I was talking to one of my guitar students the other day about making the time to practice guitar. She was telling me that she was juggling a lot of activities in her life and it was difficult to find the time, which I completely understand. So, I began a discussion suggesting time management and so forth—when it suddenly occurred to me: I suck at time management myself.

There are so many responsibilities that I juggle within a day, it behooves me to prioritize my time and activities quite often. Normally, I fill up a blank 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper with bullet points of things to do. I scratch them off as I progress through my day, and I feel a sense of accomplishment scratching off my accomplishments by nightfall. Nonetheless, I suck at time management. Do you know what I mean? Sure, I get lots of stuff done. I also stress myself out quite bit. Sometimes I forget to eat because I get so busy working on a project, that I lose track of time.

But, probably my worst offense in this department, is getting too wrapped up in one thing for long periods of time.

I decided to make a spreadsheet the other day to keep track of how long I work on things. Practice guitar for an hour. Write for an hour. Etc.. So far, I'm sucking at that also. I managed to make the actual spreadsheet—haven't been using it every day though.

Perfect example of me getting too wrapped up with something: I spent a solid 8 to 10 hours recording yesterday. Why? Because I was having fun. If anything, it was quite a productive day, given that I'm a musician and a songwriter and all. However, there were a whole bunch of other things that didn't get done yesterday due to the fact that I was hanging out with my friend Anthony, recording, and having the time of my life.

I should be more organized and block my hours of operation off to 1 hour increments. I can be like a T.S. Eliot poem where his sad protagonist, J. Alfred Prufrock, measures his life out in coffee spoons—30 minutes to practice singing, 1 hour to play guitar, 5 minutes to write this blog. No time to check my grammar.