The View From The Crow's Nest

Welcome to Episode 218 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest and it is Sunday the 14th Valentine's Day is may 14 February 2021. And today I wanted to share with you an idea that kind of stems from, do what you can with what you have right now which is a motto that I have that I've tried to stick to over the years. And in this particular example it's about something really simple, go home for a walk and effectively what it's about is, we often want to do things with our lives in our lives and I'm sure you felt this way about many things, but you just don't have the time and you know you'd like to fit that in at some point, if we imagine our future perfect lives or where we're heading to, we think yes and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and blah blah blah. And the problem is, it never happens. And the reason it never happens is because we don't make it a habit. Now, by doing what we can with what we have right now so if one habit is, or if you want to have the life in the future where you think it will be lovely and then, you know, in this particular case, we'll go out to lovely walks in the countryside etc etc. You may not live in the countryside maybe only they have a park near you. Maybe you don't even have that maybe, you know, there's just, you know, just houses near you blocks or whatever. But it's no it's almost never the case that one transitions from not doing something ever to it being a permanent fixture of their life normally it's steps to get there, and a case in point was today you know we were saying, Be nice go for a walk and blah blah blah but they said the other. And then it just came in after lunch and say, Look, let us go out for a walk. Now, let's get in the car drove five minutes, 10 minutes maybe tops and just go for a walk like off a side road kind of thing so we did and we went up a side street or side road and that kind of led us into the foothills of the mountains, and we had a really nice walk and it was blowing snow into us it was icy icy cold, but the four of us had a really nice walk. And again, it didn't have to be a big thing we only went in the end it was probably about an hour and tops, but we're only planning to go for about 20 minutes one way 20 minutes walk the other way and soon enough. It was an hour. But the point being, rather than thinking some big expedition or it's got to be this big thing or it's got to be there or we have to pick the route or this study other, it was simply a case of just find a place nearby a gun, have a walk. Now we're fortunate because we live in Castroville Erie where we're very close to the mountains but when we're in London, we were right in the centre of London and there's no countryside there you know so you go for a walk in the park. And we were missing, not having a park near us when we were in sa Ischia for seven months to the lockdown. But then you walk through the streets and actually there are some nice streets in Ischia so the point being that you find whatever you can. You do what you can with what you have right now. And you start building, whatever it is that you want to do, into, you know, a proper portion of your life into a habit into a routine. And from there, of course, as you move as your circumstances change you can expand on that habit you can expand on that part of your routine in your schedule. But if it's not already there it's going to be very difficult to start it. Just overnight and make it a substantial part of what you're doing. So the whole point I guess of today's podcast is think about the things that you're not doing that you'd like to do, and consider how can you start them even, even if it's just 10 minutes in a day. How can you start them in the smallest viable way the minimum viable product, something which we'll talk about in another podcast but that's an idea from the Lean Startup side of business but basically it pretty much just means, what's the least the smallest thing simplest thing you can do to

I was just thinking about work and taking time off, and that, you know, constant chase to have balance in one's doing. So we've sheduled recently we've scheduled every Friday nights family movie night. And now we also doing every Saturday night is family games No, and I had. It's Friday now and I had a couple of client calls this afternoon, and I was really adamant that I was needed to get off the phone because it's family movie night. And so, I put that limitation in with the client I said, Look, I've got to get off at this time blah blah blah I didn't exactly tell him why but, you know, make this happen. And it was making me think about Parkinson's Law, and if you've not heard of Parkinson's Law before it's an adage that work expands to fill the available time for its completion. And it basically means that, you know, you use it if anybody's ever studied anything and you've got exams you generally cram, you know, right to the end of your exam time or, you know, if you've got four weeks to do a project, then you'll still be working on that project right up to the end of the fourth week, whereas if you've got two weeks to do probably exactly the same project you get it done in two weeks. And we've all done that you know when you've. When we had to pack our house. Remember when we had to move, you know, we knew we were moving at least I know a month or more months before that we're moving but we literally the night before we move and we found ourselves doing most of the packing, and we were still packing on the day we were moving. Equally, when we only had kind of 24 hours 48 hours to do the packing we did it, you know we got it done it was haphazard and also over tip, but we got it done. So, it's made really making me think, well, what is Parkinson's Law suggests, it suggests that the less time that you have, you're still going to get the stuff done the less, the more time constraints you put on yourself, you'll still get the work done or at least the important stuff. It might be rough around the edges. It might not be as smooth as you'd like but it will be done, and recently I've been thinking a lot about you know Seth Godin talks about shipping, you know, you've got to crate and ship the work it's no good just creating it you've got to get it out there. And it's better to get it out and get it done. Then, you know, get it perfect. And today, I was listening to a podcast of the co founder of Netflix and he was talking about how originally they were doing a B testing, which is where you have an idea that something might work better so you create an experiment to test that against what you've already got so A is what you've got beers what you're testing against. And they said, he said at the beginning, it would take them two weeks to design an A B split test a split test on something, because they made it really perfect. And then they got that down to one week and then they got it down to, you know, a few days Then one day, and then in the end they were doing four or five tests a day. And he absolutely, you know credits that with one of their major reasons why they became successful, and he was said that the tests that they were doing were terrible in the punctuation the grammar would be wrong they'd have watermarks on photos and have the wrong photos. And he said, but what it allowed them to do is, it didn't matter how bad the, the periphery was, it was the crux of the idea and getting out there it's the same principle. So when they gave themselves less time to do the split testing they actually got far better results because they got to the point much more quickly, and one of his ideas was you know as soon as you've got an idea to do something get out there however rough it is you know test it, test it in the real world, straight away. And this is really making me think, you know, protecting these this work life balance trying to, for me personally trying to find more time for the family and whatnot. I'm not getting through a

In our building in Castroville Hurry, it's a communal apartment block. And there are very set times to put different types of rubbish out different types of trash. And there are like three or four different bins of maybe five bins you know glass paper, etc. And you have to put them out certain times, and if you don't put them out at the, at the right times then letters come through people complain. It's really annoying, but that's fair enough. And then, the problem is the who that the bins the communal bins are really, really small. So they like they're not big enough for blocks of apartments with lots of people living in them. And the person in charge of the apartment block would say that if you can't leave rubbish in bags outside of the bins, next to the bins they have to fit in the bins or you don't leave them there at all. And if you have rubbish outside then the council will find him. And when we said to him, why don't you get bigger bins he says I can't because the council supply the bins. So this is ridiculously stupid situation you know the bins are too small, they don't get all the rubbish but you can't leave the rubbish outside and if you're not quick enough to get there when the bins, when it's the right thing day for that particular bin, then everybody else has filled it up and you've got no chance. And it was just making me think about this idea this concept of crusade or comply, because you get really annoyed about it, and it's very easy to get annoyed about situations like this or other situations. And at the end of the day, you really actually only have two choices, you can either comply with it and do what you're meant to be doing. Or you can actually crusade against it and I don't mean complain because this was three choices really it's crusade complain or comply comply. You just fit in with what has to be done you know it's the cost of living wherever you're living it's the cost of doing business wherever you're doing business complaining gets you absolutely nowhere but annoys you and really takes it on board and gives you you know changes your mood and changes your viewpoint on on where you're feeling at the moment and he's just a complete waste of energy. But the other one is crusade. If you care about it enough, then you must do something about it but not complain actually do something about it, you know, be that person that makes the change in the council be that person that makes the change in the community, or whatever it is that you're that you're, you know that you're fighting against so to speak, whatever it is that you want to make better. So, it just made me think there's yeah three choices actually not to really, I just automatically discount complaining but it's crusade complain, or comply. Or maybe complain comply Crusade, maybe put it that way. There's just no thought that came to me and I wanted to share it with you, you know, when next time something bothers you decide which of those three that you really want to do complaining i think is useless complying might be the best option because at the end of the day it might not just be worth hassling about just, you know, fall into line and get on with it. And in other ways you might want a crusade. And that is, you know, that could be your own art you know making a career out something you really care about, or you know whatever it is the new product that you're building within your company or whatever it is. So, comply complain, or crusade. So that idea for you. Hope you find that useful.

Welcome to Episode 215 of my podcast The view from crow's nest, and it is Thursday. The something of something. Thursday the 11th of February, 2021. Today was an enforced day off from the point of view, we had to take Mina to get dental X ray, but the if we without waiting one month to get one in the local hospital. We had to travel to the main city in the region, which is an hour and a half away. And it also happens to be the main city where my driving licence is in the process of being changed over from British to an Italian one. And we did that in November. And they were like, yep, come back and see us we give you a piece of paper that will let you drive for the next couple of months, come back and see us at the end of that. Can you tell us if the licence is ready, no no no you just have to come and see us. Okay, so we queued there for an hour and a half at the motor place and they said no, it's not not been done. So we'll give you another extension for a month and then you come back and see us again and see if it's been done, classic Italian stylee. Fortunately, the guy was very kind and actually gave us a three month, piece of paper. So now we can go anytime next three months that was good, then we took Mina to the hospital and or the the scanning clinic, and she was very anxious very worried about having a scan that she hasn't had an X ray done before. And she's had a couple of experiences with doctors, or such that has meant that she's, she's rather fearful of the situation so it took us nigh on three hours to kind of get her to into the room and then get her to take the scan and blah blah and then she conquered her fear, and that was really really cool because, you know, it's easy for me it's a lesson for myself as well you know it's easy to look at something and say well that's just simple or easy just get on with it. But of course, whatever that is, if one is fearful of it, then that's it, they're fearful of it there's not a problem there. What's the challenge is, can that person overcome that fear and get it done anyway and, you know, and do it, not, not you know get not ignore the fear not get rid of the fear fear is good to healthy in a lot of places, but to conquer it, you know, to overcome it is a real boost to self and we can really see that Mina really was pleased with our achievement once you kind of got over it and obviously you know anyone who's ever had an X ray knows that there is nothing to it. So she was never in any danger from our point of view, but from her point of view, you know, it was a scary thing. So that was good and Leonardo was very very patient the whole way through. Despite it being boring as can be. We played whilst we're waiting and it was all good. The net result was that by the time we got back home it was like three in the afternoon or something for nearly three I think, and I did some work for an hour or so a couple hours for a client, as mid speed to it, five, and then we couldn't, but that's basically was my day. But there was something that I read today that has really resonated with me. And I just finished reading yesterday I just finished reading a book called The magic of thinking big by somebody I can't remember. I think it's Dr. Schwartz but I could be completely wrong there. And this is I think it's 1959 book, I'd heard of it. I'd never come across it particularly or read it but I read it. I think brilliant book, and well worth everybody reading it, it goes straight up to one of the best books I think I've read, full of practical advice, but no fluff and No. You know no over egging the pot. Just a really good book it I think it really lays out some, some good wisdom, basically and age old wisdom about the magic of thinking big but you know just about how to improve oneself so I highly recommend that book. The next book I started reading last night was Seth Golden's new newish or new book, I think, called things called the practice, create and ship work, or something like tha

Welcome to Episode 214 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest. It is Wednesday the 10th of February, 2021. For the second night in a row. I fell asleep around about midnight. And I was so tired, yesterday. Because midnight now is late late for me, whereas it might have been normal. A little while ago now though, waking it sort of six and getting up 630 to seven midnight is now starting to be late. And last night I was in bed at 930 really tired, just falling asleep and the next door neighbor's making a racket until basically like 11 or whatever and couldn't sleep. And, which was really frustrating. So I woke up this morning and I was just I had zero motivation and no energy I just couldn't face, doing stuff. It took me a good while to get out of bed. And then our training this morning with Abdel he'd put it back a couple hours which isn't like him but that's fine. So it was going to be at 10 o'clock rather than eight o'clock, which meant that kind of the whole morning is, you know, it was easy to kind of just not really do much this morning so the morning disappeared although we did train so that was good, and then a bit of energy after that had lunch, as much energy after that. And then as I really must do some work so I've plotted myself and got a few bits done stuff for clients, predominantly. So it was a pretty nothing, a day, really. And tomorrow we are out more or less for the day. We have to go and then go to travel to the main city in the region to get some admin stuff done because Italy is kind of another day which can be frustrating but equally. I realised this morning, aside from the late night last night. Really, I think it's because again I've done a kind of like 1014 or days or whatever of working. And though I've taken much more time off in the last couple of weeks in terms of resting in the afternoons. I've had really intense mornings. And, again, just not left the house not gone out and I think my body was saying well you need some, some time off dude you need to kind of just chill. Ideally, leave the house and go somewhere but there's not really too many places to go the minute actually that's that's a cop out there are places we can go into the mountains or whatever. Well, I can't get there my licence but my driver's licence but that's part of where we're going tomorrow, maybe I'll get my driver's licence or maybe I'll get a piece of paper telling me I have to come back within a month. And they might have it ready by then, so we'll soon find out. But yeah, again, I think just time off, so important, it's just a reminder, you gotta chill out a few times. Occasionally, apparently, so they say. So that's it, not really much to report. I did do my vocal practice today and then again played the set through the. My EP they come and go I rain play those six songs through, and I'm trying to get them up to being able to perform live as a set because they'll probably be the first kind of set that I stopped playing. Certainly, to try and get me out performing again but also I'm intending to do sort of online concert, concerts, and since this is the EP that I've got out at the moment. This is the one that I'll make sense to be concentrating on. So, I will recorded that did try to play them all through in Mongo and Leonardo came in the plasma track and was dancing about in front of them. So that's, whether I do anything with that video or not it's definitely a lovely video at least for us. So it's nice to have a fan. So yeah, that's the view from the crow's nest, not much to report. If you've got anything to report then you can find me on Twitter at Romeo Crow, or you can go to Romeo crow.com slash podcast and leave a voicemail on the show. short and sweet today thanks for listening and I will be back tomorrow Toodle Pip.

Welcome to Episode 213 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest. And it is Tuesday ninth of February 2021. Today was good, because I actually managed to start work I think it's seven o'clock and woke up around six and then go I bet half six started work at seven o'clock, and actually managed to fit in the first hour was writing. So working on my screenplay one night in Soho the second draft of my screenplay. And it's a bit of a psychological barrier to get started as it often is you know starting the hardest thing restarting. And I noticed the last time I opened it was 25th of September last year so it's taken me like four months just to open the script, but I did it, and I spent an hour and it was good I made good progress I went through about a third of the script, doing the edits that I wanted to do, basically just the dialogue really capital plot points I need to just move, I could make better. Yeah, made the pay off a bit better later in the film, or in the script but yeah that was good and then after that, I was on music. And finally, I discovered something so exciting for me at least. There's a thing in music so I'm working on a song called take what you want, I think, from my album, a blind eye to love. And there's, there's two types of entry for music, if you will. One of them is analogue or acoustic instruments which you might plug in and play and they're recorded as like waveforms you might have seen them they're the kind of things that go up and like a wave that goes up and down showing the sound, and the other type is called MIDI and MIDI is just all it is is information basically on or off and media itself doesn't make any noise but the information in it, and triggers sounds in other things that are usually digital can be analogue as well but. So with MIDI you have huge control over where you place those notes and you can make the computer divide up in a bar of music perfectly into whatever divisions you want and place those notes exactly etc. And there's a thing called quantize, which is where you basically just press a button on the computer and it will automatically move the MIDI notes to the timings that you want so all of a sudden if you play a bit sloppy as I often do with things like piano. If I've done it in MIDI, then I can straighten it up so it sounds more rhythmically correct. Today I discovered. There's a same functionality for audio for like, if I plugged in a guitar and I'm playing something I can basically just press a button and it will move it into time. And that's a bit of a revelation for me I never knew I could do that. I don't know what version of the software I use they started that it might have been six years ago and I didn't even realise, but said that was very exciting because basically what it means is, I can take the bass guitar, the electric guitars, and the MIDI parts cables etc and I can make them all really locked together. So they sound much more tight, is exactly the word. So, that was a great discovery huge discovery, I cannot over overstate the discovery of hugeness that that was basically finished the drums, so more or less now I've got the, the bed track. The original bed track done. And now I'm going to with the next couple of sections sessions add other sounds and instruments into it to give you a bit more depth and width and interest and whatnot. But that should be fairly swift now so hopefully that track will be done pretty soon ready for the vocals, and then I'll only have I think one or two more tracks on the album to do. And then the vocals for the wall, but, you know, it's getting there. So again, my process one hour on the writing was great one hour on the music that was great. Then I had a tonne of where the time went actually but then I had, you know, client work and stuff. And I worked through till two o'clock. Didn't get as far into the work as I'd want to you know there's still stuff that's pressing client stuff. And I feel like it's just a constant thing w

Welcome to Episode 212 of my podcasts review from the crow's nest and it is Monday the eighth of February, 2021, at about five to 10 in the evening. Today Monday first day of the week but also very importantly, another day, kind of trying to work towards our new structure our new. It wasn't perfect today but it was better than yesterday and I think my gut says we actually Finally I think finding something that's going to work, to tick all the boxes home, family, work, etc. and started the day off with training with Abdel. And it was, it was actually a bit of an easier session for me but it was, I think a bit easier because someone has not had like a week and a half off or so so we're gonna ease back into it, but nonetheless I had a good sweat on so it wasn't so easy, but it's a good way to start the day had a shower. One of the things that we've we've done. I've been doing for about I guess a week or so is instead of dressing in, you know, jogging trousers and cheap t shirts from Primark I've actually put on jeans nice enough trousers and a nice shirt and actually kind of dressed up for the day put on a bit of aftershave, even though I know that I'm not going to see anybody other than the family because they don't leave the house and they're the only people here. You know, part of this kind of, I think. Recently, I mean it's been happening for about six months or so but certainly in the last month it's really accelerated this focus on planning for the future and you know new goals and whatnot. And what we realised is 10, years ago, we sumana and I were working together towards these goals we were both striving towards them and we pretty much achieved it achieve what was the main goal that we set out to, which was to be able to live anywhere because our income wasn't dependent on where we were living, and to be able to travel, bring up our kids homeschool them, and pretty much, you know we'd achieved that last year, then coronavirus came and destroyed our income stream so that was a bit of an annoyance. But, you know, we will get around that, that's fine. But we had kind of achieved it. And although we discussed some you know tentatively some other ideas for the future. We realised that, you know, middle of last year, whenever we really hadn't actually come up with what we're going to do for the next 510 years because that plan, more or less took us 10 years. So, this time around, I'd been thinking about the plan but Simona hadn't been so much because she was basically chronically sleep deprived because she puts so much time into the children and gets up multiple times during the night for the kids and gets up first thing in the morning for the kids, and had been staying up late spend time with me so it's a recipe for disaster and she didn't have the energy that she had previously. And a couple of weeks ago we had a discussion about it and it was that, that moment when, you know, not saying at all. She's an alcoholic, non alcoholic but that moment when you know you can't tell an alcoholic you need to sort yourself out. You need to stop drinking, there has to be the aha moment when they finally think and a few weeks ago so when I finally had the aha moment about needing to sleep more as simple as it sounds, and since then it's been a real switch. She's getting to bed earlier. She's getting more sleep she's more energetic she's more vivacious. And as a consequence, now we're more balanced we're thinking about the future. You know it's not just me trying to pull in one direction now it's the two of us working towards it and as a consequence, we've, I've definitely felt this renewed push towards you know making changes in it, and going after the new goal and the new goal. The next 10 year goal though, I would do it quicker than 10 years but the next big goal is to buy rather ambitious, it's a lifetime goal really but to buy our first house, which will be. I probably in or hopefully in Tuscany. In Italy, and the Tuscany region and b

Welcome to Episode 211 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest, and it is Sunday the seventh of February 2021, and it's been about three days since my last podcast, which I guess was would have probably been like Thursday or Friday is what three days is. Why is that why is that well around to it basically I were on a flex of. We're on a permanent flex actually Simona and I have tried to find the right balance. And I guess that's what everybody in life is trying to do trying to find the right balance between work and fat and leisure, or family life, but then within that there's family life being with the family with the kids, there's family life being you as a couple just you and your spouse if you go on or your partner. And then there's individual time, which may be stuff that is to do with work but also maybe stuff that is not to do with work, dare I say, and then work itself, certainly for me is quite a varied thing there's, you know, it goes from music to writing to photography to marketing to working with clients to other stuff. So, there's such a you know overlapping stuff going on that. It's always difficult to find the yeah the right back. I'm sorry, I just got distracted. I won't tell you what I got distracted with. I'm going to keep my eyes on the prize. And so, I'm sorry he's fighting it but I'm gonna have to go in the other room now. I'm walking past the kids bedroom. And they're asleep. Finally, yes. And so it's finding a balance between, you know, between everything and seminar always trying to work out a different way of doing things, a routine this or the other. And the thing that we definitely a weaker at is our routines sheduled sticking to them, etc. And they are so much at the core and more and more I realised how at the core of any kind of success in any kind of endeavour they are. So if you listen to my podcasts of a few days ago in the last week, so I've tried I've tried this new system so system and schedules those I think are the two key things, and the system I've been using is every day. I start working just on my music and then I go on to other things, hopefully after my music it's then marketing my own stuff. And then it's working with clients and other sort of stuff. And to, along with that I've been running a timer for an hour each time and pretty much sticking to it. So do an hour on my music then I'll do an hour on the hour, and I'm finding that this is really enabling me to get through stuff in a satisfactory way like I feel like I'm making progress, even though it's complete false summit mountains like every time I get anywhere. There's another summit to climb ahead and I think certainly thinking about as a creative songwriter or an author or what have you, there's always going to be more work to do, is literally there's no end in sight. But nonetheless, you know, working through stuff like that at least I'm getting through stuff and I'm actually closing in on finishing my album The blind eye to love and this kind of stuff. But that on its own isn't enough. We need the structure so that I can do homeschooling with the kids so that I can play with the kids so that I can spend time with smaller so we can get the housework done so Simona can have time for herself etc etc. So the last few days we've been talking a lot and starting to implement a new you know schedules and hopefully this time round, you know the schedule that we're trying we try once a couple of days and we need to tweak it we're tweaking it. And it's such kind of boring dull stuff and yet it's so fundamental to getting, I think, towards any real goals in life any success. That one wants. So yeah, that's been the last few days. And part of that and I guess we're having done the podcast the last couple of nights is because Friday nights is now family, or has been for few weeks but family movie night. And we watched. Watch Chronicles of Narnia. And on Friday. And then last night we had our inaugural family games night. So, we, w

Welcome to Episode 210 of my podcast The view from the crow's nest, and it is Thursday, the fourth of February, 2021. And today, I woke up again so 630 raring to go, which I never thought would be a sentence, I'd say with any kind of enthusiasm. So the you know the earlier nights had most definitely working or that in that I think I slept till 11 last night which. The great thing is now seems like late, whereas previously two o'clock in the morning would seem a bit more like late so that's good. But then one thing and another. I didn't get started working. And then in the end, Simona and I had a discussion about routines and about structure and whatnot because there's always so much to do as an individual as a couple as a family. And with the house. Work etc. And I might be being naive but I'm convinced that there's a way to fit it all in. And that convinced this, because that is a word. I'm sure is tied into systems and shadows and routines and habits. And I'm sure there's a way of combining them all in a way that works for us that unlocks the optimum use of time to be productive and constructive in all the ways that we want to be. So we discussed off this morning, we've got a new plan, which pretty much involves getting working straight away when we wake up and trying to finish work by about two o'clock have lunch and then have the rest of the afternoon off. So probably starting work at seven and working through till two. As a general rule of thumb, but also cause I quite like to try and work in one to two days off or ideally two days off a week. Family days out and whatnot. So, I don't know what seven till two. That also includes time for exercise as well. So we'll see. So we've got a plan we discussed it with the kids, mean had some very good questions Leonardo had some very good monologues, of which was the I wanted to join in the discussions that I was sure I followed the thread of most of them because they involve grandma's house. So I'm not sure how that related to our routine but it was good. And then when I did start getting working you know worked on music. I did the hour of music to start the day with which was really cool. The only frustrating thing was that the work that I did was working on. Basically the new drums for song number. 11 on the album. And after all the work I did I don't think I'm going to keep what I did. So, it was productively unproductive. You know, I got closer to what's right I just don't know what's right yet. But obviously, I'd like to have made more concrete progress with that. But you know it's coming along and putting in the time that again habit, you know it's forming system, doing an hour, hour 15, you know it's it's working on moving forward with that. Outside of that you know i client add to running, which is good, starting to get results for one of the new clients that's really positive. Now, there'll be the, the necessity of explaining to them or going, you know, going through ways that they can then profit by the results that we're getting. So that's another stage sent a website off to another client. So we'll get their feedback hopefully in the next few days and. Fingers crossed. They won't want too much change but we'll see. Or at least, hopefully they'll be happy with the basics of it and then we'll go from there. So you know those are those are positive. Didn't get through once again, didn't get through my task list though for the day, and also didn't do my kind of hour which I'd normally would do after, after the music didn't do an hour of like marketing where I'm promoting my own stuff so that was kind of lacking a bit today. Fact by the time I finished music photography he's talking this morning I did my hour or so music and then at lunchtime. And then my father in law came over just at the end of lunch, it was his birthday yesterday, and he brought some sweeties some pastries, which were tasty but probably shouldn't have eaten them. And then by the time that will finished

Welcome to Episode 209 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest. And it is Wednesday third of February 2020. And for some reason I got good sleep last night but I woke up in a bad mood, I think it was still like a carryover from yesterday just having, basically, a nonworking day which, which also wasn't a day out either so it was kind of like, got to me I don't know, but I had a good, strong training session with Abdel this morning strength training, kind of whole body. And that kind of sorted me out, and a nice shower. But then I carried on with my system, and I've got to say my system is working. So it's pretty simple three step system step one set an alarm or timer for one hour, and basically everything that I do is pretty much just one hour, even if I've not finished it. Even if I'm getting on really well. It's an hour. And actually, I'm finding that no matter pretty much what the task is okay. hour and 15 maybe but pretty much whatever the task is, you know, an hour is about the right time because more than that, and I start maybe losing focus or getting distracted or, whereas an hour is like okay I'm gonna focus on that and give it a really good hour and then I have a little break and it seems to be working well. So that's one second one. Even better, the first hour I'm doing is working on my own music, specifically on recording so in Cubase so producing songs, basically. And to that extent. I'm now just finished the 10th of the 12 songs for my album blend it love. And when I say finished I just mean the backing tracks so I still need to do the vocals for most of those, and all of the backing vocals, but the bedding tracks are basically done and that's going to be huge because then it's like, okay, I don't have to think too much more creatively I just have to do the vocals, you know, although the backing vocals would be a bit creative, I guess. And I've never really done them so that's gonna be a bit interesting but I'm getting closer. And it's because I'm doing like an hour a day on it. Brilliant. And then the second hour I do after that is on marketing, my own stuff. So currently, I've actually just been catching up with the lab posts, which I'm a bit behind on but I'm now making strong headway. After that, I'll be catching up on the photography side of things that I was posting. And once I've got those two things kind of up to date. Then, I'll be looking at sort of other marketing stuff more outbound marketing stuff but again during the hour a day I can see things moving and it's great. The third thing again really simple is, I'm using a task management software, so all the projects I've got that listed out, they've got their tasks tasks got deadlines, and each day. I don't have to think I just go into my task list, and I work through so I think Kate let's do an hour with one client. So I work on their stuff for an hour going through their task list in their project, and then. Who would have thought that being organised actually worked. I'm sure I tried this stuff before and either, it hasn't worked or I hadn't maintained it. So it's only a few days in so let's see whether I can maintain it or not but so far it's, meaning that when I am working, I'm putting really productive luck I'm feeling like I'm really getting some good work done. And the only thing that I hadn't been doing and I did manage today was vocal practice and getting to play my own music to get ready to start gigging again. And then this evening. To do that, I did a vocal practice and then some of the kids came home and they have seen was going to cook dinner so I said okay well. Can I come in and serenade you. And as sloppy as it sounds like. I just I'm not used to because I'm not used to playing in front of anybody that includes also my wife and my kids, you know, doing lack of performance or a console, you know, and so it was really nice to sit in the kitchen and just play some songs whilst Leonardo was banging forks on the table and crushing wat

Welcome to Episode 208 of my podcasts review from the crow's nest, and it is Tuesday second of February. Correct. It is started on the first on Monday, Tuesday second of February 2021. And I, I sort of tried to start these podcasts in the morning, and the mornings a good time for them, but then I'm reflecting on the day before and it's just confusing me and then I forgot to do it this morning and now it's evening, so I literally don't even know where I am, maybe I shouldn't mess with the formula. But the upshot is yesterday, the first, I had a really good day, really good day I was really everything was about the hour, you know, as I talked about in the podcast day before. I was timing everything working the computer and got stopwatch going, and every hour, pretty much, you know, maybe a few minutes afterwards but then it's moved on to another project and as a consequence, I got through a lot of work yesterday I was really really chuffed. So that worked, worked well. And then I kick started the day in fact with a training session, and it was pretty challenging but my injury seems to have totally cleared up which is great, getting stronger and getting fitter so this is very good. So it's a good way to start the month it's a good way to start the week, and it's a good way to start. Whatever. And then, yeah, I guess that's that's yesterday. I talked about today do not talk about today to confuse I'm going to talk about today. Why not just going to do, just gonna jump in there and do it. Today I woke up really ready to work like really focused really hyped. And then, I couldn't work straight away because you know the family is up and I thought Acacia speak to them first rather than just go straight from my bed to my desk which is in the same room and getting on with stuff. And then Simona said, you know, we've been putting off going to the doctor, we need to see a doctor about getting a what's called an X ray for me it has teeth for an orthodontic treatment and identity streaming. And also, I got this little lump just in my chest. It's only a small thing I've had a couple of years and I'm pretty sure it's nothing but we thought I should probably get it checked out hasn't changed in a couple of years. But you know, let's do it. problem is we don't have doctors work around here because we're so used to the UK where it's so this than the other. So of course, first thing is, you go to doctors you don't have an appointment you just wait and however many people are ahead of you. You just wait. And then we when we eventually did get saved the doctor. Somebody called the doctor on our mobile so she answered it. Whilst we're in there and chatted to them for 15 minutes. So, can you just not waste our time, like, how about we just have an appointment and then you just talk to us that too. And yeah, that's how it works here. The other way it works here is, she couldn't do anything for us, so no no I can't do, you know, blah, iconographies or x rays, even if the dentist told you to come and see me. Where do we need to go you need to go to this office. Okay, fine. So Simona goes with the kids to this office. And then, after another hour she has been see two or three other offices and they've all told her different things. Now we can't have lice like goodness sake. So, typical Italian bureaucracy of being passed around and no one knows what's going on, which was a complete waste of my morning just blew out entirely. And then the afternoon. And I was ready to work this morning and then the afternoon, we had long story short, we, we were talking about a holiday. Later in the year and meeting up with my parents and then it got into planning and then we spoke to my parents and he went back and forth and blah blah and. Long story short, is we actually have now decided on something and my mom and dad have booked flights. And, you know, that's all good. But that was basically my afternoons, so the whole day is just just disappeared and it's put me in s

Welcome to Episode 207 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest, and the day is actually the first of February, 2021, but this podcast is going to confuse me in time is about the is about yesterday, the 31st of January, 2021, but it's going to be dated first of February, because otherwise it's going to be far too confusing. Anyway, I made it, it's the morning, and I'm doing it so at least I remember this time. So follow up from yesterday. So, my plan of spending one hour per project started well enough, and then unravelled because I spent too long on certain projects, because the task that I was doing just took longer than an hour and I didn't want to stop it, but also I just figured that I could prioritise that task, because it was necessary and the other ones could actually wait. but what I did do is I've started yesterday again with working on my own music on a song on. I'm not your sucker or not your sucker, which is from album of blind it largely the vocals the guide vocals on it but I need to do proper vocals and backing vocals, much like most of the other songs on the album, but it's cool because the rest of the track is done, the bed track and it sounds cool so I'm really chuffed and it means I can move on to the next track. My plan is to get all of the 12 songs done as far as back backing tracks basically are done, and then go through and do all the vocals and get them done so I'm really excited about that because it's one step closer and it's very simple, just work on it every day. Who would have thought it. After that I spent a few hours working on a client's new clients, advertising campaign, because I wanted to launch that ideally yesterday but it will be today, but at least it will be ready to go. They've got a new single coming out a couple of weeks that's important I get on that early or early, you know, in time. So it was, it was pretty good. Everything unravelled not everything unravelled but at 530 last night. I got an email from my accountants, saying we've finished your tax return. Please can you okay now bearing in mind in the UK the tax return had to be done by midnight last night. So Sunday it's 530, they sent me the thing, and I was expecting. I don't know why but I was expecting pretty much no tax to be paid. And I was in for a rude awakening by quite a wide margin, which was an initial inducing moment, because as like far. And there's literally no way I could pay the amount that was owed. So long story short, One bonus is because of COVID, they are giving you a month's amnesty as it were without charging you late fees if you don't file your tax return. They will start charging interest on whatever you owe. As of today, but they won't charge you, the fee for being late if you fall before the end of February, and also a few things with a tax return that weren't quite right, which hopefully will reduce my tax load long and short of it is I sent an email back to the accountants, and we'll get it sorted this week, and then I'll probably speak to the tax office and see if I can stagger my payments over the next 12 months which I think they're also offering because of COVID, on account of last year, last tax year I had a business that brought in money and this tax year I have no business that brings in no money. So, I don't have the money to pay the tax bill, but it does highlight two really really important things, one of which I'd started doing recently, and the other which i'll come on to in a second. So the first one is, I need to set aside money every time I get paid for anything for tax and it's an obvious one, I know and everyone knows it, but of course when you're living hand to mouth, you don't, you know you don't have the 15 20% or whatever to put aside, or you do have it but you won't do it. Pay for other things like food and stuff. But I need to be really, really mindful of that and put that aside and be ready so that when tax bills come in, I'm ready to not get beat down by them. And that l

Welcome to Episode 206 of my podcasts Have you from the crow's nest, and it is Sunday 31st of January 2021. And it is a tax state tax due date in a couple hours, which I will come to in a second. But first, it's the evening time is 930 in the evening, and yesterday on the podcast, I said, I'm gonna do these in the morning, maybe work out better now. Stop forgetting about them on occasion. And what did I do? I forgot entirely this morning. That that was the plan. I was I guess so focused on just getting up and getting on with work. I completely forgot that I was doing podcasts in the morning, but at least I've remembered now. So I'm doing it tonight. Hopefully I'll do it again tomorrow morning. And I guess that won't really be much to say tomorrow morning. Anywho. There was something that I did yesterday, which is kind of really what this podcast is more to be talking about, I guess. So maybe I'll just do that about yesterday. And then tomorrow morning I'll talk about today. We'll see. But I I tried a new experiment with my work because I always find myself thinking that I don't have enough time to fit everything in. And that's probably because I like to really want to fit a lot of things in and I had a call I don't know who was actually really To be fair, but I got invited to join this thing called lunch club, I think 100 Club dot something. And basically, you can choose how many you want to but you do video call meetings with people and they can be random. You can or you can decide who you want and you can specify criteria about them that you want to meet with certain people. And they say and I guess Entrepreneurs or business people or executives or whatever, but there are all sorts of people on it. And I thought, you know, this is a good idea, you know, networking with people from the comfort of your own home. So I do one of these meetings every Thursday now at lunchtime, and I was talking to this person, this girl on Thursday. And one of the questions asked her was, what sort of projects you're working on at the moment, blah, blah, blah, was a big thing. And then she asked me, and I replied with, you know, a few things that I'm doing. And she was like, Wow, that's a lot of things and I kind of guess it's easy to forget. You know, not just me, but you You yourself, everybody, whoever, it's easy to forget what we do and how much we are doing. And actually often it's quite a lot. And for me personally, you know, I find that there's so much I still want to do, no matter how much I'm doing. So I have this perennial problem of trying to get stuff done and I'm trying to move away from one, the mindset that don't have enough time because half of it is mindset. And the other half of that is being not being organised enough. So, I decided I'm going to do something very simple. I put a timer on my computer and I set it to one hour. And then I decided to try and allocate one hour to each kind of project. You know, that needs doing that day. So the day before this was yesterday, the day before on Friday, I had gone into my like task management tool and tried to organise myself a bit better. All the projects that I'm working on, you know, getting tasks and putting them on there giving them some due dates. The idea Being that my working day should really be open this tool. It's called nifty, open nifty, see what's on my task list for the day and do them. And if those tasks are for a particular project, let's say a client or an album or something like that and then group them together and work Call them for an hour. And then when the hours up, move on to the next thing, whether you've kind of finished or not. So I did that with yesterday and I had really good success with it. And I actually started the day by and this what I'm planning to do for the seeable future is start the day working on my own music because that's been taken such a backseat once again for the last six weeks. And if I don't do it first thing then I get embroiled in all

Welcome to Episode 205 of my podcast The view from the crow's nest and it is Saturday, 30th of January, 2021, and it's been the longest time between my episodes, I think it's been five or six days so it gets nearly a week. And it's also the first time I have it's the first time but it's certainly the new switch for me because I'm going to be probably doing my podcast episodes in the morning, rather than in the evening when I'm going to bed. And therein lies the tale of why I've not done it for the last few days. I think probably yeah 24th. So, the 24th was last Sunday 25th was Leonardo's birthday. And I was going to be working majority of the day we can have a little party in the afternoon for a couple hours. And in the end, I didn't do much work, and we partied all afternoon, and I drank a fair bit as did Simona and we had a really nice relaxed afternoon and a really lovely and late evening. And so I didn't do my podcast. But, as part of that, because, you know, we're so do do I mean I'd worked I think something like 10 or 13 days or something without a break and I'd been doing, you know, kinda like 10 1012 hour days I guess most days. And I just I don't take breaks and I hadn't left the house. And it was just all constantly go go go. And I was pretty, pretty burnt out pretty tired. And I think on the Sunday just before, in fact, on the 24th I think I took the day off and then I sort of accidentally took Leonardo's birthday off on the 25th, and on the 26th I was so tired because we've got to bed so late, that I was, you know, wasn't gonna do any work. And that was the Tuesday and then the Wednesday I tried to do work but it was slow getting into it because I'd had three days off and I'd actually dare say it relaxed and unwound. And then you know it's been a process the last few days of trying to get myself back into back into working. And what happened also is because, you know, it was nice and relaxed so we had a bit of time, you know, we were talking similar and I about, you know, our plans and what we're doing and our routines and how we're working and, you know, we realised quite obviously that we just we spend too much time focusing on work and being productive and doing stuff that needs doing and not enough time on fun and on relaxation and on these kind of things. And the two of us came up with a very simple and obvious thing that we wanted to try, which is to go to bed earlier. And that's particularly prevalent for Simona because for eight years she's been going to bed, more or less, when I go to bed so fairly late, but then getting up a few times during the night with the kids, and then waking up really early with Leonardo, or with Mina first and then with Leonardo. And as a consequence, she's basically chronically sleep sleep deprived. And of course if you're like that you're, you're not going to have the energy, you're not gonna have the focus and the willpower and the motivation to do things that you might normally do. And so, you know, we thought well this is a really simple idea let's, let's get to bed earlier, you know, if I get to bed earlier then Simona doesn't feel like she should be staying up because otherwise we don't get time together or whatever and equally, if she goes to bed earlier. I'm bit more motivated circa well if I go to bed earlier what I wanted to do this year was be getting up earlier, but I realised I've been focusing on the wrong thing I've been focusing on getting up, but getting up is the. It's like the the effect, not the cause, you know the cause of getting up at 630 or something, is because you go to bed at 930 or 10 o'clock or something. But if I just focus on trying to get up at 630, and even I know I should be going to bed earlier I know this sounds like a completely obvious thing and it is completely obvious, but sometimes you know it takes a few times to kind of for something to really the penny to drop as it were. And so, since then we've been like okay let's get to bed earlier

Welcome to Episode 204 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest. It is Sunday the 24th of January 2021. Now, after yesterday, where as the day progressed and then went into the evening into the night I got into worse and worse mood. And I knew that it was, you know, the way I was looking at things rather than things themselves you know, as is always the case it's one's own interpretation of things that, you know, judges, whether they're good or bad or whatever and I was looking at everything and everything I was looking at was looking bleak or bad or put at a seminar man. You got to sort yourself out. So, this morning. I came up with a very cunning plan. It's very simple plan. I stayed in bed all day until about four o'clock in the afternoon. And basically I realised I needed a day off the simple as it is. I needed a day to not think about work and not think about art not think about anything. Just, just relax really just mom. And as always is the case Simona was so helpful and supportive and wonderful and she bought me breakfast in bed and then she brought me lunch and cuddled with her cuddle with her kids I fought with the kids in bed we battled each other. And I just, I watched UFC all day, basically. And just blanked everything It was really needed, like really needed. It was pissing down rain outside the whole day. I landed at four o'clock. I got dressed got kids got dressed, and the four of us went outside to play basketball there's a porch area that sheltered from the rain so we played there for a bit. And then, Leonardo wanted to go in the rain and then meanwhile it's going to rain I said yes we'll go in the rain. And there'll be big, big puddles and we thought Screw it. So we, the three of us, me and the kids were just jumping in the puddles and I got so soaked. Like, literally from, from tip to toe inside and out. Even my shoes you know all of the the kids and I our shoes which a waterproof had puddles in them you know it was like, totally soaked. And then we really enjoyed that and then we came in, had a bath together, and then go out and then went to get dinner and do video calls with friends and whatnot and then we had a power cup. And so, I celebrated the power cup by having some Baylor's which put me in a very good mood. And then we lit candles everywhere and had dinner, because at least the gas was working, and then got the kids into bed and then the power came back on so it was only out for about two three hours. It was really really enjoyable day. And I guess before that I'd worked for maybe about 10 days straight or something. And apart from the days that I had training I've been starting in about 10. And even with the days that I had training I'll be finishing at about 8pm. Pretty much every day. I don't know why I can, what to show for it but I've been doing a really intense and it's just been draining me and I because it's not, it's not the sort of work that gives you more energy, such as creative work is the sort of work that really drains you you know, studying marketing and business are working for clients and blah blah blah. So yeah, it's a lesson to myself and to anybody else who may be listening and feeling challenged at some point, sometimes we just need to pay off, simple as it sounds, and at least today. That seems to have done the trick. Of course, tomorrow's a new week I'll be back in it got a new client started so it's all going to be, you know, full on. But I think I need to get, as I've been saying for the last week or so or two, I need to get back to do my own art, I need to find a way to you know make that part of my regular routine again, because it was working for me very well, just before Christmas. And since then, you know, I wanted to focus on the marketing the business start building my fan base stop getting my clients fan bases, that's working, and to get back to what it is I'm doing in the first place. So that is the view from the crow's nest today at half 10 in the evening. So

Welcome to Episode 203 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest and it is Saturday the 23rd of January, 2021. Today Today I don't know where today when, frankly, I've kicked off the day with some training, and it's good and the pain in my pack is or that kind of area is getting less and less. So was able to do a little bit of exercise on it today, mostly legs but. And it seems to be alright so that's positive and getting better again so that's cool. And then after that, how that after on on my day when some new client, and in fact some other clients as well I've been talking about Tick Tock and if you're a musician, then everything keeps everybody keeps saying I need to be on Tick tock tick tock swears etc etc. Now, apart from a very very cursory knowledge of the platform I don't really understand and know it hadn't been on it really I haven't looked at it. So I thought, Well, okay, I've got a call this evening with the client who wants to talk about stuff that might include tic tocs Let me get my tic toc knowledge up, and thus and so I went tic toxifying myself today, and I watched a whole bunch of videos and webinars and they set the other and read articles and Dylan went on the platform and, and basically my entire day has been tik tok, and I've come to the conclusion that it's, you know, I can understand why people like it I can understand its uses, but as a as an artist. As a musician, I think it's an incredibly challenging platform to really you know do too much with on platform. Of course, you might be able to get people off the platform. And then you might be able to get them to other platforms where you can better monetize them. But, um, you know that sounds pretty. If that sounds pretty hot or monetize them is because, you know, if you're an artist and you want to make a living from your art, therefore you have to monetize it, and relying on streaming income alone is a really bad idea because streaming income is incredibly low, you know, if somebody streams your song you get like point 0004 P or something. So you need to have like, you know, a million streams just to get a couple $100 kind of things. So, you, you know, you need to have other routes to monetize, and I still firmly believe that the email is the best central part of that strategy central part of what you're doing. So my thought on Tick Tock is, it's fine. You could probably get some people watching you can get some followers you can get some traction on some things, but unless you've got a very good way of leveraging them off system, then, you know, I just think it's a lot of extra time it's a lot of extra work along with all the other things as a musician as an artist you need to do that, um, I'm not convinced of the, you know, I'm not convinced of the, the merit of. But one thing I did say in the video which I really liked it one of the videos, was an example of what it's called. Positivity bias, I can't remember what it was called, but basically it was a concept that we're using to describe getting in as an artist on tik tok but I really like the concept and I'm going to use it in other situations because great. It was during World War Two. I think it was the Americans or the Brits I can't remember, but they were losing a lot of planes, go out on bombing runs and whatnot and they'd come back and they'd have lost a load of planes. And so what they did is they analysed all the planes, you know, they came back they analysed all the bullet holes in the planes, and they saw that they were generally clustered around certain areas. So they were like, Aha. Makes sense. Well let's reinforce these areas and then, you know, that'll be better. So they reinforce these areas. But the stat the statistics would have seen they kept losing about the same number of planes. And then somebody, bright spot realised that if they're measuring the planes that came back, they're measuring the wrong thing. And in fact those planes that came back if they've got bullet holes

Welcome to Episode 202 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest. And it is Friday 22nd of January, 2021. Today, I had a bad sleep last night. Didn't get sleep after three woke up, I guess. Seven something or something. I guess yeah what I was talking about yesterday, or maybe a day before, but yeah basically I think not enough creative stuff not enough fun work should we say too much of this marketing and business stuff. And once again, is taking me away from, you know, especially the progress I was making with my art, and it's making me antsy, but also something else that has been bothering me, I realised and I forgotten, is when the place when the house is a mess. You know the environment really makes a big difference to me and even though I might be in my room. A lot of the time, if I'm feeling challenged overwhelmed or frustrated, etc. Then when I go in the other room subconsciously if I see mess everywhere, and mess all over the hall and blah blah, then it really does affect me and today I had a bit of a bit of a shout out everybody and let's get this place sorted and blah blah blah. And what possibly kicked it off as well, is we had a washing machine we paid you know whatever a few 100 euros for the washing machine then we paid 60 euros for a guy to come in and fit it because he had to do some piping or something for the thing. And I went to turn it on today and just before I did it's got one of these German they're called schuko plugs, even though we're in Italy and you need an adapter. And it's pretty standard stuff and I was just thinking Hang on a sec though but this adapter is Max 1500 watts. And I'm pretty sure the dishwasher is probably stronger than that and it was like 2300 watts. So you shouldn't be running it through this adapter. So I went downstairs, because there's a shop downstairs that sells all sorts of things including adapters, and every adapter the maximum is 1500 watts. And I said, well, hang on a minute. That's a bit weird so I did my research and found out that basically, you don't really get these type of adapters, anything more than 1500 watts. And yeah, I know that all of the major appliances like white goods appliances washing machines dishwashers they already use the schuko plugs and a little while ago we had a melted plug from exactly this kind of thing from the washing machine. And we just put it down to it being old we called an electrician he rewired the socket put in a new socket, put a new schuko plug adapter on the washing machine, and I didn't think anything of it so I checked it today, and a little fucker put a 1500 watt on which you shouldn't have done because that's what causes melts and potentially fires. So I was very disappointed with both of these guys the guy who did the washing machine a few months ago and the guy who did the dishwasher. Plug in a couple of days ago. So we found another electrician, because it's dangerous you can't do it it's dangerous Yo, so find another electrician and actually he came like 10 minutes after we called him who was basically driving past. He had a look he said alright cool cool cool, I can do all of this, I might be able to come this evening. You know, we'll see. And he just turned up rocked up this evening with another guy. And not only did he replace the actual wall socket, so we don't need the adapter so you can put the sugar plug in, but he did the same thing for the washing machine. And he also did that in the bedroom here where I'm working I've only got one wall socket, he doubled up my wall sockets, and I think. Did he give me two shakos or one schuco in a normal one. Either way, He also took my English like soccer, I've got this tower power tower thing you've put all sorts stuff into, and he took the English plug in he rewired it to an Italian plug. So that was another 60 euros. So, the dishwashers cost us like, I don't know, whatever 270 euros, the dishwasher and then another 120 euros just to have people basically saw out the elec

Welcome to Episode 201 of my podcasts, have you from the crow's nest and it is Thursday the 21st. Yeah, 21st of January 2021, welcome welcome welcome. I'm running out of, I'm running out of energy. Maybe I need a break or, I think, really what I need is a change of project focus. So, energy and motivation to focus on marketing, and those last few days, ironically now that I brought in another client for audience ninja. Hopefully, we'll see if they sign up, if they pay their invoice then they're definitely a client. But yeah, I think these last few weeks, three weeks basically I've just been focused big time on marketing, learning, you know, improving my skills my knowledge, putting it to practice starting to rebuild my fan base, helping my clients build theirs and it's been working it's been good, but I think I need to move into creative mode now and get some music and stuff done. So today, as part of my drive this year I'm intending to start gigging again. I do again yesterday I was talking about psychological barriers, and I'll summarise it. That basically, if you want to, to turn something into a habit or get something done. Often the starting point is the hardest bear so you need to try and do whatever you can to kind of con yourself into at least just starting, and they alongside that a similar idea is that basically don't worry about completing everything just get started. So today I pulled out this pedal which I bought, probably about five years ago and basically never used, which is, you can plug a microphone and an acoustic guitar into it, and then it gives you nice effects for the acoustic guitar and for your voice. And it's also got a looper functionality on it. And so, I don't know how to use it properly. I don't know how to use it, really. And I know it's going to take some configuring which is probably what's put me off using it in the past, because I'm bit lazy like that when it comes to pedals and things. So, but nonetheless I dug out the cables that I got the pedal the power supply all that stuff got the microphone set up, etc. So today I had a little bash with it. And though I didn't really try and get into any of the configuring side of things. I thought to myself, you know, just start off just get it all plugged in, get it working. That's the first thing. But I did start playing around with the looping pedal, and I forgot how much fun they are and I'm, I'm not very good with loopers particularly but straightaway, you can just create such cool stuff. And it does make me think, maybe I should get a proper lube station, you know, and really go to town on this stuff, because it gives such a different dimension, when specially when you're playing solo solo acoustic as well. So maybe that's something I'll look at in the future. But for now I recorded a few little ideas, nothing that I can probably redo and they maybe they're good for, you know, starting properly writing songs. You know in Cubase is just sort of basic ideas, but um, but it was cool. It was fun. It was nice to play a bit of music, just for the spontaneity and enjoyment of playing music which is something kind of not really done for a bit. I've written a couple of song ideas and noodled around the guitar. But when I'm noodling it's just like basically blues stuff yeah blues esque stuff and I fall in the same routine. But what's really cool about the looper pedal is enables me to do a little bit, you know like, you know, with my mouth or whatever, cymbals. And of course that means that whatever I'm doing on the guitar might be a bit different to my normal blue stuff so it pushes me in a different direction straightaway. So it was really cool I guess I really enjoyed that. And, yeah, that's that's pretty much it just, you know, moving forward, kind of think about to turn into a music flex or remember for about six months ago maybe longer probably even longer than that Simona was saying to me that she notices that I go through cycles, and I get, I go t

Welcome to Episode 200 of my podcasts The view from the crow's nest. It is Wednesday the 20th of January, 2021, or 20 2021 2001 2021. I'm getting myself confused. Anywho, sorry I missed yesterday. I got to bed late ish but Simona was already in bed asleep and the kids were sleeping the other room and I didn't fancy going in the bathroom and doing the podcast so basically I just didn't do it. I'm sorry. So, caught me where I was, but the last few days I've definitely felt overwhelmed. again, and so many things to do, trying to fit everything in, and, you know, everything is a full time job and I'm trying to do 10 of them so I'm definitely struggling with that. But nonetheless, you know, bit by bit I'm getting there I'm coming. I think I'm coming out of my recent sort of two three week three week probably Uber focus on music marketing, my own music and also other people's have an increase in my knowledge increasing my experience, and practising what I preach and getting stuff out there, etc. And now I think I'm coming to the point where I need to take a little bit of a break from that. That said, I've got a couple of, you know, clients for audience ninja and it looks like today, I've brought onboard, another client. So, they want to go they want to do it. They want me to invoice them so assuming they pay the invoice then we're in business. So that's really exciting. Another musician who's really dedicated which I really love because you know they're going to do what they need to do which is brilliant. And, you know, I'm getting good results so that my current clients so I'm very, very happy, very confident that we're going to replicate it with them. But of course it does mean that it's more music marketing work and less time for my other projects particularly my own music, and it also means the pressures on a little bit, and, you know, want to increase my skills and my knowledge even further because I really want to get good results for my clients. So yeah that's that's kind of a blind eye to love my album that's just, just will not die that won't that I keep doing for a bit and then moving away from for necessity. I want to get back to you by the end of January I want to be back working on that and, you know, knocking through the tracks, because I really want to get the album finished ASAP, which I've been saved for months I know, but I'm getting closer, but I just haven't put any time on into music production for a good sort of six weeks, I guess. So I've kind of feel a bit rusty but I'm sure once I don't want to two sessions I'll, I'll be back into it and it won't have that psychological barrier. I remember reading. Very true point about basically psychological barriers and how to kind of overcome them and often starting something is far more challenging. Getting literally getting yourself started mindset and getting started than actually doing it. So the thing that I'd read was about exercise, running in this particular case and he said, you know, instead of thinking you got to get up get stuff on bla bla bla go out and run and then you never do get your stuff ready and put it by the door so that you've got one less thing to kind of think about you see the stuff they just put my feet in there and, you know, any little thing you can do to trick yourself into making it easier in the moment when your willpower is going. I don't want to do that. You know will help. Case in point, I had drum kit downstairs in our old apartment block for like five years, and I basically never really used an electronic drum kit. And then when we moved into the flowers very excited to hear I was very excited because we got stuff Brian from England, including the drum kit. I set it up in this sort of storage room so this kind of music room. And, you know, you could walk up to it is you know you had to pull a bed or like a rolling bed out of the way, which was easy enough and unlock the door to walk in and I basically never touched it. And another mon

Welcome to Episode 199 of my podcasts, have you from the crow's nest, then it is Sunday the 17th of January 2021. I'm drained man I'm tired. I'm feeling overwhelmed. Again I'm having one of my little overwhelmed moments, just with how much there is to do you know not even including all the various opportunities in various different areas and industries you know not talking about worldschooling Harbour, talking about anything else like that, just audience ninja even just talking about my own art, you know, my own music even. There's just so much work to do. You know this week I've been looking last week basically I've been looking at marketing and reigniting my marketing game. And, you know it's going well but at the same time it's just, it's a full time job, you know, and it's a full time job for multiple people to do it properly. And that's without spending any time working on actually creating any music, you know, not recording any music properly not writing any songs not vocal practising not practising to, you know, play live again, and not practising guitar, get my guitar skills back up. You know all these little things which in and of themselves take time. And, you know, trying to get it all done together, same time is at the moment. Yes training me and it's feeling pretty overwhelmed by or pretty tired. No doubt, I will, you know have another little breakthrough of energy or whatever tomorrow, think also, or part of it, I've got a lot of pain in my chest. On the right hand side of my chest. I've had it I guess I guess I've had a few weeks I don't really know. And I can't work out whether it's a pain from sort of muscle strain from training. And this musculature or whether it's anything more than needs more investigation. And that's I guess playing on my mind a little bit as well and, you know, all of the above. I'm not getting enough exercise and, you know, three times a week, I'm training with, with our personal trainer and that's fantastic but you know not walking enough I'm not moving my body generally enough, I feel I'm not playing with the kids enough and spending enough time with them or enough time with Simona. So it's all a bit, a bit overwhelming at the minute really. That said, you know, this is what I chose. And, you know, you want to make a career music is perfectly possible but you got to hustle. And I guess at the moment I'm feeling like I don't think I have enough time. Do you know to do all the hustles that are necessary for the hustle, but we shall see. So yeah, that's, it's gonna be short and sweet one today that's the view from the crow's nest. Tomorrow the beginning of the week. And hopefully I'll start with a bit of energy and be able to hit the ground running. We shall see. So that's it that's me today, that's how I'm feeling. How are you feeling, you can let me know on Twitter, Romeo Crow, or you can let me know by going to Romeo crow.com slash podcast and leave a voicemail message for the show. Well, I hope you're well. Hopefully you're not overwhelmed. And I will be back for my 200th episode. I hope tomorrow. And hopefully it'll be a higher note than this one. We shall see. Take care yourself Toodle Pip.