*Third time’s the charm.

Wow! (or as my German friends write, “wau” *smile*) In less than a month, I embark on my third — and final — trip of the year-long vocal improv course I have been taking. For our final session, I’ll meet course instructor Rhiannon, our three co-pilots and my 16 fellow classmates in Amsterdam.

This last trip will be different in a couple of ways.

First, we’ll be staying in the city of Amsterdam so, unlike my previous trips, we won’t all be housed in the same place. In fact, I will likely be staying with friends of my Netherlands classmates. (A great chance to see more of Amsterdam, I hope.)

We will meet for our singing sessions — typically 2 a day — at De Roos (The Rose) which is near Vondelpark, the biggest and probably most well known park in Amsterdam (or so the Internet tells me *smile*).

Second, the focus for our final week of study is collaboration and performance. According to Rhiannon, “singers, instrumentalists, dancers, actors, art and photographs will all be possible collaborative partners as we study how to enter this realm of sharing creative space and realize the potential for staying in that authentic, ceremonial, poetic time while working in new situations with an audience and/or partners.” It sounds like we may even perform in Vondelpark. (One of the highlights of my trip to Tenerife was singing in the square in Puerto de la Cruz!)

Since I have really been trying to improvise more and more in performance, I am really looking forward to a chance to integrate further my improvising and performance skills.

I’ll keep you posted (pun intended *grin*).

“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”
– James Matthew Barrie
(creator of Peter Pan)

A couple of weeks ago (where does the time GO?!), I promised to share some audio from my rehearsal for my Guthrie gig with you.

As I hope you know, dear reader, I take the promises I make to you in this blog seriously. Probably more seriously than you require. *smile*

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(Before I digress, here is your audio.)

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled blog post …

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Since I was already posting on Monday (rather than Sunday night), I decided to “bang out” an audio post from my rehearsal recordings before moving onto my other web tasks for today — backing up my blog and web site files, updating my blog software, designing my student newsletter (more info on that soon), and updating my facebook fan page. A short and sweet update and then onto the rest of my day.

Hah!

I spent nearly three hours editing a 4-1/2-minute segment of audio! Not to mention the time writing about it and sending the email.

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Please understand, I absolutely think you are worth every minute of the time it took to write and edit this post, including the time I spent editing the audio.

But the experience of writing this post and editing the audio got me thinking about the 80-20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) and how I’d failed to follow it.

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In my case, I’m using the variation of Pareto’s principle that states that 80% of the value of this audio clip for you, came from 20% of the time I spent on it.

Maybe 10% of the time spent was recording the rehearsals in the first place and archiving them on my computer. Another couple percent to convert the files into a format small enough for you to stream on the web.

The bulk of the time I spent came from my decision to edit the audio for you. Presto-change-o, a 20-minute project became a three-hour project just like that.

(While I like to think I added value for you, I’m not sure it three hours’ worth. *smile*)

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So I have decided to use the 80-20 rule as a “good enough” rule. (My apologies to Signore Pareto.)

In other words …

Once you do 20% of the work, it’s a good idea to stop and evaluate how much of the remaining 80% of work you should do to make whatever you’re doing good enough.

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Not excellent. Not perfect. Not superior to all blog posts with audio clips that have ever been or ever will be written.

Just finished, complete.

You know, good enough.

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When you are in school, your level of effort and the quality of the finished product matter. (Okay, it mattered to me. *grin*)

There is A work and there is C work.

(And F’s for no work or really bad work.)

Guess what?

In the “real” world, most of the work is pass/fail.

You get credit for doing it. You get labeled lame for not.

80% of the time (*smile*), good enough gets the job done.

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How about you? Are you spending 80 to get 20?

Striving for an A+ when the assigment is pass/fail?

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P.S. I’m headed out of town for the holiday weekend so I’ll post again June 3.