(Longpost warning; I find myself wondering if I shouldn’t post it to my livejournal and just link it here.)
A few hours shy of a week ago, I got a major update to my commercial game up to releasable standards. When I got to the final scene, I was extremely happy—on a scale of 1=omnicidally depressed to 10=wireheading, possibly pushing 9 (I’ve tried keeping data on happiness levels in April/May and determined that I’m not well calibrated for determining the value of a single point).
That high dwindled, of course, but for about 24 hours it kept up pretty well.
Since then, I’ve been thoroughly unable to find anything I feel motivated enough to actually work on. I’ve come close on a couple projects, but nothing ever comes of them. So for the most part, the past week has been right back into the pits of despair. If I’m not noticeably accomplishing something, I’m averaging 3-4 or so on the above scale (I haven’t been recording hourly data in the past week). Mostly, the times when I manage to get up around 5-6 are when I’m able to go off and think about something; when I actually try to do anything on the computer, it all drops rapidly.
So far, my method for finding something to work on has been pretty feeble. “Seek out something among the projects we’ve already identified as worth pursuing; if failed, let mind wander and hope something sticks.” The major update that I managed to work on for the previous two or so weeks arose from an idea not among any of the projects I had in mind (in a round-about way, it came from someone’s Facebook status); more ideas grew from it, until I decided to just add them to the existing game, since they fit there about as well as in something new, and would force me to make some long-needed improvements.
That game itself had its origins in a similar situation; I was trying to work on a different but related project, and complained about the impenetrable Akrasiatic barrier to the very same person whose status spawned the recent updates. He made a vague suggestion, I was able to start on it, and the project grew out of that, and was easy enough to edit that it continued expanding.
This does seem to apply primarily to game development; music/fiction don’t seem to follow this trend that I’ve noticed. At most, I wind up defining a few classes for what I want to work on, and in the best cases make some menus but don’t really do much if any testing of the game’s engine. The things that do get done are usually just tiny, non-serious things done on a whim that can evolve into something more serious if the earliest results are pleasant enough.
This sucks and I want to change it and have no idea how to do so. Accomplishment = superhappy and unpredictable, non-accomplishment = depressedly coasting until something happens. Success spirals only seem to work over a very brief interval mid-awesome, assuming I can be distracted from said awesome long enough to do something else worthwhile (as happened the first time I marathonned HPMoR and The Motivation Hacker ; it’s much harder to get a success spiral out of awesome spawned from work, since I’m much less willing to take the risk of turning away from the work for any longer than it takes to remain functional. ).
Since then, I’ve been thoroughly unable to find anything I feel motivated enough to actually work on.
How much time, by the clock, have you spent trying to think of different things you could be doing? If you haven’t, it could be helpful to just sit down and brainstorm as much stuff as you can.
Also, maybe doing something fairly easy but that seems “productive” could be helpful in starting a success spiral getting you back up to your previous speeds; possibly online code challenges or something like that.
Or maybe you should be trying to draw on other things that could make you happier, like hanging out with friends.
How much time, by the clock, have you spent trying to think of different things you could be doing?
I haven’t committed any numbers to memory, but my time is mostly divided between trying to think my way to doing something and trying to avoid drowning in frustration by wasting time on the internet. Just judging by how today has gone so far, it seems to be roughly 1:2 or 1:3 in favor of wasting time. I did briefly turn off the internet at one point, and that seemed to help some, although I still didn’t manage to make good use of that time.
Or maybe you should be trying to draw on other things that could make you happier, like hanging out with friends.
I recommend poking around in your mind to find out what’s actually in your mind, especially when you’re considering taking action. I’ve found it helpful to find out what’s going on before trying to make changes.
I tried to follow this, though I’m not sure I did it in quite the way you meant, and I realized something potentially useful, then immediately—after staying focused on the introspection task for quite some time—wound up wandering off to think about Harry Potter and other things not at all useful to solving the problem. I can only assume my brain decided that the apiphony was sufficient and we were free to cool down.
Anyway, this does seem like a useful direction for now, so thanks!
I’m not sure what you thought I meant, but there might be an interesting difference between finding out what’s going on at the moment vs. finding out what one’s habits are—I’ve had exploration work out both ways.
(Longpost warning; I find myself wondering if I shouldn’t post it to my livejournal and just link it here.)
A few hours shy of a week ago, I got a major update to my commercial game up to releasable standards. When I got to the final scene, I was extremely happy—on a scale of 1=omnicidally depressed to 10=wireheading, possibly pushing 9 (I’ve tried keeping data on happiness levels in April/May and determined that I’m not well calibrated for determining the value of a single point).
That high dwindled, of course, but for about 24 hours it kept up pretty well.
Since then, I’ve been thoroughly unable to find anything I feel motivated enough to actually work on. I’ve come close on a couple projects, but nothing ever comes of them. So for the most part, the past week has been right back into the pits of despair. If I’m not noticeably accomplishing something, I’m averaging 3-4 or so on the above scale (I haven’t been recording hourly data in the past week). Mostly, the times when I manage to get up around 5-6 are when I’m able to go off and think about something; when I actually try to do anything on the computer, it all drops rapidly.
So far, my method for finding something to work on has been pretty feeble. “Seek out something among the projects we’ve already identified as worth pursuing; if failed, let mind wander and hope something sticks.” The major update that I managed to work on for the previous two or so weeks arose from an idea not among any of the projects I had in mind (in a round-about way, it came from someone’s Facebook status); more ideas grew from it, until I decided to just add them to the existing game, since they fit there about as well as in something new, and would force me to make some long-needed improvements.
That game itself had its origins in a similar situation; I was trying to work on a different but related project, and complained about the impenetrable Akrasiatic barrier to the very same person whose status spawned the recent updates. He made a vague suggestion, I was able to start on it, and the project grew out of that, and was easy enough to edit that it continued expanding.
This does seem to apply primarily to game development; music/fiction don’t seem to follow this trend that I’ve noticed. At most, I wind up defining a few classes for what I want to work on, and in the best cases make some menus but don’t really do much if any testing of the game’s engine. The things that do get done are usually just tiny, non-serious things done on a whim that can evolve into something more serious if the earliest results are pleasant enough.
This sucks and I want to change it and have no idea how to do so. Accomplishment = superhappy and unpredictable, non-accomplishment = depressedly coasting until something happens. Success spirals only seem to work over a very brief interval mid-awesome, assuming I can be distracted from said awesome long enough to do something else worthwhile (as happened the first time I marathonned HPMoR and The Motivation Hacker ; it’s much harder to get a success spiral out of awesome spawned from work, since I’m much less willing to take the risk of turning away from the work for any longer than it takes to remain functional. ).
Just trying to think of some possible ideas...
How much time, by the clock, have you spent trying to think of different things you could be doing? If you haven’t, it could be helpful to just sit down and brainstorm as much stuff as you can.
Also, maybe doing something fairly easy but that seems “productive” could be helpful in starting a success spiral getting you back up to your previous speeds; possibly online code challenges or something like that.
Or maybe you should be trying to draw on other things that could make you happier, like hanging out with friends.
I haven’t committed any numbers to memory, but my time is mostly divided between trying to think my way to doing something and trying to avoid drowning in frustration by wasting time on the internet. Just judging by how today has gone so far, it seems to be roughly 1:2 or 1:3 in favor of wasting time. I did briefly turn off the internet at one point, and that seemed to help some, although I still didn’t manage to make good use of that time.
I have no such opportunities of which I am aware.
I recommend poking around in your mind to find out what’s actually in your mind, especially when you’re considering taking action. I’ve found it helpful to find out what’s going on before trying to make changes.
I tried to follow this, though I’m not sure I did it in quite the way you meant, and I realized something potentially useful, then immediately—after staying focused on the introspection task for quite some time—wound up wandering off to think about Harry Potter and other things not at all useful to solving the problem. I can only assume my brain decided that the apiphony was sufficient and we were free to cool down.
Anyway, this does seem like a useful direction for now, so thanks!
I’m glad my suggestion helped.
I’m not sure what you thought I meant, but there might be an interesting difference between finding out what’s going on at the moment vs. finding out what one’s habits are—I’ve had exploration work out both ways.