I have had a few periods of consistent musical study followed by a severe lack of focus (and a severe lack of focus is where I feel I'm still at right now as I type this), though I'm trying to put in the work to make sure that I trend back to my idea of what it means to be productive for the long-term. My first burst of productivity was about a year ago, and though I have thought about what led it to fizzle out, I haven't been able to hone in onto exactly what I need to do to maintain it for a much more sustained duration. Some areas I feel need the most attention to do this are dealing better with interruptions, being malleable with my time, scheduling rest and leisure and being more gentle with my progress (like remembering the long-term nature of the project and greeting negative thoughts when they say “Hey!”).
Interruptions come in many forms for me. I like to be a creature of habit, and when I am I feel like I can achieve everything that I've decided to focus on. However, when the interruptions start to appear I have found it hard to not only rebound from them, but to also view them in a positive light and manage them more effectively and empathetically. Maybe when someone hears the word interruption it's normally interpreted as being negative, but that's not how I'm trying to define it. Rather, it's something unexpected that detours away from what you were generally expecting to happen, or where you were predicting your time and attention to be spent. My intention is to be able to do well enough with my main study and practice schedule that on an average day I finish everything that’s scheduled, so that then when things do come up, I can deal with them comfortably while knowing that they are temporary and not actually disrupting anything in a grander sense.
“Being malleable with my time”, I notice this in response to days after interruptions, late nights that lead to late starts or times when I need to start and stop frequently and can’t hit a good productive groove. Simply put, if I can’t do tasks when they were originally supposed to happen (like starting the day at 7am), my brain sometimes throws out of the idea of doing nothing at all – and this can escalate. It just feels easier to have a regular flow, but having an appointment in the morning and not doing a few tasks to compensate shouldn’t discombobulate my flow as much as it has. Being present for my fiancee has also made me confront this malleability head on. She has sickle cell anemia which means unexpected, and usually late night, trips to the hospital so she can manage the intense pain crises her disease brings with it. I've done a lot of work to make these visits a natural part of my life, and while I am much more comfortable and confident in a hospital setting, I now know I’m not a person that recovers easily from sleep disruption and I need to do a better job allowing the next day to have a late start, and maybe also an early finish, to catch some extra Z’s if I’m serious about this whole consistency thing.
When it comes to rest and leisure, well, the thing is that I kind of disown them when I get into a flow state haha! Because music is my major interest and passion, it becomes the sole leisure, and leisure time becomes a desperate, down to the minute management of free time. I enjoy video games, and sometimes I unnecessarily feel guilty of that – leisure is supposed to be fun! Video games are fun! And if I cut off something like gaming entirely, there’s typically a rubber banding effect when I feel burnt out and then I cutoff productivity and turn entirely to video games. It’s not one or the other, it’s both, and their coexistence is a great thing.
Finally, understanding that frustration, setbacks and periods of seeming stagnation are necessary for learning, growth and development. Mistakes must happen to get better, and a healthy dose of frustration and setbacks need to be welcomed instead of being seen as damning failures or catastrophic embarrassments. I am making my practice and study public, and typically only the highlights of this process are shown, but instead (and don’t forget – purposefully) the majority of my time will be spent showing mistakes, confusion, errors of understanding and a crawling pace of progress that is seen over weeks, months and years instead of minutes, hours or days.
Looking back, while it’s unfortunate that up until this point I have not been able to remain consistent with my studies, I am optimistic about the future and glad that I have taken the time to see what hasn’t worked so that I can make corrections moving forward.
