Today’s posts are just flying into one another. The 80/20 post talked about finding the 20% of fans that make up the majority of your true supporters – those that buy your CDs still and the rest of your merch as well. Realizing that rule can be applied to anything can help with this post’s title.

I am currently learning to be organized – not leaving things to the last minute and the like. Tidy and stuff. It’s …fun. It’s a change, a huge change for me, but it needs to be done. Good thing is, I can already see it paying off.

Thing is I’m still not organized. It’s an ongoing process. I’m trying. It is easy for me to see where I have to focus though by looking at what I’ve neglected as of late. If you are in a band this might be a good exercise for you as well. With writing, practicing, tours, promotional, staying connected with fans and plenty more depending on who does what in the band or if you have a label or management to help.

By examining everything I have going on, the things I need to do, like to do, hate to do, should be doing and you get the point, I can see quite easily what has been neglected and needs my attention to get on track for being organized.

Last week this blog was neglected as I worked on getting my book keeping up to date for last year [which had been neglected]. I need that all done to provide to investors for future plans, of which I have been spending the majority of my time working on for the past few months, thus neglecting the Rock Garden to some degree [hello awesome bathrooms!].

Over the past two years I neglected my significant other Johanna so much she had to become a partner in my ventures to spend time with me [she was spending time with me at work anyways so it only made sense right]. We have a great relationship, but it’s obvious it could be improved if I didn’t work so much [just a couple more ye...months Joi and a) I'll make it up to you and b) you'll see it was worth it - promise].

So it’s very easy for me to sit down and examine my responsibilities and know that next week I really should dedicate some time to doing _______ whatever. I think if bands did this as a group even once every three months they would see serious improvements in their pursuits. If they can do this and eventually develop an organized schedule that ensures nothing important is neglected they’ll do even better.

It has amazed me in working with Their Majesties, or more so on their behalf in this case, how the SIMPLEST things convey the sense of professionalism – and how easy it would be for any band to improve their position in anyone’s eyes with the simplest gestures. One thing we have set up is a private message board all members must check once a day. In doing so all simple decisions get made in no more than 24 hours at worst.

As the Rock Garden has been ignored by me and our second anniversary is next month, I’ll be making plans to fix up the space, time for a new paint job, and set some things up for the coming year. We have new amps now [Vox AD50VTs] that seem to be working out quite nicely and shouldn’t give us as many issues as the Fender Hot Rods [solid state vs. tubes].

On the label end of things, we’ll be announcing our first signing/release very soon. And a real website is being designed by Mike Belyea!!!

We have a ridicules number of projects in the works now that we’re pretty excited about so hopefully I can use the 80/20 rule to focus on the 1 in 5 things that are truly important to get done while at the same time not neglecting anything else that deserves some attention.

That’s definitely not going to happen but I’ll keep you posted on how the battle goes.
Any tips for taking a completely disorganized spontaneously run life of old and converting it into one of planned organization? Leave a comment please

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