Do you work on projects in a serial fashion or parallel?

Hi,

This goes for composing / arranging music and creating / designing equipment. Are you the kind of person who focuses solely on one project (as much as is possible, considering you have to wait for other people to do things you don't), or do you work on several projects at once, performing different stages on separate projects as and when the inspiration strikes?

Both approaches have their advocates. Having said that, from what I've seen, people who tend to bite the bullet and approach a project with tunnel vision from start to end *tend* to be the more productive (in my experience - say if you disagree). Those with many projects going on at once can often nibble at each, but without really getting anything finished. Through no choice of my own (I have to wait for other people to get their s**t together) I've recently become more of the latter, and it worries me. I don't want to be one of those guys you know with a cupboard full of great, but incomplete ideas.

Anyway - it's late here and the gist of my post is probably totally incomprehensible. Props to you if you can make sense of it

Justin

I'm usually working on lots of projects at once, mostly because I scrounge for parts a lot, but yes... I don't get most of them done in nearly double the time it takes a more focused person. I also tend to be distracted by shiny objects...

Running a studio in the current age, everything is in parallel all the time.  No artist ever works beginning to end on anything in a continuous fashion.  Twice in the last 3 years I was juggling more than 12 album projects in parallel.  Squeeze some electronics in?  Parallel.  Work until you find you need a part you don't have, work on something else while the parts order list for a half dozen projects grows.  Try not to lose any. 

Is there such thing as serial?  I wish I would maybe feel more focused in general but it just seems nothing ever works that way.

S-E-R-I-A-L

Many of the music projects that I have been involved in seem to serial-parallel-serial.... So, they start off with tunnel vision at the beginning, then flounder around in the middle - sometimes for a couple of years, and then a big push when the end is in sight.

I did an album for a female folk duet - they just did Monday afternoons for about a year!

I like to have maybe two projects on the go at any time. If one stalls for a bit I can focus on the other without stressing about it. When one of them is finished I will start on something new. Any more and it gets a bit haphazard, I find.

electronics or music , I feel it's more effective to work on one thing at a time
but for the reasons many have pointed out , hard to do in practical terms
but if you want to get something done  , start chunking down on it bit by bit

List of projects with priorities and steps needed to take , and expected [ committed ]
dates or time lines  , flowcharts can actually help but then that takes up time

With the exception of autonomous functions (like breathing) the cognizant activity of the human machine is generally one thing at a time so serial in the short term, but like a computer we are interrupt driven, to divert from the serial path, for short term or longer term service calls.

JR

I forget were I was reading this, but a university did a test between people that consider themselves great "multi-taskers" and people that are focused on one thing at a time. And the people that were more focused were much more productive. I'm in the former group, trying to get into the more focused group.

I used to both manage an engineering group and do some individual design for special projects at the same time. I used to have to mentally shift gears between managing my group and doing my personal design work, since the management was very much a multi tasking activity, and design more serial. In simple terms I couldn't do both at the same time. I would close my office door and go to my lab bench to shift into design mode, ignoring the competing distractions of keeping all those plates spinning on their poles. Of course I couldn't ignore management responsibilities for too long of an interval or that would suffer.

I think the productivity issue may center on our brains ability to hold a finite amount of data in "near" memory for use and quick retrieval. In design you need to allocate your entire conscious memory to factoids about that particular design effort. For general management you are routinely juggling tens of different competing threads.

I see similar issues with writing software... there is a whole universe of instruction sets, and project specific details the brain needs to hold in near memory to work effectively.

or not... YMMV

JR

I was a parallel guy. I'm building my studio now and as it is a huge project for one person (myself), I had to become a serial builder in a tunnel during 3 years now and for the 2 next years minimum.

i work on projects in series parallel like 4 X 8Ω speakers wired so that that they are 8Ω

the part of the disease I have is that when i get stuck or run out of a part
instead of finishing up one of the others on list , i start another , like an endless feedback loop
always working on a project .
It's a good thing about printing out the bom , you have something to check off

Currently, my parallel workload is (running a small accessory manufacturer):

Chasing overdue bills

Chasing suppliers

Ensuring QC from suppliers / fabricators (major stress - you look away for a moment, something happens...)

Paying suppliers, doing accounts

Finishing final assembly, QC and boxing up orders

Managing stock control (major stress, owing to suppliers ever changing their rosters / prices and availability)

Trying to finish off a new website (last one dates to 2004...). Big job.

Nothing unremarkable about the above. However… I’ve been thrown some bones by ‘famous’ artists. In the age we live in, these projects have the potential to create more long-term benefits for me than my ‘bread ’n’ butter’ daily accessories.

One is a large custom job for a high profile, young artist. It’s moving along, but at a *much* slower pace than I’d like, on account of my above work paying the bills. I suspect the artist is getting frustrated at the lack of progress… I can only hope he’ll be sufficiently impressed with the end product to forget how long it took.

The other project is to design and manufacture the most complex (in terms of mechanical design and stock sourcing) item I’ve made. The prototype is out there and Mr Famous Artist is touring around with it. People have offered me deposits just off this, without even seeing the production version… (ain’t celebrity a powerful thing?). This project is progressing at a snail’s pace...

On top of this I have to deal with sharks. One minute I’m wondering why there’s too much third harmonic in a prototype, the next I’m trying to figure out how to get paid… I’m beginning to wonder if Mr Famous Artist’s product will ever hit the shelves… It will, but a lot later than I’d like.

If I don’t go hell-for-leather to get the jobs for ‘famous’ artists finished, I’ll look back at my career in years to come with regret, thinking what my company ‘could’ve’ been. But at the same time, without the accessories business, how do I support myself?

If you’ve read this far, thanks. Having ten different jobs is not agreeing with me, but where to compromise? So far, my attempts at taking people on have proven more costly than doing it myself. People in the UK simply don't want to work in manufacturing; not in the SE, anyway...

J 

At the moment working on a big project... my first stage a 12-2-2 +2fx send discrete mixer, some time 16-6-2+6 and 2 51X slots each channel. thinking to future, but working on one

I definitely work in parallel, whether it's composition or builds. The composition can't really be brute forced, but lately I have narrowed my DIY focus to 2 or 3 of the big scary ones. Other stuff pops up here and there, but I have been good about getting back to my itemized lists. Kind of how I go about things in general: I start something out strong, put off finishing until I can't stand to look at my to-do pile, then finally finish that with some other projects in a huge blitz. Not the most efficient way to work, but it does afford me some time to sort out the best way forward when I hit an inevitable wall on each project.

I usually work in parelell because of the time it takes to get parts. I work on what I can when I can. I do whatever presently makes the most sense.