New Habits Part 2: Dominos
What followed after the success of getting dressed for practicing was a series of changes to the music room to make my practice even more effective.
For reference, here is last week’s list of differences between practicing at school (where I was effective) and practicing at home (where I was experiencing low efficiency and motivation):
I have to actually travel there (driving or walking) and once I am there it takes effort to make the return trip.
The room at home is dark and really non-inviting to work in. Frost (the program I most recently attended) practice rooms usually had a good window and bright but even lighting that felt good to practice in.
The space is distinct and is separate from my living/fun space.
Home is full of distractions.
When I am home, unless I enter the music room, it is closed and I do not see any triggers to even think about percussion. When I go to class at school, being on campus is its own trigger to think about practicing.
(Connected to the previous point) Practicing at school was usually paired with something I would DEFINITELY do, in that I would practice right after my classes or ensemble rehearsals.
Practice room scarcity at Frost (due to that studio constantly practicing) created an implicit pressure to practice efficiently and use the time you signed out.
Oh! And the percussionists in school with me practiced a lot. Something about being surrounded by a bunch of hard working practicers seems to motivate me to practice more too.
In school, I had clear deadlines for projects.
We addressed numbers 1, 8, and 9 last week. The next change I made was another quick and easy one. Number 4 was the next target to fix.
Before I get into the changes I made, I want to be clear that I am not a technology/social media hater. I think that so long as the second brain we keep in our pockets isn’t used to distract, it's a helpful tool. I use it all the time as an inexpensive metronome, media player, etc. However, just as often it can be quite distracting to my practice sessions.
I find myself looking at my phone fairly often, sometimes even at times when I explicitly told myself not to do so. Its a nasty habit, I have where moments of pause result in grabbing my phone. I keep it on my person a lot of the time because during the workday, it keeps me connected to my colleagues (whether that be my performance colleagues like Daniel from CoDa or my faculty colleagues at FIU). However, when I am practicing at home, it is too easy to just pick up the phone and scroll through Facebook or Instagram for a while, or get immersed in NBA news, or see that one of my favorite musicians just released an album and get distracted on Spotify.
These things, like I said, are not inherently bad. Facebook and Instagram keep me up to date with people I care about (even if it is a little, curated window into their lives). I love following the NBA and there is nothing wrong with liking a sports team (in case it wasn’t obvious due to where I live, I am a Heat fan). However, when it became even mildly distracting to my practice, I started thinking of solutions.
I think I have found one or two little things that help me stay on task. For one, I put my ringer all the way on (blasting in fact). It sounds weird as a musician to not have it on vibrate all the time, but it's important for what is to follow. Now, when I go practice, the phone stays out of the music room. I leave it on a charger in the bedroom of the apartment. It is loud enough that if an urgent call comes in, I can go get it, but it is out of sight and out of mind. Same goes for my laptop, which is closed and turned off whenever I practice (sometimes even out of the room). Lastly, my iPad is now totally a sheet music machine and metronome. All other apps are uninstalled (or are at least not permitted to push notifications).
This helped in many ways, and when combined with “changing out” for practice time, I found myself being a lot more productive.
With that I started to think, “now that the improvement engine is fully running, let’s see how much more I can do…”
Well, next up was number 2.
(2) The room at home is dark and really non-inviting to work in. Frost (the program I most recently attended) practice rooms usually had a good window and bright but even lighting that felt good to practice in.
As pictured below, the music room was fine. The instruments were accessible and usable. However, the room generally feels uninviting. Even with the blackout curtains open (used mostly to dampen the sound of the room a bit), the room is dark and uninviting. Also, there are workout pads under some of the rug (also to lower the volume of the room), but not all, so when walking around you end up dropping half an inch sometimes. Not dangerous, but definitely a little distracting. Not to mention, the rugs in the room were a bit old and my wife kinda wanted to replace them anyway.
Since all the instruments needed to be taken out of the room in order to place the new rug, I decided to use the swapping of the rug as an excuse to change the character of the room a bit. For one, we bought a white rug that covered the majority of the room, to balance out the light and make the room feel a little brighter (since it can easily feel like a cave). We also placed workout padding underneath the rug in order to both cut down the hardwood sound and fix the “dropping half an inch” issue. The room is now more welcoming, clean, and evenly lit (or as well as I can make it without spending a ton of money putting more overhead lights in).
I also rotated all the instruments…and somehow ended up with more space in the room as a result:
While this orientation makes it so that the marimba blocks the closet, I no longer have to be constantly conscious of what is behind me when at the lowest and highest octave of the marimba (which feels better and less confined). The closet is still accessible from one side and the blocked side consists mostly of instruments that I don’t need as often (in which case I can just move the marimba). The most commonly used equipment such as my little practice drumset, pandeiro, joropo maracas, congas, concert snare drum, etc. are all easy to pull out of the closet and quickly set up.
In this rotation my wife and I even managed to find enough space for a desk and small cube storage (used as a small bookshelf with all my most in use method books and pieces). In fact, the desk is where I am writing this post. The cube storage holds all of the music I use on a daily basis, as well as my practicing journal and other helpful items (such as my practicing outfit, shoes, etc.) These additions seem small at first, but have done a few helpful things to my practice habits.
Now I do ALL of my work in the studio (if I am home). The living room is for relaxing, the bedroom is for sleep, but the studio is for work. As such, between the change in outfit and all work happening in the studio, I transition into a state of focus when I am in the room. Additionally, because I spend more time in the room while I write emails for work, or write blog posts, I have a constant reminder to practice surrounding me.
Referring back to Clear’s Atomic Habits, this makes the habit of practicing obvious (by always having cues present within my space to remind me to practice. Having my transition outfit and shoes next to me makes the habit easy (if you look at the photo you can see today’s pair of practicing pants rolled up on top of the cube storage for quick change outs). This solves problems 3, 4, 5, and 6 from the previous list.
(3) The space is distinct and is separate from my living/fun space.
I now transition into the room around 9 AM every day and stay there till 5 PM (aside from a few breaks). As such, it is a distinct space for focused work.
(4) Home is full of distractions.
See above.
(5) When I am home, unless I enter the music room, it is closed and I do not see any triggers to even think about percussion. When I go to class at school, being on campus is its own trigger to think about practicing.
I am always in the room and as such am constantly reminded to practice.
(6) Practicing at school was usually paired with something I would DEFINITELY do, in that I would practice right after my classes or ensemble rehearsals.
Practicing is paired with work, which I do every day and practicing is now a part of my workday.
There are other little tricks I have implemented to improve my practice even further, but now the room itself has been transformed into a space that is used consistently and only for focused work. It has done wonders to both my consistency of practice, as well as the efficiency of my work.
Oh and now that the room is nice my wife wants to practice more too. So…there is number 7 solved too.
Mission: Accomplished.
See you all next week!
-Dr. Colin Williams