Winter Wrap Up - Nights 24 & 25 & End of Year Update (Patreon)

Yesterday I

-Recorded a Kanye West vlog that's about to come out

-Made the Anno Exposes GAINAX video

-Recorded & edited audio for Part 2 of the Top 50 Anime of the Decade list

Today I

-Extensively planned my content for January, and developed a rubric for much better schedule management

-Released rants

END OF YEAR UPDATE

As of this writing, it is the last day of the year. I had ambitions of getting a whole ton of shit done in December in the name of starting 2020 with a clean slate, and I didn't quite get there. In the process, I had a kind of epiphany about why my scheduling always gets so out of whack in the first place.

I have a tendency to "stack" projects by compartmentalizing them differently in my mind. What I mean to say is that I tend to plan out my "main" content (formerly Digibro & After Dark, now just whatever's on the main channel) with the mindset that I fill up my "work hours" with pre-planned work, and then use my "extra excess time" to also make things in the spur of the moment when inspiration strikes or work on collaborative efforts or do personal things. I also tend to double or triple-book due dates of different content at the end of the month, and then don't have time to do it all last-minute because I forgot about some other thing that I didn't take into account in the original schedule.

I've always tended to bounce between more "orderly" and more "chaotic" lifestyles over the course of every few months based on adapting to my current needs, whether that be working around moving, travel, and family, or prioritizing personal creative projects which I know won't satisfy as many people, or deciding to try and make more money.

Right now, I'm pretty content with the money. I don't really need more than I'm making, though I'm not ready to stop trying to make more--it's just not something I'm rushing towards. Far more concerning to me right now is to not be behind on work.

People like to crack on my inconsistency as a creator, and that's understandable, but longtime patrons will know that there is a meaningful ebb and tide to my content. As long as you're paying attention every step of the way, and whether you necessarily agree with it or not, there is always some kind of logical thread being followed based on current circumstances--but when the circumstances are "things are normal and pretty consistent so now's the chance to finally get my fucking shit together," is when the "human content machine" takes the time to oil itself.

Perhaps the most efficient period of my entire career came in early 2016. At that time, I had created a fairly exacting schedule for Davoo and I to follow, and while I might shake up which videos were done on which days or swapped out certain ideas for better ones by the time we would've started on them, the videos were still coming out at a pretty regular pace and usually on-time. (Granted, I was working on considerably less back then and had no personal life at all.)

I've tried to schedule things out just like this plenty of times since then to varying degrees of success, but the hardest thing about doing it has always been predicting how things will actually go. It's one thing to theorize the exact amount you can get done in a certain amount of time, but actually accounting for the way your week is going to go without rigidly adhering to a set schedule can be much more difficult. Over the last few years I've been constantly experimenting with my content and the structure of my releases, so it's like I'm in a never-ending trial-and-error period.

Over the last few days, I've repeatedly told myself somehow that I'd simultaneously have time to 1. finish part 2 of the top 50 anime vid, 2. finish the december rants, 3. finish and ship out the november and december care packs, and 4. somehow still have my family over for our traditional New Year's party by ball drop. Perhaps the actually sane part of my brain is the one which instead told me to sit down for like 6 years and very carefully plot out a plan for what I was going to do in January--one not based on what "could" be done, but on what I could actually imagine happening at the natural pace that my life tends to unfold; one that accounts for all that's going to be necessary for me still to do to not be behind anymore, while also looking ahead to upcoming plans and content and trying to account for all the interruptions and happenstance that tends to throw plans into disarray. I suspect it might still be a pretty optimistic calendar, but then why the hell wouldn't it be? Even if I know better than to bet on the best possibility, I can at least try for the best probability.

Seeya with the broom still out in 2020