Do ALOT, not A Lot

Yesterday was one of the more productive days, musically speaking, than I have had in weeks. I like to think that was because I decided to do ALOT instead of setting an arbitrary time limit.

A course I've done refers to something called the Minimum Viable Commitment - that is, the absolute least you can commit daily to your aspirations. Unfortunately, this MVC is entirely defined by time. "I can commit fifteen minutes/one hour/two full moons and a trout". Which, I'm sorry to say, fills me with performance anxiety.

ALOT is my MVC. And it stands for At Least One Thing. (I managed at least two, maybe three things yesterday.) You could say, I did a lot more than ALOT.

Nonetheless, the concept is that when I open up Ableton, or VirtualDJ, or Scrivener, I get something done. Even if it's just knocking up a four-bar sequence. Or altering, or outright replacing, an instrument. Or copying existing blocks of MIDI to fill a song map. It does not matter what the thing is. All that matters is that I get it done.

It could be that ALOT works better for me than a time-based MVC. I can look back, and instead of shrugging "well, I put in the time," I can say to myself "I did this - and that - and that too." It's more concrete, I guess. It's progress I can see.

Anyway, riding high on getting some work done on BEND (a new pad, finding a new direction that sounded cool, coming up with a variation that sounded cooler still), I then did some VDJ housekeeping, ditching several megabytes of duplicate songs, and removing others from a library crate they didn't belong in. I think it's time to set up some more filter folders. Nine Inch Nails isn't exactly pub pleaser stuff, after all.

Oh yes. I intend applying this to going to the gym as well. After all, my first trial weekend before last went quite well, with three things painted.