GTD For Songwriters (pt 2)

Have you read the intro and part one?

Getting Things Done (GTD) teaches you to sort things by what you need to do with them next, rather than what they are (a CD, a chord chart, manuscript paper).

As I’ve wrestled with the problem of how to file songwriting ideas, I've realised everything pretty much falls into one of six categories

Best of

This is your portfolio of your best work to date, finished enough to share with the world in a form that the world can understand. For me it's a playlist of my best final mixes and a folder with all my best songs in chord chart form.

Current

The song you’re working on right now. Song. Singular. Not plural.

Potential

This has two parts. Song ideas that actually might be worth working on someday and fragments - a line, a title, a chord, a metaphor that might fit in any number of songs

Retired

It’s over. It may have even been in your 'best of' once upon a time but the years (or months) have not been kind to it and it’s time to put the little fella to sleep. These are the demos your next of kin are going to be fleecing your fans with long after you’re dead. (BTW you can always gut the song and put any parts worth saving back into your potential file)

Archive

These are all the various drafts and rewrites of the songs that you’ve already completed. These are documents your next of kin are going to be fleecing collectors at auctions with long after you’re dead.

Rejects

You got the inspiration and faithfully wrote it down, but now you look at it in the cold light of day you realise that the muse meant to drop it off at Mr Poopie’s house for inclusion on Poopie Music Vol. 10.

Next time – why I don't like nothin' and what the point is not

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