With COVID throwing a curve ball into my life and turning me into a full time dad of 3 kids ages 7 and under and distance learning supervisor, I wanted take this opportunity to rethink how I spend my day. Usually I just do what I can in between life happening. Maybe I would work on songs when I felt like it, or digest some random musical idea here and there. This has never been conducive to getting better at anything I want to be good at. I made a color coded schedule with red being my personal development, dark green being family things, purple is my son’s school, and light green is the stuff my wife is doing. (she also is at work until about 1 each weekday then works from home the rest, including distance teaching a few nights). So I am basically doing this solo all day. I am sure this schedule will have to bend quite a bit, but I figured it would be nice to have a goal at least.
Anyone else do anything similar, or have any musical things I should add in to a weekly routine?
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That’s a detailed schedule!
I am with Ron, when my kids were less than 3 years old, I practically stopped music. It didn’t help that I was traveling all the time for my work though.
I love how you’re able to fit so much personal development time in there, frankly I don’t know what else to add. If it wasn’t for Covid I’d say you need to fit some band practice (time when you’re not playing solo) but that’s not going to happen right now.
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Nicely done! I hope you and your family are doing well!
I used to do this very same thing, but there was one issue that really bothered me. I would feel really discouraged if something important came up and I couldn’t complete what I had planned. It would throw off the rest of the week. In your case, it looks like you write and record on Wednesday and Friday for an hour. If those times are interrupted, now you have to wait for the following week to do it again.
My solution, although not perfect, was to plan one day at a time and having an activity bank to pull from. In your case for example, on Monday night I would see that I have 1:30 to 5:30 open the next day. I would look at the list of things that you have in red (practicing, lifting, reading, etc.) and fill them in order of importance.
This way if the whole day is a wash you can always start fresh the following.
This is just my two cents, but do whatever works for you!
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Really the main productive time is in the early morning before they get up. Example, right now I am watching LEGO videos with them in bed instead of doing my night practice 
I can’t say no.
We’ll see how this goes. Somethings are simpler than others. My gym is in the living room so I can workout while doing things with them still in the afternoon. Focusing on music stuff is a bit more challenging.
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Yea, I just mocked it up today, so I will certainly need to make some changes depending on things go. Songwriting getting blown out is certainly a concern for me, but even once a week is better than the once every few months I am doing now. It mostly gives me a target to shoot for instead of wondering what I should be doing right now. I’ll give this a few weeks and see what needs to change.
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