I had a rough time the last week. Some stuff related to my game were frustrating me, and some difficult events at work. The thing is, a week ago I had a lot of motivation and everything was going fine and smooth.
I am not sure this is accurate or the absolute truth, but there seem to be a matter of inertia in motivation and developing a game. If you are already feeling good about working on your game and you are excited about it, its easier to keep on doing it. However, something like events related and not related directly to your game, could stop your wheel from rolling. After you stopped developing and doing the stuff you enjoyed doing, suddenly its very difficult to get back to it.
I was too lazy to work on my game, even though I knew that two weeks ago I had a lot of fun doing just that. Then I told myself what I have already learned from these kind of situations, you have to force yourself to work on your game. Even though its boring, you have to start pushing the wheel, and its hardest to push a standing wheel.
But it didn’t help, I was still too lazy to do it. Then I had thought to refine this “force yourself” method. I know it worked for me before, but now its not working. The refinement would be, start with the easiest things at first that would motivate you. Such as writing this blog(another good reason to write development blogs). Another thing is to have others set deadlines for you. For instance, if you work with a sound guy, you can decide that you have one month to complete the sound effects. Soon he will be sending you sound effects and you will have to work on them, because you have set a deadline.
We can learn from this that not all the things have the same difficulty when you are unmotivated. And if you see that you are too lazy to do something, it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. You just need to find easy things to do first, soon you will start catch up and do the harder stuff as well. Finding external motivators can also help, such as having someone you work with set up a deadline to force you work on stuff. And eventually, remember that starting is the most difficult part, and after you start it will soon become easier. Although you have to remember this might be more complicated, but it might still help you thinking about it.
I will be glad to hear about your own experience and your own insights.
The power of inertia
October 26th, 2009 by oferPosted in Other blogs
I totally feel you on this! It’s quite intriguing how fleeting our motivation can be, it literally feels like the rug has been pulled out from under you sometimes!
Great advice, and inspiration for me to keep up with my own blog
Sometimes I find it can help to keep a Todo list very handy, with checkboxes or room to check things off as you do them. These can help bring a ‘motivator’ in the field. I tend to simply use Notepad minimized, but I also like to use notepads, and honestly they are fairly superior. When the computer has to go off, or when you are REALLY coding, it’s sooo nice to just have a notepad to the side with a pencil.
Either way, it really helps to fill it up with some small things, not everything under the sun but just the easiest things you can do now that would make the biggest impact on the project, then as you burn through the small easy fixes/additions you get to watch the balance of checked versus unchecked items swing around. Paper is nice because it leaves a trail, and when you feel down you have written record of what you’ve already done. At least for me, sometimes being reminded of how far I’ve actually come is a good motivator!
I am also using a pen and paper TODO lists. I find it is very helpful when you see you have a lot more things to do in your game, and you are overwhelmed by them.
By writting down all the things you need to do, it makes it easier to pick one thing and work on it. If you let it all remain in your head, you will be bothered by the many tasks you have yet to do.
I think writting it down removes your worries from all the tasks you have to do. That is how I feel sometimes.