Getting the right balance between work/school/irl and music?

[StormWolf]

Full title which didn't fit; Finding the right balance between work/school/irl stuff and making music, or any pony related stuff really, or like, talking on skype and stuff.

How do different people do it?

I'm just curious, because lately I've been getting quite distracted from my school work and falling behind a bit, and like, my self discipline is kinda not good enough.
So like, yeah, It'd be helpful to know how everyone balances their internet and irl lives, and maybe some help on, I dunno, self discipline?

Thanks in advance~

[Arkane]

I usually organize them in a specified day of the week.

Fri Sat Sun - SCREW THE HOMEwORK! I GOTS MUSEX TO MAKE! Oh yeah.. Internet also.

Mon - Thur - School |:<

[Hirosashii]

Skype chats are really fun, especially when they're with people who have the same interests as you and can help you get better at what you do (music). Personally, I find the struggle of prying away from my internet life to be difficult as well.

I alt-tab a lot... (I promise this is important). I also have an application called sticky notes. I jot down all of the tasks I have to complete by the end of the day in sticky notes and leave it up. This way, every time I alt-tab, I pass the sticky notes and remind myself that I have a task to get done. In addition to that, do you know how annoying it is to have extra windows up when you're alt-tabbing? It drives me to finish the stupid task so I can close the aggravating program.

After I finish my task, then I can talk about stupid randomness that affects no one in the pony chats :3

Hope this helped at all? Maybe it was just me rambling, lol

[TheSunAndTheRainfall]

I'm usually very extreme and... square with the way I manage my time. I don't have a job at the moment, but I at least take care of my school things, music making, random irl activities, and online social life (lawl). So really, during winterbreak I had all the time in the world to do everything I pleased without regards for the time I spent doing each thing, but since I returned to school I've had to cut back on some things. A lot of things. Most things.

School takes up a good part of my day, from the time I wake up at 4:30 to when I get back home between 14-15. And after that I just put school before everything else, so I try to finish every assignment I have/can before 20, with as few distractions as possible. If I'm done with all the assignments I need to get done for the next day by that time, I call it a day there, have something to eat, shower, and then do whatever from about 21 to whatever time I go to sleep. That's usually around 23:30, but if I'm feeling particularly self destructive I'll keep going until about 1 in the morning (and regret it the day after). I usually use that time exclusively for music.

Some days (like today) I'll finish everything before 8 and I'll have the luxury to hang around online, or make more music, or whatever. Some days, like yesterday, I won't even have many assignments due in the near future, so I'll be able to wander around the city, or hang out with friends, but without allowing myself any music or online time. Some other things I used to do during school break, like going out jogging every night or reading, I've completely elliminated from my life during school days and just leave them for the weekends, but often I'll have so much to do for school that I don't even get to have that.

It's pretty boring, and I often end up half assing homework just so I can work on more music, or sometimes I'll be doing homework on the computer and wander off to other sites, so I still gotta keep myself on check about that, but that's pretty much how I manage to more or less keep the aspects of my life that I care about the most afloat.


I'm throwing this textwall at you just as an example. I have a few classmates/friends who work and study, and they don't have time for anything other than that, so I guess most people in that situation have little or no time for music/vidya/random irl activities, but you'd be better off asking someone who's actually been/going that how they did/do it.

[CommandSpry]

Basically when I feel inspired, I try to make music. I can't force myself to make or to make upon a deadline or contract; I usually browse around Youtube a lot in my free time, eventually I'll start checking out music, pony or otherwise, and just open up my DAW afterwards and attempt to do the same level of quality..and I keep trying until I have no more free time

If you feel like making music, and you don't have work to do, just make music. You don't have to force yourself to I don't know, go out, visit someone, if you just feel like making music. It's your time, use it however you want

And also StormWolf wat r d fack, learn to organize your time, just say what time is reserved for work and what is reserved for free time. Don't ever organize your free time; do whatever you feel like doing (:

[Solarsail]

For minimising time spent on school: You can learn the entirety of high school maths and science from past papers. Look at the method and it's just different numbers in the same problem on every other paper.

Ignore a lot of the classwork if you can, it's corner cases or proofs that won't actually be useful for marks.

[Versilaryan]

There's a reason I haven't been writing anything as of late. >.>

I set deadlines for my school work. By ___, I will have finished <insert assignment here>. It forces me to get my work done in a more timely manner -- especially in uni, where your work assignments get /really/ predictable. If I know I have an exam coming up, I set aside more time to study, depending on how much I know the material. Just basic stuff.

I'm also a horrible procrastinator who's doing way too many things, though. So my free time goes down soooo much.

[Navron]

My opinion comes from being active duty, but I didn't forget my horrible task prioritization while going through high school.

Currently, I work anywhere from 9-18 hour work days, depending on how hectic my schedule is. On a normal day though, I have around 4-5 hours free time, but luckily don't have homework, so I use those 4-5 hours towards music and/or videos.

Back in high school, I had probably a good 8 hours of free time after school, but I always put homework last, which ended up with late nights, less sleep, and incomplete assignments.

Knock out the homework first! Trust me! I got pretty bad grades in high school, but when I went into the military I found out I was actually very smart (when I actually studied). Graduated my A-School 2nd in my class with an average of 96% across all our tests, and advanced to petty officer second class with an exam score of 80 (the highest possible). Basically, I was the person they based the bell curve off of.

What changed between high school and the military? I simply studied, where in high school I didn't.

I regret not having the same study habits in high school that I do now, because I would have been a straight A student. Don't make the same mistakes I did.

[the4thImpulse]

Its all habits and lack of self discipline.

Always let homework come first if helps dont do homework in a place where you can be distracted (like home), I enjoyed doing homework in my backyard when it was warm. My friends do a lot of their work at school so they are tempted to play video games or watch tv. Dont listen to music or have t.v. on in the background because you will finish stuff a LOT slower.

[StormWolf]

Thank you very much to everyone who posted something here!
I've read everyone's advice/tips/general encouragement, and it's been quite helpful so far, I'm getting back on track with work, and generally have a better working drive, and better self discipline now!
Thank you all so much~

[HatBrony]

Balance for me = "Make as much music as I can, and worry about school stuff later" - 'later' being about 8:30pm. I have a horrible balance between all of this. Then again, I have no life outside my house other than school and ponies so meh. This isn't helpful in the slightest, however you need to see what it's like on the other end of the spectrum.

[PinkieGuy]

My balance for uni vs music/interwebs is simple:

I treat my uni work as a 9-6 day job, with 5 days a week work and overtime on saturdays if my course load is hectic.

That means it's just evenings that I have for music and interwebbings. Usually, this means I'll chat on skype whilst I'm writing riffs, then ditch the call when I record them, rinse repeat.

It doesn't always work, but generally I get by.

The other thing is, don't be afraid of having a bad balance at any given time. It may hurt, but sometimes it's just best to let your music/social life slip to get the work done, and then once THAT assignment or THAT exam is out of the way, you overdose on everything else and disregard school/uni for a while. Long-term balance instead of short term

[ArtAttack]

For me, it's screw school, acquire music. But that's because school is ridiculously easy for me right now and I don't care about my social life, haha.

[vladnuke]

I use my phone to remember literally everything. I just take pictures of things I need to remember, memento style, then the next day I just use that. As for homework, I do it everyday, very quickly.

[colortwelve]

^That guy is more conscientious than I am. As soon as I get home, after I deal with the obligatory 15 minutes of chores everyone's decided to leave for me to do (lol complaining), every single day, it's music, music, and then some more music. If I run headfirst into a wall, and can't make anything, then I do homework. The good part is that I rarely get homework from any of my classes this year.

But occasionally it can be a nuisance. Like when I have a melody in my head and don't want to forget it - I'll play it on repeat in my head, largely ignoring the world around me, which typically includes school. I've completely spaced out in the middle of class, just thinking about music. It's kind of sad...

But I do attempt to live real life... Weekends, not so much, but I do go to my school's robotics team meetings two or three times a week. That's usually nice and relaxing, and it gives me something productive to do besides sitting on my couch and burning myself overheating my laptop. So I guess that's what I'd say - find a distraction that leads you into real life type stuff.

[Fimbulin]

Work from 5 to close at BurgerSnot, so I usually get home around 2-3AM. Then I sleep, then I wake up, then I have to study for college, then I go back to work. I honestly don't have time for music stuff, but I'm going to figure this out!

[MiuMiuChuu]

Welcome to my world now.

Usually I have so many free times since my classes are only three days and it's around 2-3 hours only. If there's assignment or exam, I put aside things unrelated. IT'S HARD. I swear it is. But somehow you got to manage and focus anyway. Assignments and exams are temporary.

But now, I'm doing my internship 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, and juggling those classes at the same time. Plus a thesis consultation which taking another extra time. The reason why I'm not on skype or mlr often. I seriously stop making music. The best art I can make is everyday doodles. I basically have no energy to make it anymore every time I arrive home. I can check facebook/tumblr for a few minutes then I doze off since I'm all too tired. Probably something like this force you to focus on your priority. I stop all my projects and pend it to May when hopefully everything will be done.

Well I guess what can be taken is, just remember which is your priority. It's not an easy thing to do of course since there temptation and all. But if you have enough free time, try to manage it well. Just estimate how many hours you do for music, then save others for your irl stuff. Remember that there will always be a time for you to make music.

[bigBerd]

I work all the time.
When I'm not working, I'm hanging out with the few friends I have.
When I'm not hanging out with the few friends I have, I'm with my girlfriend.
When I'm not with my girlfriend, I'm dicking around on the internet. (like I'm doing right now.)
When I'm not dicking around on the internet, I'm doing music.

Feh.

[North Kozar]

I'd like to say I have some intricate method of balancing everything, but I don't. It's usually "what is it that's overwhelming my brain right now," and for me recently that's been all things college. It's a good thing I went with easier classes this year in high school, so I'm not smacked around with much homework. But it's basically I try to work through what's taking up most of my thoughts. So if I get a really cool idea for a music piece, I'll start that. Though usually once the initial idea is gone, it isn't taking up brain space so not much else is done with it.

This college stuff is crazy, though, and there's a lot that I can't actively do at this point, it's just waiting and sorta planning out how I'm going to decide things. Consequently, it remains high in the "brain overwhelmed" list, which pushes other things down, so I usually waste time derping around the interwebs. It's actually quite the positive feedback loop, especially with video games, because the more I play a video game, the more I think about it and so on. I have ME3 sitting right here next to me, and yet I haven't even opened it yet, because other things are taking precedence. And I also just got done with my first phone interview (well, first real interview ever) and now have to write an essay..

I think my point being there's not any real organization or balance for me. Oh, but balancing irl life with internet life isn't a problem for me, as I don't have one of the two. Since I haven't been helpful so far, I'll try now: try to take a step back from everything that you need to balance. Maybe make a hierarchical list of importance (not necessarily immediate importance, but an overall degree of importance) to help you visually realize what you think you should be doing. It doesn't necessarily mean you'll do those things first and always first, but you'll be reminded about how you feel on each item. You could take it further and plan out your weeks with goals/objectives and make check lists or something, so you get a satisfaction when accomplishing a task. I dunno if that would help you or not, since personally weekly planning does nothing for me. But yeah, I guess to restate: lists can be pretty helpful.

(ironically, during my interview, I somehow said I didn't like lists, then went with that idea throughout it all, and then at the end when I said I had made a list of things I wanted to cover, they laughed and I realized what I had done. they still think I don't like lists. lulz)