Some Things One Gotta Do To Avoid Coding…
March 5th, 2009 by JuusoPosted in Productivity & Motivation
Gotta eat
Gotta watch the television
Gotta check email
Gotta take the dogs out
Gotta plan first
Gotta test something first
Gotta check out the forums
Gotta check email again
Gotta watch some online videos
Gotta make videos
Gotta take a nap
Gotta read Donald Duck
Gotta chat with somebody
Gotta check youtube
Gotta read something useless
Gotta think of all the alternatives first
Gotta tweak some irrelevant feature
Gotta take the garbage out
Gotta twitter
Gotta play some other video game
Gotta play my own game (instead of coding it)
Gotta check traffic stats
Gotta check face book
Gotta check sales stats
Gotta play board game
Gotta check the RSS feed
Gotta make a phone call
Gotta check email quickly again
Gotta write a blog post about what I gotta do…
Gotta hear what reasons you might have to avoid working on your game
The thing is… if you gotta do all this stuff instead of working on your game (I hope that’s not the case), then you might not be working on the right project. If working on your game doesn’t feel motivating, then why the hell do that?
We all can come up with excuses (that above list took couple of minutes to write), but I think that working on you game should be thrilling - it should be something you eagerly wait! It should be your vision and what you want. After all, wasn’t that what we all dreamed when we were (young) kids, right?
I realize that there might be some tasks that aren’t fun, but the good news are there’s (hopefully) only a few of them. What has helped me to deal with the nasty buggers is that I’ve tried to minimize the ugly tasks (or outsourced some of them) and try to remember the end result after getting those ugly tasks completed. I think of the feeling I’ll have when I’ve finished my project. And that keeps me thrilled over and over.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Sometime when you can only work part time on your game, it’s hard to have motivation after a 10h day at work.
That’s why i’m thinking to get back to Freelance, more control of the time available and the motivation.
And my first excuse to not working on my game : watching TV Show, i usually think “gonna watch one episode of House MD, and after gonna finish “, most of the time i finally watch 4 or 5 T_T And end up to not work at all :x
I’m trying to find an issue to this problem of motivation, if anybody have tips, i’m open :p
March 6th, 2009 at 1:44 am
So you get it out, and now go work!
March 6th, 2009 at 5:37 am
I think you missed a few youtube runs in there =P
~DtD
March 6th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Hakushi: sell your TV.
DtD: ;)
March 6th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
“Gotta check the forums again” too if you made any posts there the first time!
March 6th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Juuso,
I don’t think motivation can be high all the time, not even most of the time.
After working for severals month on your game, motivation can change(duh).
And thinking that “if you like so much making games, how come you are not excited about it every day” is not the right thought.
My problem is also that I work part time, and when I eventually do get allot of motivation, I need to start going to work again.
The thing is, the more you are getting closer to finishing your game, the more your game is part of reality and less of imagination.
Imagining how things will be in the future can motivate allot.
So I guess you need different kinds of motivations when you are advancing with your game.
If your gameplay is not what you imagined it will be, then it might be demotivating, and you should try to fix it.
Bottom line, I am quite motivated to work on my game. Though, I believe I am not as thrilled about it as I was some time ago.
I don’t know if its because I am working part time or not.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
I agree with Sargon. Programming generic engine stuff is as boring as hell. You get tired of numbers and stuff streaming out the debug window instead of towers and enemies moving around the screen.
~DtD
March 8th, 2009 at 2:14 am
@Juuso : Wish i could, but my computer is my TV , gonna make things harder if i sell it.
March 8th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Hah hah, fair enough :)
March 10th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
This is a quality post Juuso. Made me laugh out loud.