Neon Notes — Week [11]
Deadlines are very important, and they are the key factor in why I'm able to finish most songs that I start.
I briefly touched on it in an older blog post, but I thought I'd dig a bit deeper today.
I made up my mind early on, that I needed to create deadlines for myself. I viewed it as a way to force myself into making more deliberate decisions.
So I landed on a two week deadline. This did two things for me. It gave me enough time to use every bit of my limited skillset, while also forcing me to make more concrete decisions.
And let me say that while I have collaborated on a few projects recently that used real guitar and real bass. My solo Laxrax projects are purely electronic based songs, so I'm aware of the extra time it takes when using instruments.
My idea after "finishing" my first song was to give each song two weeks. I give it all I have and once the two weeks is up, I listen to the song, find one thing I'd like to improve upon, and then I would upload the song to SoundCloud and YouTube.
Then I would start a new song the day that I uploaded the newly finished song, and do it all over again. For the longest time, the song I was currently working on was the only song that wasn't finished.
I didn't have a 20 or 30 projects that were half completed or barely started. I just had the one I was working on.
Moving into the next song, I would look at my notes from my last song and try to make sure to fix at least one thing.
Looking back to when I uploaded my first song, I wasn't really too nervous to share it publicly, but it did give me a pretty good rush. It felt really good, and I was proud that I was able to make a somewhat coherent song.
It also taught me that getting it out there, even with all it's flaws, was better than waiting for it to be perfect. If I did that, then I'd never release anything.
Fast forward to today, I don't use the strict two week deadline anymore. I've conditioned myself to finish songs without it now. My workflow is faster now that my decisions are more concrete, and my ear is a lot better.
I also no longer just have one unfinished song. At the time of this post, I have 15 finished songs waiting for release, and another 10 in the works.
I may not use hard deadlines anymore, but they are the main reason I'm so consistent today. They are a direct influence on how I make decisions now, and my deliberate workflow might not have happened without it.
Now Creating
- One song left until the full EP is available everywhere
- Finalizing new website tweaks
- More consistent music releases
- More collaborative music planned
Thanks for reading.
If you have thoughts about any of this, I’d love to hear them.
This post is part of my weekly Neon Notes series. New posts go live every Wednesday.
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