Tag: projects

Early Morning & Personal Projects

It’s that time of the year again when the mornings are rather chilly, and the last thin that you want to do is leave the warm comfort of the bed and face the near zero degree temperature of the house and start the day. But somehow, for some reason if the reason for the early start is a fun personal project, it makes the transition a little easier.

This morning in the two degrees Celsius I dragged myself out of bed to film a local band being interviewed on the local radio. Radio station studio spaces are small at the best of times, there isn’t enough room to swing a cat (poor cat), yet somehow we managed to squeeze in the radio presenter, a couple of band members, and not one, not two, but 4 cameras in the space. It was a blast to film (other than a small technical hitch with an SD card) and by 8:45am we were all over, car packed and all. Most days I’ve barely eaten breakfast by 8:45.

Later on in the day I sat down to start the editing process. {side note, 4 cameras and no slate is a dumb idea for those wanting to try something similar at home…always slate the footage, at both ends if you can.} I spent about half an hour, maybe 45 minutes on it, at least that is what I thought I’d done, I looked at the clock, 2 hrs 15 minutes. Where has all the time gone???

As I’m exploring a raft of personal projects, mixed in with professional projects, I’m amazed at how quickly time flies on the personal ones, yet in the professional ones sometimes I feel someone needs to chain me to the computer just to keep my attention on the project.

This probably highlights something, I should find people to pay me to do the same work as I do in my personal projects, and scrap some of the professional ones. However I wonder if the opposite would happen, like a children’s see-saw, would getting paid to do more small c creative work (photography, filming, design) ultimately mean that the more technical projects I started doing would be be more enjoyable again & I would start to dread the small c creative stuff? 

I’m not sure. 

Would I bound out of bed, no matter the outside temperature? Or go back to being a lazy 10 times snoozer?

Two weeks down

Check it out, I’m still doing this, 2 weeks in, 4 to go. Week two was definitely easier than week one. I found some themes to riff on, mainly digital minimalism (& and there’s a post or two in the drafts folder continuing that idea. I managed to finally launch my Udemy course on How to speed up WordPress, I found some other bloggers that are at the same point in the process as me, not ones who’d been doing this for years & I even wrote briefly about feelings & emotions. 

Sure there’s been tough times, (I started a draft titled ‘everything’s meaningless, utterly meaningless’), I got angry at mistakes I made (another draft around an experience this week of trying to create, but continuing to fall on my face & my odd reaction of anger). Despite this, this is the first creative project that I’ve stuck with daily. I think because it’s relatively easier to do with the aid of either my iPhone or iPad. I simply jot down thoughts throughout the day of what I think, or hear, or learn about & pick the best to riff on of an evening. And thankfully the thoughts flowed a little easier this week. Probably the next thing to slowly start to work on is structure of a post, so I can cut the rambling & expand on the important stuff.

A big week behind. Let’s see what the week ahead brings.

Just submitted my first course to Udemy

It’s taken months to get together, but it finally happened. I have submitted my first course to Udemy, now they just have to review it.

I found that when I submitted my test video I was quite nervous and had thoughts going through my head like ‘They won’t like it, you ummm too much, you can’t speak very proper’ things of that nature. This is a different nervousness. Which is hard to put into words, but I can feel my heart in my chest. A big thank you to James who really pushed this project to the next level. I was going to do a single angle with screen cast cut in shot and he just took it to the next level. Thanks heaps mate!

It feels like such a little project, yet so big at the same time. We have learnt a lot from it. For starters, for the next one I’ll be doing a solid day of practice before filming. I think I’ll also give myself some time to think about additional visuals that we can use in the footage.

Let’s see where this adventure goes. But going back to our questions from day 1.

What is this for?

This is a project to practice putting together an online course of original content. To learn and become more comfortable in front of the camera.

If this doesn’t ‘succeed’ will I still be glad I did it?

Define succeed: In an ideal world, I would like 1 sale a week. That would pay for my internet connection. 3 a week would be great. But at the moment it’s not about the money, as I have a job and it already pays the bills. Instead its about learning the craft of being in front of a camera and putting together content. To this, we have already succeed.

Update: 60 minutes later. WE ARE APPROVED! If you want, check it out at ageek.io

The side effects of this project

The act of practicing putting ideas and thoughts down seems to be paying off, within just a week and half. This evening I spent my time after dinner writing desciptions for my upcoming udemy course on Supercharging WordPress. There wasn’t any resistance that I usually get when I sit down to write.

However the downside of it, is that I feel like I’m out of words to finish writing about today’s other thoughts. I’ve got a good draft on how I got really angry with my failure today, but it will just have to wait.

Project Day

Today was project day, almost an entire day to work on personal projects. I feel the times I’ve learnt the most in my life is through personal projects. They allow you to create and explore new ideas and concepts, without the weight of the person who your trading time for money for breathing down your neck wanting a result. 

I have found that almost without fail* personal projects have lead to new paid projects in the future. 

5 reasons I enjoy personal projects.

  1. A chance to explore a new field or technology
  2. The people that you meet along the way, those who have gone before & are leading the way for those looking to follow.
  3. I love to learn new skills and work on new things. Dry repeatitive work is not my thing.
  4. Time usually flys. If your working on a personal project & watching the clock like you would in a day job, you probably have the wrong project.
  5. I almost always can do a better job of a pervious task in the same/similar field after working on a personal project.

Today’s projects:

  • Swapping out the fan in my NASs PSU from a noisy one with a loose bearing to a nice quite one.
  • Worked on my upcoming training video series for http://ageek.io called “How to Speed Up WordPress”.
  • Played with some business card designs for a couple of gifts

* personally, I’ve never had anyone pay me to play music, yet I’ve spent time learning a couple, however it has helped in my studio recording & live sound work.