I found some old notes I scribbled a few years ago when I was just starting out, routines I had seen or ideas I came up with and how to perform them. They're all fairly basic concepts that have a very Acrobatic Card Routine feel to them, but seeing the notes makes me realize that I never followed through and practiced them.
I do that a lot actually. Not the "not follow through" bit but jotting down ideas and routines and never seeing them again. My whiteboard has 5 routine titles written on it right now (and 4 cardistry moves) and I honestly can't remember the last time I took a stab at them. The first one in the list is Ascanio Oil & Water (from The Magic of Ascanio) ... I think it was close to a year ago that I had read it and wrote it down. Yikes!
That's a big problem with having too many stimuli, or not being able to focus on an individual item for long enough to master it. Yes, mastery takes a long time. What I mean is the art of practicing a routine enough times that you "know how to do it"... and I'm not doing that with most routines I want to learn. I will read a magic book cover-to-cover and write down any of the routines or sleights that I want to practice and then I pick up the next book. And then the next book. And then the next book.
You would think that, given time, I'll reach the last book and then be forced to go back to the routines I've written down. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I keep buying more books. And I have magazine subscriptions. And VI+ monthly lectures ... not to mention the dozens of online videos and lectures I've purchased. And the DVDs. Ugh... I might have a bit too much information on the singular topic of "card magic" =P
How to address this? I think I've thought of this before, and I may have even written about it here once, but now I'm set to give this a try: devote a single month to each book. That gives me 12 books per year. An average of 30 days per book. That's enough time to read through it and give the routines practice. It should also be enough time to decide if something should stay in my repertoire, or not. And it also has enough buffer room to modify routines and watch the occasional video or read a magazine. It should also help cut down my spending on books... but I'm not sure if that's a positive.
I've spoken with a few friends on the topic and I'm the only one with the "book" problem, but most others have video-overload -- especially if you count YouTube tutorials. They don't consider it a problem though and I didn't dig deeper, and I don't think it would really help much anyways.
So, do you have a case of "information overload"? If so, how do you address it? If not, why not?
Oh yeah, and as for the notes I have -- I decided I'm going to start recording the routines more frequently. I'll either put them up on Instagram or, if I ever create a channel, YouTube. I may even write them more "professionally" and work them into a book. We'll see =]