Hey there, I’m Amy Chaplin, a piano teacher with a proclivity for organization and I’m here to help you find practical and sustainable rhythms for your teacher life. This is episode #188 of the Piano Pantry Podcast If you’re new around here, welcome! I’m so glad you’re here.
Today I have just a quick tip for you on managing creative projects. Before we do though, big thanks as always to my inner circle of teacher friends who are keeping this on the airwaves with their dedicated support on Patreon. Join as a silent partner for as little as $4 a month at PianoPantry.com/patreon.
Ok, so today I wanted to share a tip with you that I learned the hard way. If you are someone who creates anything digital, really, this is for you.
I wish I could give you a big dramatic story of how I learned my lesson the hard way but I can’t any particular scenario.
Anyway, the lesson is that when you are creating anything – whether it be a worksheet, composing a piece of music, putting together a resource, writing a book, whatever it may be – whatever it is you’re creating – save versions as you go.
Now, I’m not just saying to don’t forget to save. What I’m saying is that we all have an original version – a rough draft if you will – of whatever it is you created. The first version you spit out in all it’s terrible messy glory just so you could get it out of your brain.
There will come a point where you basically have that first version done. No, actually, you will THINK you have it done. You may even use this resource with students for weeks, months, or years, but it’s inevitable that you will go back and make changes, edit it, realize how you can make it better.
At some point, I want you to commit to that original version and stop making tweaks to it. Save it and title it something like 1st edition or variation 1 or original project or whatever that may be.
Then, resave it under a different file name and call it something like version 2 or 2nd edition or whatever just so you know that now you are in the phase of starting to really tweak this project or resource.
Now, there’s a chance that you may only ever make small tweaks but in my experience I find that most things I create have a really ugly, messy first version and then I will start getting on a roll making it prettier or tweaking the layout or removing things that didn’t resonate with students – whatever it may be.
Now this is where I’ve gotten myself into trouble. The trouble, honestly isn’t absolutely dire – if I wanted, it’s possible to retrieve old versions of files but it’s not always super easy or intuitive.
What I’m talking about here is more of remembering from whence you came.
It’s so easy to forget how we evolve and change and how far things come. When you have something in development mode and you’re tweaking and looking at it with new eyes, it can be easy to forget that original place – that original idea you had.
It’s incredibly pleasing and encouraging to have the ability to look at a project in its first state and then look at it in it’s updated state and go wow – I can’t believe how BAD the first one was. LOL
I learned my lesson years ago but there were several things in my early days of creating resources that I was really frustrated with myself for not keeping the original version.
We’re lucky that these days we have amazing technology that can help us with this. For example, in Canva and Notion – both programs I use a lot – the first of which I do all my resource creation in – you can go back and see old versions of pages by searching the version history.
If you create things in Canva and you’re regretting not keeping an older version of your design, stop now and log ingo Canva and go back into the version history by going under File settings. Depending on how much it’s saved you can view up to 1,000 versions.
Remember though that options like this are often part of paid PRO plans as is the case with both Notion and Canva.
So, if you have something you wish you had saved, go in how, find the old version, restore it as a new design (don’t overwrite your current design!) and enjoy getting to see the fruits of your labor.
MS Publisher will be closing its doors here in October of 2026 so sometime in this past year I went through my file manager and found all my old MS Publisher files – luckily there weren’t a ton – but what I did was to make sure I saved anything I wanted to keep to a PDF.
It was so interesting finding old designs and comparing them to what I now make in Canva. I even shared some on social media when I did that on what the old file looked like and what the new version that was created on Canva looked like.
Craziness.
Last year I did a huge version update on my book Christmas By Ear and it was soooo cool to look at the 1st edition of the book I first published in 2021 and then compare it to the next level I took it to this past year in 2025. Leaps and bounds better.
This 2nd edition – besides having twice as many pages – is a lot cleaner design and layout. Besides the guided listening and chord chart builder pages, it now includes full chord charts and lead sheets with basic chord options and optional chords for those who want to take it further. It also includes an appendix of accompaniment patterns and intros and outros.
It’s just really satisfying to look at that first creation and to see how far I’ve come as a creator in seeing the final version.
Give yourself that satisfaction as well and save different variations of your projects!
Another one is my Happy Birthday By Ear Resource. The first variation I created of that which I never really made available publicly, but it was a 1-page cheat sheet that basically gave the music info for the piece like duple meter, major tonality, suggested key, starting pitch, and the 4-phrase harmonic pattern.
Now, the current helps students and teachers walk through the process more of identifying what they hear – it offers creative challenges for students to take what they know and and change it in some way and it gives examples of accompaniment patterns for students who have continued to grow in their skills and need to be challenged to play it in various ways from year to year.
By the way, I’m excited to announce that Christmas By Ear is going to be available this year in printed version and not just sold as a studio license, so stay tuned!
I wonder, friend, have you experienced this? Have you had times that you regretted not saving an old version of a creative project? What kind of projects have you gotten to enjoy seeing several evolutions of over the years? Do you have lots of Publisher files too like I do? LOL
As always I’m on Instagram at pianopantryamy and on Facebook at Piano Pantry if you wanna let me know! I love hearing from you.
We’re now just 3 weeks away from the Organize Your Digital Life Retreat I host in my home in Indiana and one viable spot remains. If you’re hitting the end of your summer and starting to feel overwhelmed by the idea of the start of the year, maybe it’s time for you to come see me.
At this retreat you will get a chance to reset both your teacher energy and your digital workspace one file, one email, one app deletion at a time. You don’t have to stress about it because I walk you through micro steps so you can focus on just one thing at a time.
Visit pianopantry.com/retreat to submit your interest today and join me and a small handful of other teachers like yourself August 12-15, 2026. I’ve never had anyone regret coming but you might regret letting the chance pass you by.
Thanks for hanging out with me even though it’s the middle of summer – we’ll see you next time!
