpire.

It’s not that we don’t have enough time, it’s the lack of attention that is causing the rut in our creative sides. And other important things we need and want to do.

The practical side

I have struggled with this problem a lot, when I am tired and need to rest, I grab my phone and start scrolling. So nowadays I put my phone away when I need my rest. I also limit my social media consumption and clear my desk when I do my cognitive hard tasks. Like writing, making music or learning something.

I plan these activities, and this is not to take out the spontaneous side of it, it’s to make sure I do these things. With all my focus and attention.

I started with 15 minutes and 5 minutes of rest. And built it up to blocks of 25 minutes with 5 minutes rest. I my case maxed out at 2 hours total per day.

With everything you do build it up slowly. You will not have the strength or endurance to do the chosen activities for hours on end. It’s also counterproductive. Start slow. Let’s take writing as an example. Write for 15 minutes a day or every other day and built it up from there. You can’t run the marathon straight away, so you also can’t write a book out of the gate. It might seem like people do. But it all derives from consistent practice.

Take these 1% gains and don’t fear the setbacks too much, most of the things I do fail. I know this because that’s how I learned everything in life. We all know this but society has forgotten all that it seems. But there is no instant success.

The second big thing, plan days or parts of days where you do “nothing”, whatever that is, go sit in a chair without anything nearby but a pen and paper. Go for a long walk without listening to music, a podcast and so on. Waiting for the train? Don’t grab your phone. It can be small things.

At some point something hits you, maybe not all the time but simply being aware of your surrounding can work magic on the creative side of the brain. You can make a choice to write the ideas down in your notebook, or not. Just do what feels right. At some point all these “boring” minutes add up to build creativity.

Why pen & paper

Another crucial part of this process is when you have an idea you want to save an idea, make sure you write it down, and not make a note in your phone. The act of committing the idea to paper by writing instills it in your brain much better than when you type it in your phone. It’s also easier to browse through a notebook than it is to scroll trough your notes in your phone.

It might seem like a very small detail, but it’s a big one. It really works way better. One of the reasons I write instead of type things like ideas, thoughts, my diary and so on.

Slowing down is not doing nothing

A lot of people fall into the “busy trap”, being busy is not the same as doing your most effective and best work. Things take time, ideas need to develop and need room to breathe. It also means we are doing a lot of things that don’t attribute to our goals, the things we want to be doing. Instead we fill our days with a lot of noise. Feeling tired most of the time.

Slowing down and leave room for boredom, opens the mind up to creative thinking and focus. the fun thing, with a few easy “hacks” we can all incorporate this in our lives and find our creative side again. Have fun giving it a go.