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[TeeGee]

I like the article, but I too work differently. One of the reasons I went full-time indie was precisely to escape the routine of working 8-9 hours a day, and to have more time for hobbies and fun.

I have set a very simple set of rules for myself, mostly flexible:

- I wake relatively early. I don't have to start working right away, but I like to take the most of each day. I also don't want to turn into the stereotypical freelancer type who wakes up at 1pm and spends the day in boxers.

- Though, if I'm tired, hangover, have worked all night, etc., I don't feel bad about sleeping as much as I want.

- I make sure I have a very clear list of things that need to be done for the current milestone and the game as a whole. I find it hard to start working if I don't have a clear idea what should I focus on.

- I work precisely for as long as I can. If I start to notice I'm getting distracted easily, if I check facebook too often, or stare at the wall, I just call it a day. Pretending I'm working accomplishes nothing and only makes me more tired. On the other hand, If I'm excited for some feature and could code for 16 hours straight, I do so. I generally try to work in tune with my natural activity and creativity levels.

- If I need to get something boring or tedious done, or if I'm tired but can't miss a deadline. I set myself some attainable goal at the start of each day. For instance: "Today I'm going to implement two levels." Then I work for as long as it's necessary to reach that goal. If it takes just a few hours, lucky me. If it takes 8+, too bad, it had to be done at some point anyway. I make sure to do it everyday until the milestone is complete.

- If I have a cool game I'd rather play for the whole day, or if the weather calls for a bike trip, or if a buddy asks me out for a couple of beers -- work can wait. One of the advantages of being indie is that I don't need to limit myself to normal working hours or week days. What I don't do now can be moved to Sunday evening, and I will be happier that way.

- One thing I dropped, though, are stupid internet procrastination habits, like visiting "humor" websites or checking news portals compulsively. I needed them to get through my day in an office job, but they serve no purpose for me now. They are not really funny or important, and if I'm to slack off, I prefer to do it on a forum, where I can at least get some knowledge and motivation.

- If I feel burned out, or find myself unable to relax after the work day is over, I change the environment by working from a cafe or a bookstore. Make it easier to separate work time from fun time.

Worked for me for the past year and a half, though obviously everyone is different.

[Galaxy613]

One thing I've found is, sometimes music is actually a hinderance. It either has to be music you are really really familiar with and just fades into the background for you or just becomes another distraction, especially on high-focus tasks like figuring out programming problems.

[Moczan]

As for Pomodoro technique I found out that I work much better extending both time frames. 25 minutes breaks your 'zone' too often, while 5 minutes is too short to do anything that will feel like a break. I tend to for example work on a task 1.5-2h and than play one Starcraft match. So I get rid of the 'zone-breaking' alarm and strict time frames, and set myself task-reward chain. If I get into the zone for 3h accidentally, nothing will destroy that, and that's the time I get the most work done in.

[Paul Eres]

- I wake relatively early. I don't have to start working right away, but I like to take the most of each day. I also don't want to turn into the stereotypical freelancer type who wakes up at 1pm and spends the day in boxers.

in my case i have a lot of noise from family / neighbors / outside my window during the day, so i find it's easier to sleep during the day and work at evening / night. if it were quiet during the day i'd probably work during the day but because it's so noisy during the day i find working during the evening/night is a necessity, which often means staying up late (i usually stay up to around 2am and wake up around 9am)

- If I need to get something boring or tedious done, or if I'm tired but can't miss a deadline. I set myself some attainable goal at the start of each day. For instance: "Today I'm going to implement two levels." Then I work for as long as it's necessary to reach that goal. If it takes just a few hours, lucky me. If it takes 8+, too bad, it had to be done at some point anyway. I make sure to do it everyday until the milestone is complete.

sounds like a form of timeboxing. i find it hard to predict what is attainable in a day sometimes. for instance, the time it takes to fix a bug can vary between 5 minutes to weeks. same thing for some balancing issues. or coding things i've never coded before (for instance, back when i wanted to get text scrolling working with correct jumps to the next line, if you remember that problem, it took me about a week to solve something that i thought was a trivial issue). for a lot of tasks i can predict how long it'd take but for a lot i can't, but i like this idea and should try it (i've tried something like it before but not on the "day" level as you describe it, mainly on the "week" or "month" level)

[True Valhalla]

It would be hellish to quote all the individual comments I'd like to reply to, so I'll talk generally.

@Paul, I find breaks are definitely a requirement to get through an 8 hour work day. I take a 5 minute break every hour, and I take Sundays off completely. At the end of each day I also have a long break, of 3-4 hours where I watch TV, view news, or post on forums. So my work cycle is scattered with break periods of varying size (again tailored to what works for me). While a 5 minute break might not be enough for some people, I just get restless if it's longer.

If the quality of my work does suffer, then I will not hesitate to take a day off. Maintaining quality is always better than maintaining a routine. I'm also not perfect: I do break my routine occasionally.

I'm not sure if the Pomodoro technique would work well for me, as I do like longer work sessions. I find an hour of work with a 5 minute break is about perfect for me. It does encourage distraction-free work which I'm all for, though. I understand the appeal in the technique.

@TeeGee, I personally like waking early, but it's been far too cold in the mornings here so that hasn't been a possibility. I noticed my productivity has dropped since Winter kicked in. At night I'm no where near as productive as during the day.

I like the way you work in general.

@Galaxy, I always make sure the music I play in the background is suitable for the task. I don't play metal or dubstep when I'm trying to code procedural generation, it's too distracting! But I do play a mix of the Oblivion OST and Guild Wars OST when working on my ORPG Myriad Online. So it's about finding what is suitable for the task at hand.

Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone.

[ionside]

I find the way I work depends on the task at hand. When doing art/animating I have music playing - quite loud in fact. But when programming I have the music turned off.

Recently I found I had a habit of checking Facebook, for no reason. I replaced that with standing up and stretching.

[Paul Eres]

@valhalla - the pomodoro system is flexible actually. it says you can change the numbers around if you like. you can make the timer periods longer and the break periods longer. some people do, and some people make them shorter. if you read the free guide to it it explicitly explains all that

[ra51]

actually, 8 hours *isn't* normal for people who work 8 hours a day. they have lunch breaks. they often don't work every single minute of that time, often having breaks for meetings or goofing off on the job. there was a study that measured actual work in the typical 8 hour workday / 40 hour workweek, and they found something like only two and a half hours of actual work got done, the rest of the day, even for *salaried employees* was wasted on distractions, breaks, periods where they did nothing and stretched or went to the bathroom or drank coffee, travel time, walking between rooms, time spent socializing with other co-workers, time spent staring off blankly into space, etc.

This is totally so true . You can even probably divide that in half if the worker totally hates their job. I would also add that the work environment you're in...if you're there with a bunch of chatterbox co-workers or worker bees can affect your daily performance also. I do find that on days when i'm around the chatterboxes, i get absolutely nothing done.

I believe that the workers are legally entitled to a break. Not sure in america land, but in my country they are.

This is actually a good question, i'm not sure if workers in the US are legally entitled to a break or not - though it is just common "thing to have" in order to maintain worker sanity. Which is probably why there is so little actually accomplished within that 8 hour workday. I do know based on US laws that its not mandatory to have vacation or "time-off" hours in the US. This is defined by the company they work for.

[Archibald]

Game development is enjoyable for me still, but like every job it is work in the end.

I think that's wrong, and won't work in the long run. Many writers say that the moment it starts feeling like a work it is the end. And writers and devs have much in common...

[True Valhalla]

Game development is enjoyable for me still, but like every job it is work in the end.

I think that's wrong, and won't work in the long run. Many writers say that the moment it starts feeling like a work it is the end. And writers and devs have much in common...

It's not "wrong" if it's unavoidable.

If I worked only a few hours a day on games it might stay enjoyable all the time, but it isn't economically viable if it is to be my main source of income. If I work 8+ hours a day, I'll make the money I need to but inevitably it's going to be less enjoyable over time.

However, it can be work and enjoyable at the same time. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be doing it.

[Archibald]

Game development is enjoyable for me still, but like every job it is work in the end.

I think that's wrong, and won't work in the long run. Many writers say that the moment it starts feeling like a work it is the end. And writers and devs have much in common...

It's not "wrong" if it's unavoidable.

You used the word "have to" (in bold!) and "unavoidable". I can't explain it very well, but I'm very confident I'm right this time. These are lies and "kiss of death" words if used in connection to making games. You don't have to do anything, you won't starve to death if you don't make games (and if you go this route long enough you might start to wonder if starving to death is not a better option to make yet another game you learned to loathe on the way). I have been on the "have to" path for a very long time, so I can say with great confidence, there is nothing nice at the end of the way. Do not go there.

The tricky thing is that the "have to" approach works very well for even many years, and it can make you successful, still, it's not worth the final harvest it takes...

[True Valhalla]

Email me in 5 years and we'll see where the dice landed

[Terrified Virus]

Hey, True Valhalla is on the TIG Forums! He is a hero of the Game Maker Community, always inspiring everyone!

[True Valhalla]

Haha, I'm trying to get more involved here where I can. I would post more but frequenting two large forums is time consuming.

[theRaddRedd]

Awesome, awesome, awesome post. Just getting into the swing of full-time indie work myself, and this was right on time!

P.S. Your site is awesome; super motivational