Greetings, readers. It’s good to be back here at the OTR blog once again. I hope all of you are well.   In my last blog post, I spoke of how I use tech and conventional methods to manage my time and as mentioned, the combination of the two works pretty well for me….generally.

I was on Twitter very recently and came across a tweet by a follower (fellow musician and producer) who posted in his timeline, a tweet that read something close to this:

“So much for my studying/productivity today, tomorrow I am SO on it.”

If that didn’t strike home with me in a BIG way, especially since my last blog post here, I don’t know WHAT did! Generally, with all I have going on, it is a disaster for me NOT to follow a daily schedule. There have been times that I didn’t and my life, as I know it, pretty much crashed and burned whenever I decided to wing it (smile). But, I’ve come to realize that maybe, just maybe, it’s unrealistic to operate on full throttle EVERY day, even via the best laid plans.

An example quickly comes to mind. I currently have five different music production projects I am working on which constantly requires me to keep a calendar of different studio sessions. Of course, that is not the ONLY calendar that I keep, especially with a wife and two kids – a son who is a Cub Scout and has been participating in a local sports program, a daughter who is in the Girls Scouts and a wife who is in school. The calendar is my friend indeed. Did I mention the multiple meetings I have to attend each week and the crunch time hours at work for a big June deadline?

The recording sessions take place on the weekend, usually, and with multiple ones, sometimes I have to them plan out a few months ahead of time. Recently, Mr. Organized failed to check with his wife to see if there were any scheduling conflicts.  As you may be guessing by now…there were (cue ominous and dramatic soap opera music here). While I LOVE being able to see these musical projects take life (a long time dream manifested), last week I threw all of it to the wind…and did absolutely nothing (yes, the Pareto Principle I generally subscribe to got thrown out of the window, too!)

While I (expectedly) got frustrated with myself for even thinking (and, furthermore, doing) that, I found that it was something that I probably need to consider doing occasionally. While life didn’t REALLY crash and burn, per se, I got a chance to reorganize and revitalize (shameless plug). I found that by not abandoning the use of my Blackberry syncing process with my Google Calendars…and still keeping my daily to-do lists during that “vacation from the procedural,” I was still able to maintain some semblance of order…which in the end, didn’t make the sting feel too bad.

The bottom line, I realized, and leave with you (though not in the least unusual), is: Life Happens. Generally, I’m very driven and definitely need some order in place to get my various jobs done and goals accomplished, but lately, I’m learning not to sweat it so much.

For those of you that seem to accomplish things without the need for any kind of pre-planned scheduling, it would be interesting to read your comments about this post and how you go about getting the job done. Thanks in advance, and have a productive day.

*Doug has joined the OTR blogging team as a regular author.  Look out for his weekly posts about his adventures with multiple projects and love affair with technology.  As our “Time Tech Guy,” he’s happy to answer any questions you might have. ~Deb