A Time to Organize, A Time to Think

It's the beginning of a new year. My main goal for the Christmas Break was achieved - migrating all my blogs to Wordpress. Sure, there are things yet to tweak and widgets to add; but the hard job is done. My other main task - to attack all the loose paper I kept shuffling from one Bring Forward folder to the next. That too was achieved. My file organizers are significantly tidier.

I guess I shouldn't complain that I didn't get anything accomplished over the break. Between that and practicing madly for Christmas and New Year's church services, I deserved the imposed break that my cold gave me on Week 2.

This has me reflecting upon the ongoing struggle to stay on top of things. To just stay organized. Between loose papers, music books and emails - we have a lot of clutter in our lives - so much that it's easy to drown in it.

However, I continue to press forward at tidying up the back end of things. Strangely, it gives my brain time to wander and think about lesson or presentation ideas that have been floating just on the periphery of consciousness.

I've taken to using the countdown timer app on my phone. It has helped keep the daunting task of decluttering my mess somewhat bearable. 30 minutes to clean email, 30 minutes to tidy up my blogs, etc. Bite-sized chunks. That's the key to whittling this monster mess down.

Music Practicing 101: Organized Practicing

On behalf of music students and music teachers everywhere, I'd like to send out a huge thank you to piano teacher Josh Wright. He put together these two videos about organized practice.One thing my students hear me say - a lot - is to figure out how much time they can dedicate to practicing for a particular day, set their practice goals for that session and determine how they will assess whether they've met their goals."Mindful practice" is also key to practice efficiency. Let's face it, if you're paying attention to what you're doing, you'll meet your goal a lot sooner than if you're just noodling around, waiting for that timer to go off.For those still trying to figure out how to set up music practice goals and how to organize their practice time, look no further:

Organized Practicing - Part 1

Organized Practicing - Part 2