A few thoughts on productivity...

[Rodney]

All are welcome and encouraged to contribute their approaches, best practices... recipes for success... to this topic.

May the best days of productivity be ahead of you.

 

 

I recently moved a bunch of files from my main harddrive to an external drive and it has me thinking about why I had set up that directory in the first place. I want to share my thoughts related to this because I'm trying to learn (mostly from my mistakes) and to move forward to the next stage (whatever that may be).

 

Some time ago I made a change in the way I organized files on my harddrive (as I tend to be a very disorganized person and need structure).

A critical change for me was to create a directory on my Desktop named 'AMtv'. I often use another directory construct named 'Renderfolder' or 'RF' if I'm feeling lazy but more on that later.

I wanted to structure the directory almost like a diary... dailies... a running collection of each days production related activities (related to A:M in some way... as almost everything is)... regardless of how frivolous or trivial they might be.

 

I think this is the fourth time I've moved this directory off of my desktop and it feels nice to have a new empty directory to begin the process all over again.

Out with the old. In with the new. Time marches on. Etc. *But I can go back and revisit those old 'classics' if necessary.

 

And that's kind of the whole premise of AMtv (on my desktop) in that it is my equivalent of actually watching TV, and my primary source of entertainments but in a participatory way; I interact with things in/on AMtv. Into it goes the goings on of this forum... cool projects posted (great stuff!)... tips and tricks (hey I never knew that!)... and occasionally I even plop some of my own 'shows' (mostly banners and such rendered or otherwise) but also related tests inspired by other things on the screen; all the various things that help fulfill the creative urge in me

 

I guess what I'm saying is that creating that AMtv directory dramatically increased my productivity and helps me work through a ton of useful distractions along the way.

And every time I change the channel (by moving the contents of AMtv to another location), I feel I'm preparing to set the next stage.

 

 

What approaches do you take to organizing and publishing your work?

How has that approach impacted your enjoyment of the process, your creativity and productivity?

[robcat2075]

Gene "Spleengene" Thompson had the best tip.... "the most important thing is to get started."

[Rodney]

Gene "Spleengene" Thompson had the best tip.... "the most important thing is to get started."

 

True that! I suppose close on the heels of that is 'finishing' something... anything.

I'm not a very good finisher yet although I've noted that some folks certainly have that knack.

 

'Finishing' being a relative term more like 'abandoning' at a specific stage of maturity.

[largento]

"Done is better than perfect"

 

Or as Jack Kirby less eloquently put it, "Damn perfection!" :-)

 

I always think about a section from the Red Dwarf book "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers," where Rimmer spends days making color charts to organize the time he'll spend studying for his astromechanics test. He constantly keeps updating them until he realizes he only has a few hours left before the test, hasn't studied anything, and panics before freaking out and writing "I am a fish." on his test paper several hundred times. :-)

 

A very good friend of mine once taught me a very valuable lesson in high school. He was working on a project and would go through it and say, "I like this part. This part didn't come out like I wanted it to, but this next part really came out well." The point of that is that he just breezed by the shortcoming. He didn't dwell on it, he didn't allow it to halt him in his tracks, he just acknowledged what we all really know. None of us are perfect and we can't hope to achieve perfect.

 

Done *is* better than perfect.