When I first read Steve's personal productivity articles talking about goal setting... motivation.. burning ships... I was a little miffed. I wasn't in a position to quit my job without having to sacrifice my house and medical coverage. Two things I wasn't prepared to sacrifice.

So I decided to prove Steve wrong, not to Steve himself, but to me personally. I committed entirely to game development; I didn't overly exert myself at work so I would have energy to code when I got home. I was so obsessed with making progress that I had time for little else in the evenings. I was sucking down calorie filled can after calorie filled can of caffinated pop to stay up late and keep my workflow high.

I cut out running in the morning because it caused me to get tired earlier in the evening when I was working. I was so committed to my goal of making progress on my game that I made a conscious decision to cut out exercise because it was taking up too much time. At the time it felt good to be that committed, it was almost a validation if you will.

Now that things have stabilized with my game and development has been going on for the past 10 months, I’m starting to see the value of not being overly committed to something. Progress is still steady and deliberate, but it's not all consuming. For the past 2.5 months I’ve been hitting the gym 3-4 times a week. Let me just tell you that these extra pounds I put on are much more difficult to take off then they were to put on. Sheesh.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and my newly learned hard lesson is "Never let your carrier goals get in the way of your physical well being". Seems so stupid to be saying now, but it's a really easy trap to fall into.

Thinking about it, I’m starting to think my own experience probably isn't unique. I'd be curious to know some of the casualties others may have experienced along the long hard path that is Indie game development.

;)

This is the classic balancing act between production and production capacity. If you work all-out on production, you get a lot done in the shortest amount of time, but you ultimately burn out because you lower your production capacity. If you work solely on production capacity, your potential rises higher and higher, but you never get any real work done. Another way of thinking of this is as kinetic energy vs. potential energy. The optimal point for long-term productivity lies between the two extremes.

Committing to your goals doesn't mean committing to all-out production -- you can do this with short-term goals, but long-term goals require a balance of production and production capacity. Committing means that you achieve a state of certainty that you will accomplish your goal. If you burn yourself out, that will only reduce your drive.

I exercise in some way (running, weight training, biking, etc) every single day without exception. When you get home late at 3am and still do a 5-mile run in the rain, it makes everything else seem easier.

Are you sure you aren't Steve Austin?

I can just here that bionic sound just reading that! ;)

Keep up the good work and that Daily magic.

Dan, I can entirely relate to what you're saying. Everyone's situation, abilities, and goals are different. It takes real thought to make sure you're making progress on your long-term goals (most of all having a happy family) without sacrificing your short-term goals, or vice versa. 'Burning your ships' is one thing when you're in your twenties with little to lose... it's a bit different when you're forty and have a large family to support. Not that it's impossible, but it takes different tactics.

I also can attest to the necessity of daily exercise. Right now I'm getting up 5-6 days per week at about 5am to go exercise. For me, starting my day with exercise works well -- like everything else, it takes experimentation to see what works.

Good luck and clear vision to us all.

I don't specifically advocate physical exercise in the book I'm writing, but I do try to stress pace. That is, setting a pace that you can maintain over time.

Rather than doing the obsessive-compulsive do-it-til-its-done thing that burns out many, many programmers each year, focus on creating a steady pace, like a marathon runner. You finish indie games the same way you finish a marathon: one step at a time. If you try to sprint the whole way, you're going to make it barely a fraction of the total distance before you collapse. Yet how many of us have tried to do exactly that?

Pace is the important thing. Find a manageable, productive length of time that you can work each night, even if it's just for 1 hour, or 2 hours. It may not sound like much, but if you stick to it, doing a little each night, you'll be making progress while maintaining your health, your sanity, and your family. It might even make you more productive in your fulltime job.

If it takes you a 6-12 months, or even longer, to finish a game, so what? At 1 game per year, in 5 years you have 5 games. There aren't many funded developers who can boast 5 completed games in 5 years.

Just my thoughts...

-David

Yeah I think you bang on David. Being committed isn't about giving your everything all at once only to die trying. It's about being resolute for the long haul with day in day out consistency. I don’t work on the game every day of the week anymore. But I make progress every week. I just make sure if I’m taking time off to do something, it's something important, like family and friends.

If I find myself sitting on the couch watching T.V. all by myself, that's my warning signal that I should be working on my game.

Right now my problem is with lack of commitment, but the solution is pretty similar.

After thinking about the problem I've decided that the best thing to do is to adopt a formal schedule: Set aside a couple of hours on specific days of the week and follow that schedule as diligently as you would if you were somebody else's employee. Demand as much of yourself as a real boss would demand of you: Don't work so much that you'd have to pay yourself overtime too often, nor so little that you'd have to fire yourself.

Adopting a reasonable schedule should help provide you with steady progress and regular sleep. As an added benefit, a formal schedule could also make it easier to optimize your workflow: instead of working longer hours as a way to get more done you force yourself to find a more efficient approach to your work so that you get more done in the same amount of time.

A little known story about the book Think And Grow Rich: Napoleon Hill wrote about the key traits that make people wealthy and successful, but there was one trait that didn't make the cut because he couldn't figure out how it could be a causal factor. And this was that the people he studied tended to work in a common pattern: they'd toggle between working really hard for a while followed by taking an extended period off. For instance, they'd work all out for 1-3 weeks straight with very little time off, then take a whole week or two off completely doing no work whatsoever. Many of them took 3-4 months off total each year, but while they worked, they poured every ounce of their concentration into the project at hand. No set schedule or daily routine... more of a burst of output followed by a recuperation period.

So you're suggesting that people should not adopt a formal schedule?

I don't know if it's going to make me rich, but I work very hard for extended periods (weeks/months at time). 60 hours a week on top of my classes. Then I'll often stop doing anything but tech support for a week or two, sometimes a month.

My day to day life is much the same way. I work hard for 5 or 6 hours, then take a 2 hour break. If I'm working and it's time for a meal, I eat while I work. I find I'm 200%-400% more productive when I focus on a single task, and avoid distractions.

When I was working at Maxis, at the end of projects I was putting in long hours (up to 16 hour days, 7 days per week for many weeks in some cases) which in the end started to take their toll: insomnia, digestive upset (to the extent that my doctor thought I might have colon cancer), nearly-destroyed marriage, etc. It was there that I learned the importance of balance. Now, I make sure I make time for everything that's important to me: family, health, business/work, and socializing (roughly in that order). There's no amount of fame or fortune that can restore health and happiness.

Originally posted by Dexterity
Napoleon Hill wrote about the key traits that make people wealthy and successful...they'd toggle between working really hard for a while followed by taking an extended period off.
I guess that means I'm gonna be a billionaire :) Now, if only I can figure out the correlation.

Steve, could you please answer my question? Do you think it's better not to adopt a fixed schedule?

I think the creative aspects of game development might sometimes benefit from a loose schedule (you can't force inspiration), but game development also involves a lot of tedious work, and I think it is that sort of work that benefits most from having a fixed schedule and sticking to it. Do you disagree?

The answer is, "it depends." Some individuals seem to like having a fixed schedule; others find them too restrictive. It's up to each individual to discover what works best for them -- I don't think there's a universal answer for everyone.

A schedule should serve the achievement of specific goals, not get in the way of them. A schedule is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. So a schedule (the means) can only be evaluated in the context of whether or not it helps you achieve your goals (the end).

What works best for me is fairly simple: Pick one task/project and stick with it until it is 100% complete. That is the ideal -- it isn't always possible to focus entirely on one task for too long, since other responsibilities with invariably interfere. But the closer I get to this ideal, the more productive I am.

Some goals, like physical goals, cannot be tackled continuously. For instance, if your goal is to build up to being able to complete a 20-mile run, you can't just work on that goal continuously until it's achieved, since you'll keel over from overtraining. But many work-related goals are entirely under your control, so the main limiting factor is simply how long it takes you to put in the time.

How do you decide which task/project to tackle next? I use what's called a CARVER matrix. CARVER is a system used by the military's special operations units for target valuation assessment. I.e. which targets should we take out first? CARVER stands for Criticality, Accessibility, Recuperability, Vulnerability, Effect, and Recognizability. For each potential target (i.e. goal), you rank each CARVER factor on a scale of 1-5 and just add them for a total score. The target (goal) with the highest rating is the one you should tackle first. You can just adapt the military terms to business meanings. For instance, the most "vulnerable" goals are those that require the fewest resources (time/money) to achieve. So creating a new game from scratch might score a 1 for vulnerability, while tweaking your order form might get a 5. For "recuperability" you can just substitute "return on investment." There are many alternatives to CARVER, but it's relatively straightforward and fast. I recently used a CARVER matrix to decide which of 17 high-priority projects I should tackle next. It took me about 30 minutes and resulted in immediate clarity about what my next three projects should be. By using an objective system like this, I ensure that I work on what's important, not just on what I feel like doing.

While working on a goal (i.e. focused on a target), I don't have any set schedule. I just focus all my energy on the task at hand. I don't care about what time it is or when my next meal is. I tend not to even eat set meals while focused on a project -- I'll just snack on fruit like bananas and apples while I work. Heavy meals only slow me down.

This is probably a longer answer than the question required, but the basic idea is that the optimal approach for me involves having a system for objectively choosing goals plus focusing all-out on one goal (target) at a time until it's achieved. I really like the military model here because of its efficiency and simplicity: one mission, one target at a time. To attempt too many projects at once has the same consequence in business and in war: confusion, then death.

Thanks for answering the question, Steve. After reading your post I can see that a fixed schedule is not for everybody. However, for people who are having problems with either too much or too little focus on work, adopting a schedule could be a good way to increase productivity and personal well being.