You can get a lot of shit done in fifteen minutes. If you don’t have a lot of time but you still want to get something done on your instrument today, consider sitting down really quickly and crossing just one thing off of your musical to-do list. Here’s how:
Have a plan. Knowing exactly what you’re going to do will help ensure that you actually get something done with the little time that you have.
Do a quick warm up, and make it relevant to the goal you’re trying to achieve. For example, play the scale from the key of the thing you’re working on.
Your goal should be something measurable and attainable. Learn one measure at a certain tempo could be one. Add articulation in a certain passage could be another. It all depends on what you need to get done.
An example of a 15 minute practice plan should look something like this:
Goal: Learn chromatic passage at measure 53
Warm-up with chromatic scale long tones and exercises (5 minutes)
Play four notes at a time accurately starting at 60 beats per minute
Play 8 notes at a time accurately
Play 12 notes at a time accurately
Play 16 notes at a time accurately
Bump up the tempo five clicks than repeat
After fifteen minutes, you’ll have learned one measure more than you did before. This is just one example. You can apply this to any piece of music with any type of practice technique.
In today’s devotional, I was prompted to ponder on how I can still be unified with the church and my fellow saints despite the distance during the pandemic season.
This morning, I’ve been listening to a podcast about 3 Nephi 1 and it talked about how Satan makes us think that God’s miracles are merely coincidences in our lives. One of the things that is mentioned in the podcast is when you encounter a miracle in your life, WRITE IT DOWN IMMEDIATELY.
Up until now, it’s still unclear for me on where I should keep my journal entries - whether online or in a notebook. But right now, I’ve experienced a miracle in my life and I want to record it and I thought I should use this platform because this is by far, the simplest and uncluttered account that I have.
Since I started my work this morning at around 4am, I’ve been working on a blocker that I have been working on since last week. And just now, I’ve fixed it! I’m so grateful for Heavenly Father’s guidance as I work on this issue because I know that I couldn’t figure it out without His help. Surely, praying before starting my work helps me to be more productive and be able to resolve the issues that I’m working on more efficiently. I am so happy because I can feel Heavenly Father’s love for me much better compared from the past few weeks where I just constantly feel overwhelmed. The article from the church website which talks about how to beat stress really made me realize that there is nothing wrong with what I am doing now. That even if my current situation is not perfect, at least I’m trying my best. I’ve also realized that my time away with my family is not bad because I am working for my family and I am helping other people on their job.
Hi Tumblr! I feel so humbled and very grateful today because all my problems at work are gradually getting resolved. Yey! My anxiety has been manageable this week. What I’m doing that works really well for me is to list down all my tasks on my notebook, facing my fears and pep talking myself that my worries are not true, taking a walk when I’m mentally exhausted and drinking lots of water!
Here’s a little handwritten graph for @coffeeandpies re: prioritizing. I like to use this when I have an overwhelming amount of things to do. It can at least show you what you have to be working on this very moment. I can post more about setting priorities later.
If you’re totally unfamiliar with using one of these charts, first make a list (in no particular order) of what you need to get done. Make sure you know all your due dates. Then designate each item to one of these four boxes: 1) urgent and important; 2) not urgent but important; 3) not urgent and not important; and 4) urgent but not important.
You should do everything in box 1 first. Next, you’ll probably do everything in box 4. You can decide when box 2 items need to get done, but don’t sweat them now. Put everything in box 3 on the back burner.
in undergrad, i definitely suffered with time management and just …. sabotaging myself. this year, i was able to finally figure out a system that didn’t leave me scrambling at the last second, so i hope this helps!
4/4: Time
through trial and error, i realized my limit for work (either studying or projects or reading) is about 4 hours a day. sometimes less, sometimes more, but only in special cases will i add an hour more. it’s usually more than enough to get everything done.
and when i say four hours, i mean legitimate work. no phone, no email, no chatting. in the beginning, i was surprised with what i was able to get done even in two hours of uninterrupted work.
i had to chunk my work into sections (tasks is the other 4 i’ll talk about in a second), and figure out my best working time. especially with a fractured schedule like the one i had this semester, i had to be flexible.
pomodoro ended up being too short for me to work and then rest, so i extended both as i felt necessary.
what i do:
at work: 90 minutes on, 30 minutes off (in between)
at home: 60 minutes on, 15 minutes off (averaging 2.5 sessions)
no music (just ambience sounds or the chatter of my colleagues at work in the background)
do not disturb ON / phone AWAY [yeah, i’m now a firm believer in not having any devices near you…]
have a running to-do list of your tasks for that session near you.
4/4: Tasks
real talk, i am usually aware of what i need to do three weeks ahead of time, sometimes even a month. in the rare event that i truly finish everything due AND before my four hours are up, i can start on those far off assignments (it’s only happened once this semester).
something that i’ll fully convert over to notion is having a micromanaging list for each task. right now, all my assignments are in notion:
and whenever i start something, i copy the instructions into the file so that i can check things off (just delete them) as i work ahead. i want to add them to these entries here to let me ‘check’ more stuff, and curb those last lingering procrastination blues.
i don’t usually have more than four tasks a day to complete. i work on something for six days out of the week, so theoretically my ceiling is 24 different things signed sealed and delivered. my first priority after academic stuff is domestic duties like deep cleaning…so i will never work on 24 academic tasks during the week.
a task is anything that will take me at least 30 minutes to complete (not necessarily the same thing as my moon lists, btw!). i generally know how long certain things will take, so my priority is hitting my task completion. there are some days in which i hit the time cap, even if i haven’t finished all my tasks. those are the days in which i just take a break and continue the next day.
what i do:
work around 5 days-2 weeks ahead (depends on the class)
tasks > time for me
longer tasks go first
i try to do shorter tasks at work since those time chunks work better at my office (aka i’m interrupted on a quicker cycle)
happy tuesday 🍂 big assignments are starting this week and i have a lot to catch up with by friday - but I have coffee and positivity so I know I can get it done ☕️ ig: little_tasks
