Happy 2023!
This is the post where, every year, I usually list the goals that I intend to accomplish.
What am I doing to make things happen this year?
Well, I’m taking the lessons learned from the past few years and instead of posting goals like I have been, I am instead posting the actions that I am building into my daily and weekly routine to make things happen.
If you read the post from a few days ago, it was apparent that some of the goals that I intended to accomplish did not happen as planned. Instead, I am taking a new approach to accomplish the goals that were left, AND set myself up for even more success in the future, in whatever form it may come. Some things are going well, and I will continue to keep up the habits I’ve already established.
Action Item #1
Schedule Composing, Instrumental Practice, Gym, Meal, and Email time into my calendar at SPECIFIC BLOCKS OF TIME.
Sunday evening at 7:00 is when I have scheduled to plan out the week. My phone is programed to remind me to do this.
Every month, I have a concrete checklist of music business Items that I have to schedule on my monthly calendar before transfering to my weekly. These include things like writing the newsletter for my composing business, checking on contest info for students, and other specific communications and research items.
The 28th of the previous month is when I have scheduled to take care of this. However, getting into the habit of writing down monthly appointments into my calendar as they come up has helped with planning in the past.
Some of these are floating tasks that have to get done at some time on the scheduled day or week. Having a visual checklist helps me with this!
Action Item # 2
Replace Phone Screen time with the activities listed above.
Although the Tik Tok and Twitter addiction has been hard to break, I’ve been improving at using it as a reward rather than disassociating with it.
Also, my new rule is No Checking Email past 7:00pm! Otherwise, I have a tendancy to overthink about how to respond and agonize about it all night instead of sleeping, which I totally should do instead for health reasons.
Action Item # 3
Adopt a CONSISTANT bedtime and wakeup routine.
Although I do the expected things like showering and brushing my teeth every day at.. some haphazard time, my morning has only had one thing consistent up until now: Coffee. I do not wish to replace this wonderful to me beverage I lovingly call Godberry juice, as I genuinely enjoy the taste and it’s become a personal staple for waking up. However, every day has been varied and sometimes I forget to eat breakfast or shower and all of a sudden it’s 15 minutes until I’m supposed to leave to teach and I haven’t eaten lunch yet.
To start with, I will begin my day with showering, teeth brushing and a glass of water BEFORE Coffe. Coffee is a reward for taking care of these important things. Also, my second cup of coffee will be accompanying breakfast, which will not only save time but serve as a habitual reminder to eat.
At night, I’ve been winding down with Tea over the last month which has helped. I will also be replacing the phone habit with reading on time. Lately, I’ve been switching between the two. Leaving the phone downstairs has helped. Soon, I will NOT be looking at my phone past 9:00 and instead be reading physical books.
Action Item # 4
Add my original compositions 1 piece a day to my WOOCOMMERCE Store. ( 10 minutes/ morning) to start.
For now I will leave my stuff up on Sheet music Plus as well for a wider reach, as I’m still working to build an audience that will purchase my music and play it more often, funding my good habit 🙂 I am, however, changing each compositions individual page to link to my Woo Commerce Store Page, in order to get a better idea of who is buying my compositions, keep in contact in case they would like help from a living composer, and the added bonus of getting to keep more of the profit.
I’m starting with Digital downloads and then will add physical copy offerings as I learn more about how to run the storefront. It looks like it will also calculate shipping, even overseas, so that is a plus.
I also have it scheduled to publish on both my Facebook Business page and Twitter Profile when I add a new piece to the store for some added awareness.
Once I run out of pieces I’ve already added to SMP, this will shorten to 1/week or every other week as needed. Engraving and editing takes time.
Action Item #5
Form a habit of Posting 1x/day, focusing on no more than 2 social media channels at a time.
In order to succeed at this, I am going to post one time/ day on one of my channels as most of them are linked anyway. When applicable , I will repeat the post in a different format- i.e. Text converded to a 30 second Video.
(Note- I will be exercising Action Item # 2 to keep screentime from getting out of hand again).
Action Item # 6
Hold myself accountable for these items!
If you know me well enough, please don’t be afraid to ask how it’s going either. Let’s put that toxic guilt complex to good use!!!! lol
Realistically, integrating all of these steps won’t happen all at once or even ALL of the time. However, as I work on making this my new norm, it will be easier to get back on the wagon when I fall off, and continue making things happen this year and beyond.
I’ll start by scheculing checkin posts on my calendar.
) that I was eventually able to articulate the music that I was hearing in my head and start the journey to becoming a Composer. Lunar Tides was written under the moon and the underlying broken chord accompaniment flows, much like water. A friend and fellow composer, 
