The Big Prep

To pack: aviator glasses for ultimate cool. One week from yesterday we will be embarking on our 4-week long tour to New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and Kansas. And who know what else I will book between here and now. (Show me some love, Nebraska!) This means I am not yet starting to pack, but I am thinking about it. In earnest. There's the whole inner battle of...pack enough but NOT TOO MUCH. The last thing you want to do is move your own crap around for a month because it's in the way and no, I did not need to bring my t-shirt commemorating the 16th annual Fiery Foods Show 2007. My mantra is If You Forget It, You Can Probably Buy It. (Note to self: does not apply to Macbooks. Must remember that). The first part of the drive will be a bear, and I intend to make a short film about it. No title yet but the subtitle is, "Seventeen Hours In The Car From Houston To Taos." Mmhmm. We try to avoid routings like this, but sometimes stuff just lines up and you do it. So we're going to leave a gig in north Houston on Sunday night and drive all night to Taos for a Monday show. I expect delirious footage. Or boring footage. We're also going to try an homage to Rachael Ray on this tour and attempt "Two Folk-singers Eat On $25.00 a Day Total." I think it's doable if we shop right, avoid convenience stores, and plan ahead (what?). It will probably be about 4000 times healthier, too. You, dear readers, will become intimately familiar with the per unit cost of a box of Luna Bars, that's for sure. Packing notes to self: Something to read Gum Chargers for everything Ukelele Aux cable for iPod Hoodie for Montana weather Some other stuff....

Building the Scaffold: Nerd Post

I got up at 4:30 AM this morning to take my friends to the airport. They were very apologetic, but I told them the timing was great because Dan and I have been locked in an ongoing discussion about how to up our productivity. Turns out he's as nerdy as Josh and I are about lifehacks and GTD and all of that good stuff. Personal development is not for pansies, folks. There's lots of good info out there but the challenge is to wade through it all and come out the other side with a toolkit useful to your own needs and goals. One of those needs and goals for both Dan and I is getting up earlier. We can't really cram much more into our days on the tail end...I work a full time job and then spend a bunch of time at Red Leaf, or I practice, or write, or go grocery shopping. I'd like MORE time to practice and write, and the golden hour for that is the morning. Steve Pavilina, a very interesting dude to say the least and someone who Josh and I discovered a couple of years ago when we were still interning, has several articles about getting up early and accomplishing more by 9 AM than many people get done in an 8 hour workday. It sounds swell. I was doing it for a while, writing every morning, and then fell off the wagon. Time to get back on. (Well, after Christmas vacation, hm?) What do you DO when you're up that early? Other than writing blog posts like this one...we think scaffolding is essential to maintaining our individual visions and framing our day. Pavlina has a whole article explaining it in detail, but the jist is spending some time focusing on long term goals. "Why am I here? Why am I up at 5 AM? Why am I spending all this time playing the Em pentatonic scale?" Little things are just that...little things that can bog you down and close off your Big Picture Vision if you let them. "I'm totally skipping G major scales today. They're just scales." Not cool. The better frame for that, achieved when you have the big picture in mind, is "The more I increase my knowledge of music theory, the more tools I have at my disposal as a musician, which will make me a better songwriter." It's great. So, I've had my coffee (Pavlina would be unhappy about that...caffeine is on the list to deal with later)...and I'm typing, and I'm feeling a little groggy but I think I can ramp up my energy level once I get used to this. On through the grog! pavlina sleep productivity lifehack musician