Inspired by Andy’s words, I changed my desktop wallpaper.
As a lone wolf, I am not accountable to anyone but myself, so it is sometimes too easy to get distracted. It isn’t as if someone else will put together my games for me if I slack off. I am either making progress or I am not.
If I am not purposefully thinking about game development, then other things will start to fill my thoughts. Since I am almost always in front of my computer, having it give me a specific message can only help to keep game development at the front of my mind.
My cell phone doubles as my morning alarm, and I recently posted a reminder on my cell phone’s wallpaper. It simply says, “Why do I want to get up early? To get financially independent as fast as I can.” How can I hit snooze when my financial independence is at stake?!? I can’t help but want to get up early in the morning!
I am also going to change my browser’s home page to a list of projects and next actions. Are there any other places an indie game developer can use to place reminders to focus on development?
7 replies on “Reminder to Be a Hero”
There’s always TWITTER, but it’s unfortunately really slow now. Add a bunch of developers to your friends list there, and you get a group feed of developer related notes and comments. In theory, if we’re all getting stuff done, then it’s encouraging ’cause you want to be able to say “hahaha, DXT compressor works”. But as I said, the site is crazy slow now, which lead me to stop using it.
Nice wallpaper! I think I’ll follow suit. I think I also need to update my blog… it’s been about… forever now. Yay!
If only it wasn’t corporate tax day. I don’t feel very heroic doing my taxes.
🙁
Mastery over Procrastination
DO IT NOW
Twitter sounds like an interesting technology, but I think that it would go along the same lines as pairing up indie developers to help give the illusion of accountability to an Other.
Tim: Corporate tax day? Heroism sometimes means doing the things that need doing. Is that quotable enough to give the illusion of being a quote? It sounds like someone important said that once long ago.
wazoo: Perhaps I should have those words on the desktop, too.
One thing I have found useful in tweaking efficiency is to put a simple deterrent between you and the distraction. A great example is LeechBlock, which is an add-on for Firefox. You tell it which sites to block and during what times. So if you find that you go to facebook too much, or to youtube too much, then set this baby up and it will simple redirect you to a “blocked” page, which I have reworked into a “go do your work” page not unlike your desktop wallpaper!
Also, you can set up a password to enter the settings window so that it is a little harder to change these settings in an hour of weakness.
Overall I have found that a simple physical barrier between one’self and a distraction can go a long way in saving your time. I don’t mean a wall, but simple some action that you have to do before getting to the distraction that would remind you why you put that obstacle there.
GB, you could always start growing a beard 🙂
Diwant, LeechBlock sounds like a brilliant extension that I need to install. It does exactly what I was trying to do a long time ago without actually messing with my system’s DNS settings. And yes, just by putting something in the way, making it even slightly more difficult, should hopefully be enough of a reminder that you don’t actually want to do something.
RohoMech: My girlfriend already doesn’t like it when I don’t shave for more than a couple of days. B-)