Like so many jobs in the entertainment biz, this career demands an ever-increasing level of technical savoir faire. And yet so many composers have blind spots when it comes to leveraging technology to keep their work schedule on track. We’re often housed in a facility full of computers, with a cell phone strapped to our belt and a bagged laptop under the desk. Yet we’re still surprised when a session runs long and we miss a meeting, an email goes unanswered or we lose a time window to return an important call at a respectable hour. Sometimes assistants can help avoid such pratfalls. But just like most composers can’t afford a full-time orchestrator, copyist or conductor – we often must be our own personal assistant, even when there’s an actual person filling that role several days per week. With that, even in a world of email, cell phones and social networking, many creatives bristle at the idea of using time management tools. “Give me Post-It Notes® or give me death!” Unfortunately, the risks and rewards often aren’t fully considered – which inevitably translates to unseen opportunity costs.

I was introduced to this concept during my days in the financial world. Even though that’s where it originated, it has filtered out into other fields of study, including project and time management. In it’s original form, it can reveal the difference between, for example, putting money in a certificate of deposit versus investing the same cash in the stock market. There are many factors that go into valuing that gap, and in most cases it’s impossible to know all of factors that make the end result completely accurate. However it’s the process of discovering all that can be known that makes the evaluation worthwhile (and ultimately may impact the final decision). So let’s look at a simple example of how that applies to the composer.

You’re up late at night writing a “quick” email to a director that you promised to call earlier in the day. But instead of just covering the salient points, you’re caught up trying to craft the pre-amble to your email explaining (read: apologizing) why you didn’t call earlier as agreed – while trying to not look like a jerk or an idiot. Instead of having a full conversation, you’re only having half of the exchange – because you’re writing an email, after all. So now you’re at risk of over or under-informing and coming off as either a boor or a flake. So what should have been a five-minute phone exchange earlier in the day has now turned into a late-night 20-minute writing/editing expedition with you not at your mental best. (don’t deny it – we’ve all done it) And even if you’re the black belt master ninja of email composition and can effortlessly, accurately and concisely sum your thoughts in the form of haiku – unless you’re also telepathic you’ve still only accomplished half of the conversation.

At some point you’re going to be repeating the same information again in a later conversation with the same director who’s not only irritated that it’s a day late, but she also hates haiku. The penalty depends on the scenario. It could simply be time wasted that could have been spent sleeping. Was the conversation to be a simple status check, or was it to discuss whether or not to use you on the project? Maybe since you missed the follow-up call you gave the director the impression that they’re not as important (rightly or wrongly) as the project you’re currently working on, and they’ve spent the intervening time looking for a replacement. Perhaps the call was was to discuss expanding the music budget to hire live players, but instead the director bought a new system for their edit bay. There’s a chance the email itself managed to steer the conversation into an unproductive direction, and now you get to extend the follow-up call in back-tracking with a potentially confused and most-likely agitated director. Or maybe it was to discuss working on the next project – which might have been in jeopardy before you even hit “Send” on that late night email. And of course it’s possible that the decision was made before you missed yesterday’s phone call – and none of it would have mattered even if you had done everything right and on time. And that, my friends, is typical of opportunity cost. It can be maddening to work through all of the permutations, but in most cases it can show where a few small actions early on could have forestalled many of these potentially negative outcomes.

So let’s look at a few examples of how technology could have saved us from this scenario. Fortunately we’re in a world where the tools are all around us, but in many cases the appropriate features go unused.

First is the mobile phone itself – many of them have a calendar function that can work in a pinch. Simply set an event that brings up a one-word reminder. Even if you typically switch your phone off during studio sessions, you can simply set most phones to “flight mode” instead, which keeps it on while preventing calls and text messages from disturbing your session. The reminder pops up (with a polite sound or vibrate notification) and you know to “come up for air” and switch your phone on and make the call. Disaster averted – all while keeping your conscience clear so you can focus on the music completely during the intervening time.

You can also use online collaboration tools like Google’s toolkit. Their calendar function is very well thought out and easy to use. You can set up multiple calendars, and even share them privately with other Gmail users (who doesn’t have a Gmail account these days?) which can be a big help when working on a long project (or a series of small ones) across a diverse group. The best part is that it’s ad-supported, so it feels like a “free” app, it’s reasonably secure and it all runs through a web browser and can synchronize to other applications and mobile devices. Even if your DAW is not connected to the web, you can use that laptop under your desk to log into Gmail’s Calendar and create and update to-do lists and set events that can even notify you via text messaging. And if you have a part-time assistant you can assign tasks for them through their Gmail account as well as keep an eye on following-up on tasks that should already be “in the books”. Both Apple and Microsoft have their various incarnations of the same functionality – both in the box and online. Even media companies are beginning to get the picture by adding project/task management features to media and collaboration apps. Virtual Katy’s VKorus is one good example of audio post tools “growing up”. And when I worked for a large industrial scale post production house, I was part of a team that helped design a solution centered on Microsoft’s Project Server, which connected work flow tools from each person’s Outlook email client (and often their mobile phones) to scheduling tasks for specific editors and bays, all the way to automatically updating customers at the various studios, end-to-end. So in that case it was a matter of bending a general scheduling tool to the purposes of a media giant. But of course you don’t have to go to those lengths in order to operate with new efficiency. The point is to use what’s at hand and of value, and make use of it consistently. Then when the needs change it’s a matter of scaling to a different tool, instead of struggling with trying to build and understand a new process.

This is another concept borrowed from the tech world that applies equally here – the Pareto Principal. You’ve probably heard it a million times – the 80-20 rule; 20% of the effort often yields 80% of the benefit – and that certainly applies here. When thinking about scaling up your task management process, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and excuse yourself from dealing with it by thinking “that’s the contractor’s/my assistant’s/my spouse’s job” – when in reality the buck stops with *you*. Fortunately you can start with tools as close at-hand as your belt clip and keep it to the basics.

I began merging some of my IT practices to the media world with the most mundane of tasks. I started to put the dates of monthly bills on my Outlook calendar and synchronized it to my phone’s calendar. I’d get a beep first thing in the morning to remind me to make an online payment, check that a deduction was completed the night before – or even go old-school and actually write a check and put a stamp on an envelope to drop in the out box. It’s a really trivial thing, but it can be a huge weight off your shoulders to not carry around that handful of regular action items in your head. So as other “opportunities” presented themselves, I found ways to offload those tasks to a device that functions as a “digital” personal assistant. I started to add a few important calendar items for events – like a reminder to swing by the local dry cleaner before they closed the next day to pick up my good shirt and slacks for a red carpet event later that evening. And of course there’s making sure you’re on time and on-task with your principals, as well as those you employ that need to have their materials ready on time. As much as you want to look sharp to those that hired you, it’s nearly as important to stay organized (and follow up) with those you employ.

And while I believe that there’s more to scheduling than “accidental” project management, one size does not fit all. A very good example where a framework simply didn’t fit was the audition that Deane, Lee and I submitted for a major television show. (see podcast No 22 for a one-hour de-brief on lessons learned from that) It initially looked like the audition process would transpire over the course of a few weeks, where we’d each roll off of individual projects at different times, and work on our individual cues to be submitted in one kit at the end of that period. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to use the collaborative tools on Gmail to keep things like a cue list in the shared docs area, and track individual status on cues as they were “burned down” in each composer’s studio. As well as this has worked for me in the past for me, it pretty much collapsed in a day or two. One of the major reasons was that the submission date was much closer than we had originally understood. So we went from “we’ll get to it when we can and meet in a couple of weeks” to “drop everything and do it *now*!” So we dropped everything and reverted to a litany of email exchanges and occasional conference calls on Skype/iChat. There were some problems with that fallback approach, in that some important emails got lost in the shuffle, and with the compressed schedule that created more drama that would have normally occurred. So there were definitely lessons learned on that front that will likely inform any future collabs [read, keep Skype/iChat during crunch time and forgo the email].

By contrast, a really basic practice recently saved my bacon on getting a project done. I was doing sound design and mix on a webisode and late in the schedule the director found out that some source music wouldn’t clear in time for it to air. I offered to replace the cue with a vibe-alike, but the clock was ticking. The concerns were around finding players, getting the right tone for the song and of course fitting everything into the show with the right edits and cuts. So I offered to mock up as much as I could of “the vibe” in four hours and promised to get back to the director. So I set up a reminder on my phone, switched it to flight mode and shut out the rest of the world. I’m really glad I did that, because those four hours felt like they went by in five minutes. I sent up a quick intro, verse and chorus of my “take” on the parody tune and he loved it. That was the good news. The bad news was that I knew that we’d blow the schedule at the rate I was going, particularly if we were going to try and bring in live players to flesh out the band in time to record vocals the next day. The director and co-writer were to come over the with the show’s composer to figure out how to work in original lyrics and sing the parts. Then I had to make time to mix the song and mix a cut of that song into a montage in the episode. Looking at the burn rate and what had to be done, we decided to make some compromises.

First of all, we decided to write just the segments of the song that actually made it into the show. That meant a bit of extra work on my part to export the cue and tempo-match a new project file to the exported segments – but it saved us a ton of time by letting us focus on the parts of the song that were to air. Then the next decision was made to keep all of the parts virtual. I made an initial furtive call around to a few players that I knew, but there simply weren’t enough hours to put everything together and it didn’t seem worthwhile to bring in a player for 40 seconds worth of music. So, I stayed with virtual guitar parts and a drum machine that I programmed myself. Fortunately the task was to do a parody song – so a layer of virtual Velveeta from pre-canned bass, drums and guitar actually helped the tune out. So the recording and mix session went without a hitch – and everything made it into the episode with a day to spare. Parts of the song worked out so well the director actually put a repeat of the lead into the chorus as the music for the credits at the end of the show – a bit of a nod that things turned out as well (or perhaps better) than we all expected. Now fans of the show are asking for an mp3 of a full-length version of the tune – not bad, considering where we were three days before the final cut was submitted to the network. So in this case, a very simple task management tool not only kept me in good stead with the director, but it also gave us a clear window into what we were actually going to be able to accomplish in the remaining time. It’s all too easy to over-estimate our ability to deliver, so a minuscule aside like setting a reminder on a cell phone can bring a welcome dose of reality, and likewise can radically improve how you’re perceived as a professional.

Let’s face it – while technology is constantly advancing, composers tend to pick and choose their spots when keeping up with the times. In each case, the composer usually has a set of justifications for whichever way the decision falls. There are situations where the status quo is paramount, and every effort is made to keep changes in the studio to an absolute minimum. By contrast, sometimes we feel that we “need” to have *that* sound from the newest/hottest piece of software or hardware – which means taking on a series of updates and upgrades even in the middle of a project. Just like any other business, it comes down to balancing perceived risk and reward. But that measure is usually skewed by what interests us. And either by accident or design, personal schedule management is an area that often gets ignored because it can seem too boring or complicated.

But I hope that I’ve shown a few examples where the subject can be approached in smaller “bites”, and I hope that readers will also chime in with their insights and experiences with various tools and processes. Let’s hear it, Scorecast readers! What tools and processes to you use to keep order in your studio?

________________
HOUSTON HAYNES was born an raised in the southeastern United States, and moved to Los Angeles in 2003 to pursue a career as a composer. You can find his SCORECast bio (and links to his other sites) here.