Daily Process - Lessons Learned on Productivity

The other day Joe asked me to write up something about my daily process, what I do to be effective with my time, to see if there’s anything that could be of benefit for the rest of our team. I’ll tell you what, I’ve really had to learn to have a good daily process since starting to make games full time because there’s no one making me go to work. In fact, sometimes there are myriad forces trying to keep me from going to work.

I wanted to share what I wrote with our fans. Maybe you’ll find something here that you can use to help you be more effective at whatever you’re working on.

Start with a routine

I got this one from Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit. Starting your creative work with a certain routine or ritual helps you get in the zone. The ritual doesn’t even have to be that elaborate. It could simply be sitting down at the same place with a bowl of cereal and turning on your music. Whatever cues you to get in the creative zone. My routine is watching an Extra Credits video and doing a daily game design exercise. Simple, yet consistent, and it works fine for me.

Daily exercise

I think some kind of daily (or mostly daily) exercise is helpful, if not for that particular day then at least in the long term. It strengthens your ability to do your craft. I do a daily game design exercise using the Tiny Game Design Tool from Urustar as a template (I transferred it to a Google Doc here if you want to borrow it.) I used to feel like my ability to imagine really zany, fun ideas had withered, but after doing these exercises for a few weeks I feel like it’s coming back. So whether your exercise is drawing, designing, or whatever, it can help you continue to strengthen your skills.

Write down your plans

I have a Google Doc where I write down my plans for the day. I keep it very short and simple, because if it’s too complex I’m afraid to look at it. The whole point is just to remind me what things I need to work on today, a short to-do list, just so I don’t let things slip through the cracks.  We use HackNPlan as our project management tool, and I use that to decide what game-related tasks to work on today, but then I write my plans down in the Google Doc, because some things that I need to do today are not in HackNPlan (many things, actually.)

Warning: If you do choose to use some kind of to-do list for the day, you have to actually use it; otherwise, it’s a waste of time. That even means updating it when you change your mind about what to do even though you’re already doing whatever you decided to do instead. That’s okay, because then at least you’re looking at it and things won’t be forgotten when your plans change.

Set goals and keep them

Disclaimer: This one really depends on your personality. Some people are a lot more flexible than me and are perfectly okay with not doing what they told themselves they were going to do. But if you find yourself struggling to set good goals and keep them, this advice may be of some use.

This one is really important to me. When it comes to daily productivity, I find short-term goals (like for one week) to be effective, though they need to be leading to long-term goals or else there’s not much point to them. Those long-term goals are also what give you the drive to keep your short-term goals.

Set your goals for the week, commit to them, and then keep them. That’s the part that makes setting goals effective. You’ve got to work at keeping your commitments until you get to a point where you can do what you tell yourself you’re going to do. That itself is a skill that must be developed. You won’t ever be perfect at it, but you’ll get better, which means you’re doing more than you did before. What more could you ask for than that?

One key to this is not committing to more than you can really do. Start small. You’ll get better at knowing how much you can take on as you go. Always underpromise and overdeliver, even once you’re pretty good at estimating how much you can do, because it will still take longer than you think. (Remember Murphy and his pesky law?) Only take on what you are sure you can do and are committed to doing.

Sometimes exceptions will come up when you should let go of something you committed to. Sometimes, other things are just more important. But they better be pretty dang good exceptions or else everything becomes an exception.

There you go—lessons learned (and still being learned.) Hopefully, something in here can help you increase your effectiveness. Feel free to share any tips on productivity and effectiveness that you’ve learned in the comments.

- Devon Stern
  Project Manager / Lead Programmer
  Puddygum