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