I still fondly remember what it feels like to be a hobbyist game developer, it wasn’t that long ago after all. I created games for the purpose of fun and learning and not much more. There was no pressure whatsoever. That all changed when I decided to take my hobby and turn it into a business.
The key difference between self-employment and a typical 9-5 is that you have complete control of your fate. If you succeed, it’s because you succeeded and if you fail, it’s because you failed. There’s a special kind of fear knowing that the result is an absolute reflection of yourself.
Full-Time Indie
Even though I’ve been working as a self-employed game developer since April 2012, I actually spent a year preparing for the transition. It was obvious to me that I’d have to adapt an entirely new mindset to succeed, so that’s what I did. I’m not entirely sure that I’ve succeeded as an indie yet, but things are certainly going well. I transformed myself from a lazy kid to a dedicated worker bee.
Now I find myself eagerly waiting for the next episode of “Breaking Bad” to air. Watching TV shows for hours on end was by far my worst habit before the transition from hobbyist to full-time indie, but my situation has changed. Breaking Bad is now my reward, not my restraint.
Credit: Alejandro Garcia
Procrastination
As I’m sure many of you know, the task of kicking time-consuming habits is one of the hardest parts of becoming a productive indie. You always need more hours in the day and bad habits are always holding you back. Whether those bad habits involve television or video games or internet addiction, they all have to go if you want to succeed. During my transition I gradually removed all of these distractions from my life. I canceled my subscriptions, disconnected the Xbox, and uninstalled every single game on my PC. I’m looking at you, Minecraft!
Physically removing your distractions is vital but giving this act value requires a certain mental focus too. There’s no point in freeing hours in your day if you can’t fill that time with solid work. And that’s no easy task in itself.
Some bad habits don’t need to be completely removed from your life though. Turning them into a reward on a smaller scale can actually be valuable. I watch TV after my work day has ended, but only if I’ve worked a solid 8 hours. Otherwise, I have to wait until I’ve filled that quota. If you’d like to become more productive try to manipulate your own personality and discover how you can better focus your time. I use rewards, guilt, and more all to great effect.
The important part here is that you need to actually want to be productive. This applies to hobbyist developers as well. You know which bad habits are holding you back, now you just need the willpower to eliminate them.
Not all habits are bad, though. Some habits will actually make you more productive.
Work Area
Getting into the habit of only working in a predefined area can be huge boost to productivity. Whether you setup an office in a whole new room or decide to only work from a specific desk, having your own space can be hugely beneficial. You’ll instinctively feel like working when you’re in your own dedicated work area.
I’ve set up my own office with good lighting, a quality chair, and an outside view. Make sure your work area is comfortable and ergonomic so you don’t strain your body too much. If you’re working in the one place every day you should put some effort into making it a enjoyable environment.
An invaluable tip from Cliff Harris of Positech Games is to surround yourself with inspiration. I have a mug from YoYoGames, the creators of my game development engine. I always have my morning coffee in that mug at the start of each work day. I also play music that reflects the game I’m currently working on, which helps me stay focused. Silly habits like this reinforce my work environment and make it a more inviting space to be in.
Moar coffee!
Remember to only work in your work environment. If you start using it as a leisure space then it will quickly lose any motivational benefits.
Routine
Define a portion of your day to work and define chunks to break it into. Don’t stretch yourself too far…it’s not realistic to work 12 or more hours every day and maintain your sanity! You need free time after a long day, and you need hourly breaks so you don’t become restless.
Your work routine has to be consistent. Start and finish work at the exact same time every day.
Be sure to schedule at least one full-day break per week. I sleep in on Sundays and force myself not to work at all. This valuable recovery period has become just as much a part of my routine as any other.
Sleep Cycle
In order to abide by your defined work period you should establish a proper sleep cycle. There is a lot of debate about the most efficient way to become rested. You can establish a simple monophastic routine where you go to bed at a certain time and wake at a certain time until eventually your body syncs itself to this cycle. Or you can try an aggressive approach where you sleep for only 4 hours a day, forcing your body to enter the REM deep sleep period faster than usual while providing you with more hours to your day.
Whatever your choice, a habitual sleeping cycle will provide you with mental clarity and ensure that you maintain your work routine each and every day.
Visualization
Creating a visualization of your work load and achievements can be very helpful. I have to-do lists that are hundreds of lines long and I keep records of my work throughout each day.
Both of these habits serve different purposes. To-do lists allow you to easily move from task to task efficiently without having to balance your work load in your head. For larger projects they are particularly useful as well.
Recording your work acts to reinforce your efforts at the end of each day. Sometimes you can work for hours and feel like nothing was achieved, or like you wasted the day. But if you record your achievements you’ll be able to see all of the individual actions that you forgot about, and that you really did achieve something. Well, unless you really were lazy!
Accountability
The most valuable habit that I’ve gotten into is making myself accountable. I like to publicly announce my work, my progress, and my failings. It keeps me honest and this blog is part of that. Accountability is an excellent motivator when used correctly.
I don’t build my social network for fame…I build it so that people I respect can hold me accountable if I don’t follow through on a project.
For serious and important projects, I tend to involve money for added motivation. My major project Myriad Online has received over $1000 in donations from many different supporters. I can literally never quit work on that game knowing that so many people are vested in my project. The same applies to my upcoming eBook Making Money With HTML5. I’ve accepted over $500 in pre-orders so I have to deliver on it now.
My personal use of accountability as a motivational tool is just something that works for me, it may not be suitable for everyone. In which case, find some other part of your personality that can be manipulated to your benefit. Guilting yourself into working is better than not working at all!
The Big Picture
During my journey to becoming a productive indie, the most important element has been the mental transition. I’ve had to stop and recognize what was holding me back, then have the strength to remove it, and then have the willpower to utilize the results. It’s not an easy task to work 8+ hours a day when you have the option not to, or to stay focused on the big picture when it seems like you’ll never achieve it…
But it does ultimately come down to that big picture. That one goal that makes everything about being a self-made indie developer worth the effort, worth the time, and worth the sacrifices. It’s not all about skill, and there’s no luck involved…
All you need to do is be willing to make the effort.
Matthew
Wow. This post was very inspiring. It will help me a lot during my indie career. Thank you for this.
I’m really glad to hear it. Thank YOU!
Good LORD! Brother this was a whale of a post and you should think about becoming a motivational speaker or a mentor or something!
I am continually amazed by the writing you do here and by the inspired way you choose your wording.
As for the post itself – I can definitely take some tips from it. I’m a procrastinator to some extent (not really, but sometimes), but my true biz downfall is having small children (well, that’s not a downfall, it’s wonderful, but you know what I mean). Balancing work and home life is the biggest struggle, you have no idea. Treasure this time when you can focus and build something great with tunnel vision aimed at your goals… do it all before life only allows you to get it done in spurts. It takes much longer that way.
Nell @ Housewife Empire recently posted..When Your Online Biz Hits a Wall
Thanks Nell; I truly can’t imagine how much more difficult this would be with a family/kids to support. I’m making the best of what I’ve got at the moment, for as long as I can!
When it comes to sleep, I have two recommendations for people who want to make life easier for themselves:
1. become an early riser and do it according to Steve Pavlina’s instructions (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/). The main thing however, is waking up every day at the same time, weekends included. Doesn’t matter if it’s that early or not but always the same time. The body gets used to it quickly and soon you will learn to know when to go to bed at nights. Sometimes you sleep more and sometimes less but always enough. After couple of weeks it’s possible to break this rule sometimes if you need to stay up longer but you will get back to the rhythm again easily.
2. start eating healthy and you need both less sleep AND feel more energetic during the day. “Eating healthy” has nothing to do with official recommendations, those are just politics and corruption. Swedish doctor Andreas Eenfeldt has an easy guide for a healthy low carb diet: http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf The diet is also good for losing weight if you have that issue (worked for me, I wasn’t really obese but a big guy training at the gym who lost 23kg/60lbs in 9 months).
In case someone is wondering, you don’t need to buy anything from these websites I linked here, all the information is free (and no need to give your email address to access that info). So no spam, just something that worked for me.
I’d gotten into a great habit of waking up early and having the most productive days, but then Winter hit and ruined all of that. Now I sleep til 9am and go to bed at anywhere between 11pm and 3am. Not the best cycle but about the best I can do right now.
I definitely agree that eating healthy is worth the effort. I actually did consider writing that as part of the article, too. Thanks for your comment and advice
It’s interesting to see the differences and similarities from what you and I are doing. I am still in high school so of course I can’t do stuff full time! But I AM working on my first paid game at the moment and I can really relate to the “if my game fails it’s my fault” and that I have to have goals or else I get nothing done (or it takes a long time). I think the main differences are actually that you get WAY more work done than me, and that if my games don’t do well it really doesn’t matter. And because I’m doing stuff for fun and it’s not my job, I don’t have to worry about getting publishers for my HTML5 games or worry about making money off my iPhone app. However I still think that if I am going to charge money for something I should make it as good value/quality as possible, which is why I think I have the possibility of failing by having people think my games are a rip off. But as you said, with the added pressure of me thinking this, I can’t possibly “fail” because I have put the extra pressure on myself to make my games as good as possible!
Oh, and that post was definitely worth the hours of work you put into it, because you are building your social network really well and feeding it with interesting and quality info!
Oh, and I have my mac running the iTunes disco (you know… command T?) whilst I work on my PC for inspiration!
Thanks Alex, and truly: best of luck with your own games, I know you’ll do brilliantly!
Excellent post TV! Definately gave me a lot to think about, really appreciate you taking the time to hammer these articles out, your writing style is really starting to flow smoothly, nice touch with the title, genius way to attract new readers, that show is amazing, really a brilliant work of art, gonna be interesting to see what Gilligan does next. Anyways great article man, best one yet IMHO,
-zakchaos
Thanks Zak! And haha, yes Breaking Bad is fascinating television. The only show that can literally make my jaw drop.
I have a feeling I am in the same boat as you were. I’m still in the learning stage but I would like to become a developer. This is a great “learner” guide to become one. Like I said before, I admire you!
Thank you, it’s nice to be admired but I don’t know if I deserve it!
Hi, nice post! Please don;t become a motivational speaker, just like everyone else seems to – just keep making games! I’m heading over to the ebook preorder page now
I’ll be sure to keep working on this whole “game dev” thing for a little while yet
Thanks for your pre-order Philip!
i have a hard time getting myself to work on projects. maybe i’ll improve my workspace, my chair is gettin old. keeping track of my progress sounds like a good idea. i usually look at my game half left to go instead of half finished. good blog post
Glad you could take a few tips from it, let me know how it goes.
Fantastic post- very, very inspirational. Lots of insight. In fact I think I will go uninstall counter strike. Priorities!
Thanks Matt!
Like others here I enjoyed reading this post. I’ve seen a lot of talk about procrastination and “being focused” but nobody ever really gets specific or personal about how they try to stay productive and get the most out of their day. I think this’ll help me as well.
Great post, Matt.
I like this “I don’t build my social network for fame…I build it so that people I respect can hold me accountable if I don’t follow through on a project.”
Mark recently posted..Introducing Hellspawn – an HTML5 take on the frenzy of Robotron and Gridrunner
Thanks Mark, I really appreciate your comments, and thank you for adding me to your blog roll