Working with videos and ‘projects’ since I was a kid has proved useful time and again. One of my biggest problems (which also happens to be a strength at times) is getting used to a certain way of doing things even when there’s a faster or better way of doing them. I stopped searching this optimal approach because I started to move away from perfectionism. Perfectionism was holding me back as it does many creators. And I urge most people to strongly condemn it, at least in earlier parts of their creative journey.
How does this relate to my data problem? What is my data problem? These old projects need somewhere to go. My current projects need somewhere to go. Somewhere to exist. The older I get, the more I realize the extent of my problem. This data is never going away (unless of course I let it), it’s only getting bigger and bigger. Deleting data can be useful at times, but not all data. Especially not the project and creation kind. From short films, videos, all the way to music. These pieces are often data organized in ways that only you, so far, have done (I’m speaking loosely here, I have further thoughts), and that makes this ‘new’ data or the way you’ve organized this data (a song is a collection of various pieces of data put together) very special.
I am ever creating. I always have been. And I’ve already lost projects and pieces of them. This could be due to my doing, or more indirect. Regardless, there are two problems at hand, that have been at hand for some time:
1) There is no concrete enough system to store my data (that I’ve devised)
- It strongly depends on what concrete means and I’ll get to that in a future post
- Every time I have tried to sort this problem, I’ve realized how much bigger the problem really is (classic software engineer)
2) The data is growing very quickly, very fast. This isn’t something I can put off longer. The risks are FAR greater than any time or pain I’ll be putting into this system therefore…
Introducing Side Quest Not So Side Quest #2: Devise, and utilize consistently, a strong system of your data storage.
P.S. There is more to this. If the only place have certain records of things are within your own memories then you run the risk of memory change and memory loss (the risk increasing as you age). This is a very silly way to do things if you really think about it. We also currently don’t know enough about the brains and body to even understand such storage well as compared to computers. We know exactly how computers work, how and where their memory is stored, and what risks come with each system of storage. P.P.S. The day I wrote this, I lost twitch stream data due to a lack of a proper system. To be clear, it’s not that I don’t have places to store my data. This really is a system problem.
Soon, Fahaam