Finding focus after dark is a normal occurrence for me. Last night I didn’t get a wink of sleep as I had a deadline for an IT project. As the sunset blanketed the world in a soothing dark veil I came alive. To be a nocturnal soul living in a daywalker’s world is hard. Like photography at night the world changes its character to suit me. When doing art, music, editing, or logic-based work like automation or coding my mood lighting allows me to focus.
An evolutionary theory suggests that varying sleep cycles allowed our ancestors to keep watch around the clock. I imagine I’m a descendant of one of the late-night watchmen. Members of my lineage would gaze at the stars protected by the small warm glow of a campfire or torch. Perhaps that’s why different social preferences exist as well. The members of the night watch hold a small tight group of friends, while the day group are more extroverted.
I’d imagine standing watch at night with little to no company would cause you to be more introspective and quiet. Although I don’t mind socializing when I need to, I also place a high value on my alone and quiet time. In solitude, I can fully explore my creative ideas and zoom in on what’s in front of me. Finding focus after dark, might not be recommended by Grindset finance bros, but as a part of the Laidback Lifestyle, I think it’s okay.
Finding Focus, Flow, and the Zone After Dark
My other IT friends empathize with the varying productivity that comes with IT work. While IT work may seem like a logically minded “Left-Brained” activity, I think it’s much more creative than people credit it for. While like math you learn and apply tools and functions to solve problems how you get there is often a windy road. All forms of creative problem-solving land you in that magical Mihály CsÃkszentmihályi flow state. When things are working right you feel like you can accomplish a week’s worth of work in a day.
In Cal Newport’s book Deep Work, he describes how harmful small distractions can be to productivity. An email, a message from friends, and hunger can all make it hard for you to settle into that productive grove. Finding focus after dark is a way to deal with that problem. My experience may differ from neurotypical characters as I’ve been diagnosed with high-functioning autism. My sister thinks that I might have ADHD, but it allows me to laser focus on things I might find interesting.
Power Automate and Form Functions
For those unfamiliar with my line of work, I design and create SharePoint Internal websites. I also manage Power Automate automation flows which is a block-based automation and coding interface for Office 365. This type of work often balances abstraction with concrete real-world solutions. A relevant quote from one of my favorite thinkers Alan Watts states.
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts“
Alan Watts
I find that long before I put something in power automate my brain has already thought of the solution I just have to find a path there. When you find focus after dark, your goal is like a beacon in the dark of the night that guides your journey. Even if you don’t know what road to take, if you see the north star you’re headed in the right direction.
A Nice Computer Setup Helps Finding Focus After Dark
When I hit a roadblock or snag in the road after dark, it doesn’t take me out of “the zone”. I’m a firm believer that every work-from-home professional should invest in a nice PC, Monitor Arms, and multiple screens. Gamers, Twitch streamers, and YouTubers know how important a nice PC and computer literacy are. Oppositely the amount of working professionals who struggle to work with technology and have the saddest home office shock me. When you’re working well on a nice setup you’re switching between tabs, screens, and programs almost as fast as you can think. You can also use virtual desktops to increase the amount of screen space. A thing I’ve done in the past is connect multiple PCs over the same network using a free tool called Mouse Without Boarders.
YouTube and Reference Material
Finding Focus after Dark means that you can freely look at YouTube without feeling awkward. The roadblocks and snags are usually handled with a bit of googling, YouTubing, or chat GPT prompting. One of the reasons YouTube is so massive is because it has a bit of everything. From various forms of entertainment to Education. When I get stuck on a problem and I’m having trouble finding the solution on Google. Google’s SEO will bring up a helpful YouTube video to get me through the other side.
I suggest downloading a Chrome extension called Bring Back YouTube Dislike. As it makes it easier to sort through educational material. When a tutorial has a good amount of dislikes you know it might not be as helpful as you’d like.
Last night I was able to find Matt’s Channel. After a bit of adapting his “code” to my solution, I was able to finish the remainder of my work for the day. By the time I was finished, it was about 08:00 in the morning. Finding focus after dark usually means that you’ll be working until the sun comes up. . Maybe that’s the inspiration to get a GTA V penthouse. It would be nice to see the sunrise while working.
I Slept from 08:00 to about 12:45 and then I had a meeting from 13:00 to 14:00. My contact at the client’s company loved my work and what I did. After working on some further revisions and catching up on my emails it was about 15:30. I had agreed to work only a set number of hours per week to not charge my clients excessively.
Mid Day Productivity
Although I called this Laidback Log finding focus after the dark, it was mid-day and I was feeling pretty good still. I was listening to some music during my late-night focus session and I stumbled upon Tides by a high school band. Perhaps it was the melody of some other song that made me think of it, but the original song and melody are so catchy that it wouldn’t leave my head. Originally this project started to make a remix. I’m a fan of remixes because when working with someone else’s material it feels like you have a guide.
While I was working on the Tides Remix, there was something in my head that told me to be a little more original than I was planning. I’m quite harsh on that little creative voice in my head, but isn’t an artist about having faith in that voice to carry you to a place you couldn’t dream up alone?
Making Of
While I’d like to continue to make full-on music tutorials like my Beautiful Nightmare of Coming Down From a High article they are quite time-consuming to manufacture. If the demand is there I’ll make them, I’ve even considered making How to Get Started With Music guides so let me know if you’d be interested in something like that.
I’ll explain the main meat of the song without going into too much detail about everything. Because the song started out as a remix I was going about equalizing the intro. The intro gave a sense of nostalgic magic, to enhance that shimmer I duplicated the intro guitar and brought it up an octave. Equalizing, adding delay, reverb, a chorus, and then more delay created this magical surreal shimmer guitar space.
To retain the indie rock organic feel of the main signal I left it unaffected but routed it through the shimmer guitar’s mixer channel so I could parallel process the signal.
Finding Focus After Dark
When the harmonic distorted guitar also rand through a similar effects chain it created an ethereal sound. The color of the sound was nostalgic and surreal, but still organically grounded. The original singer’s vocal is also still present in my mix, but it’s hit with a very similar ephemeral sound. After adding some guitars, noise, and a choir to fill the sound space I had a pretty trancey sounding song. Mixing in a heavy bass, SUB, and growls contrasted with with organic sound like crashing water on waves.
By the time I peeled myself away from my computer the song’s information read as follows.
This Project Was Started on 22/1/24
Total Time SPent on it: 5 Hours and 30 Minutes
Plugins 74, Channels 54, Mixer Tracks: 29
Arrangements 1, Playlist STracks:27, Playlist Clips 367, Notes: 218
Looking outside I was back to where I started Finding my Focus After Dark.
Finding Focus After Dark Away From My PC
With these sorts of creative projects sometimes it is good to take a step back before getting the project out of the door. I took this time to head to the grocery store to pick up some much-needed items. The cold air and walk was a great mental reset, I even took the time to listen to new songs and dance in the dark. . . you didn’t think those dance moves at the club were gifted to me at birth did you? I practice dancing in little moments where I can. The one I’m trying to get down right now is the slickback.
After the mental reset, I made some final touches to the song and hit the render button. In the back of my mind, I thought that I should watch more tutorials before rendering. Isn’t a great way to learn something just to do it?
DJIX’s First Orignal Track in a Long Time
I hadn’t considered making an original track today it just kind of happened. When I make Electronic Music I do it under the persona of DJ9Tailz, or DJIX for short. I’m still in the process of rebranding DJIX so I need to nail down a character design, logo, and some other things, but I’ve been consistent about using that character in my musical content. I believe Finding Focus After Dark puts us closer to an ethereal ephemeral dream space. It’s easier to think outside of the box at this time.
I’ve crafted a backstory for DJIX that I’ll have to type out as a short story when it’s ready. The reason I put my music behind the character is as follows. The character isn’t just a character, it’s a part of me and who I am. I’m a large fan of sci-fi and thinking about the future. I’d like you to think of where VTubers are now and where they might be in thirty-forty years. Putting music behind a character is not only commercially more viable, think of Riot Games and how they’re using their characters, but also a touch closer to the fictional spaces I love. I’d like to think big EDM shows are missing anime holograms, perhaps I’ll be a VR or Metaverse DJ.
If the cyborg bodies don’t become a reality before I die, the idea is I’ll pass on that magical kitsune mask to an understudy and DJIX will live on in some way.
When I make covers, rap songs, or other music that fits my organic, disgusting, meat bag self more I release it under LaidbackMarco
Finding a Photoshop Focus After Dark
Although I’d like to be creative employee inside a large organization with artistic directors and mentors to guide my growth, there are perks to being independent. The greatest perk of being on your own is the ability to try whatever feels right. That little voice in the back of my head was telling me I should do more Photoshop tutorials at Learn Adobe.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Yoda
Just use what you know to create something different.
Crafting The Image
I thought because the song I sampled from was called tides the album should have water in it. The nostalgic, warm, and organic soundscape reminds me of the home I miss dash point. Being by the sea also gives me a sense of warm comfort and sadness. You’ll notice the melancholy flavor spritzed in with the descending melodies and aggressive bass.
The original image the AI NiJiJourney gave me is to the right. To make it an album cover there were multiple steps involved. You can see the step-by-step process above
- Use Content-Aware fill to change the photo from a rectangle to a square
- Duplicate the Layer add a Gaussian Blur and a Mask to give focus to the character
- Duplicate the Gaussian blur layer, blur more, and then set the layer to screen for Surreal Glow
- Add god rays by duplicating last layer and creating sharper masks
- Add text
Finding a Lack of Focus After Dark
After creating all that there is still the matter of uploading and distributing the music to different platforms. Even though I was enjoying myself you can only focus for so long before your attention is grabbed by various things.
I’m Hungry, Will People Even Like This Song, Wonder What’s trending on TikTok, I should Upload more content to the JDM Channel
Thankfully due to my obsessive nature, I can sit at my computer all day to get something done.
I’m still unaware of Soundcloud’s best practices, I barely know how to promote my own music or what tags to use, but the bare minimum is just getting the music out there.
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/dj9tailz/lost-at-sea
Thanks to distrokid I’m able to upload my music to all the large platforms Apple Music, Amazon, Tidal, Spotify, so if you like my music it would mean the world if you supported it there.
Finding Focus After This Night and The Next
I’ve started to end my Laidback Life Logs with to-do lists to help me keep track of what I need to do in multiple places. With my music it’s often a multiple step process which involves.
ProductionMixingMasteringVisual Design for Album Cover- Visualizer Design for Simple YouTube Video
- Also Make a 9×16 format for Socials
- Fully Animated/Live Action Music Video
I also remembered this year I want to start sending presskits and demos to Labels, most notably my favorite label Ophelia Records. Even if it doesn’t work out there are other labels and it’s not the end of the world. Maybe I should start doing more remix contests too.
To-Do List
- Make a New Year’s Video For the LaidbackMarco Channel
- Get Organized Physically/Electronically
- Keep better track and record of finances
- Design Shirts, Clothes, Sweaters, and Products for the brand
- Make a diagram of LaidbackLifestyle funnels and web
- Redesign website to integrate product sales
- Cleanup YouTube channels, linking, and tags
- Send Ophelia, Monstercat, and Other Labels a Demo. . .how do I put together a demo and press kit?
- Visualizer for “Lost at Sea”
- Vertical Visualizer
- Create shorts from Tokyo Underground Footage Vertical for LaidbackJDM
- Upload any Video To LaidbackGaming
- Finish Editing Yokohama Photos and Post Them Online
- Make a reel with trending audio of before and after edits
- Draw anime characters on them for laidbackanime
