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[Don Andy]

Hrm, I have a hard time focusing on one thing (like, making a game) for a long time (or at least long enough to make a game).

Usually, I work on it a bit, till I get all "Meh, this is boring."
Then I play a game (playing an easy, mindless game helps) for a while, till I get bored of THAT again, and then I work on the project a bit more.

Insane amounts of coke and the right kind of music (fast, loud and with a lot of boom boom boom) can work wonders on me, too. It's like drugs, just legal.

[Jesseyay]

Well I usually start with anything at all thats at least something. And then my thoughts will progress onto some other part and it'll keep going like that until it's all done.
Just start something, anything and you'll find motivation for bigger things is less of an issue.

[marshmonkey]

4 cups of coffee and focusing on making something that I can be excited to show off to someone and get their reaction on. Each little work spurt is aimed towards being able to show my progress.

[Lord Ash]

for me, I think, I want to work on a project. If I stop working on a project, then I will be doing something else, watching tv, reading forums, chatting in IRC.

So I ask myself, do I want to work on games, or do I want to be doing this other thing. If I am watching tv, the what I want to be doing is watching tv, not working on games, and I want to talk about working on games, and complaining about not getting them done.

So ask yourself, do you want to watch tv, or play a game, or read a book ?
Or do you want to make video games ?

It is as simple as that, you will be doing what you want to be doing, and if your not, then you want to be not doing it, and making excuses. Do you want to make excuses why you can't, or do you want to work on and finish video games ?

Next time you find yourself losing focus, ask yourself this, and heed your answer.

It's that simple.

[Ivan]

For me it's music alot of the time. Something spacey and synthy to put myself into a coding/painting/modelling trance. Klaus Schulze works quite well.

[Lucaz]

Although I listen music while working, a lot of time it distracts me. It's the completely wrong kind music for that, but it's what makes ma able to sit in the compuetr for hours.

[MekanikDestructiwKommando]

Motivation automatically arrives when you're working, not the other way around. Motivation is momentum, and you can't get momentum until you start the ball rolling.

Hm.. thanks everyone

[fish]

i dont focus, focus phil fishes.

[Melly]

Actually, lately's been a bit hard for me to maintain the ball rolling. I start coding, write some lines, and then I want to stop. I don't understand very much why, but I think I need more discipline. I'm trying to my best, but it's being hard lately for some reason.

[Madnis]

Actually, lately's been a bit hard for me to maintain the ball rolling. I start coding, write some lines, and then I want to stop. I don't understand very much why, but I think I need more discipline. I'm trying to my best, but it's being hard lately for some reason.

"More discipline" is like saying the slaves will work harder if we beat them more frequently. Try to find a way around the problem, rather than smashing into it with more force. If we all agree that 'motivation' is closely synonymous with 'momentum', then I think what Melly describes is 'friction'.

When I'm getting a lot of friction/drag, this is a sign that I need to step back and reevaluate the design, or somehow change the parameters of my situation. Seek out a newer and better, hopefully nanotech-fiber, low-friction material to roll on. Or just find a way to make my travel downhill instead of uphill. Either way, there's something being overlooked.

I try to break my routine in a strange way. Shake up the system... there's probably something I'm assuming to be static or given, that doesn't need to be.

 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Discipline isn't like beating slaves, discipline is more like sitting up straight instead of slouching, or being toilet trained, or taking a shower every day, you have to build it in as a habit. If you're using effort or exerting yourself in order to get started working on your game each day, it's not a habit or a discipline. Martial arts are a discipline, think of the word in that sense :D

[Madnis]

Well, in that sense, I would agree that a discipline should be effortless and habitual. Soldiers have this kind of discipline, but there is still the exceptional circumstance. ie. what to do when the soldiers mutiny? The system has broken down.

My remark was more RE: those moments... I am pro-discipline. It's just that when discipline has failed, I find that the solution is very rarely "more discipline". There's usually an underlying problem that needs to be addressed before discipline can be reinstated in a lasting way. At least, in my experience.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

In my experience it's not usually an underlying problem, it's more a problem of habit. Aristotle (and yes I just said in another thread that he said it's stupid to quote others, but this is a good observation of his) said that excellence is a habit, just like any other habit, it's not a single action.

Most of what we do each day, probably even more than 99%, we do through habit, so when we don't work on our game the fault is not that we don't feel motivated or inspired, but simply that we do not have a habit of working on our game, and the solution is simply to develop that habit. Similarly, if we don't brush our teeth every day, there's usually no underlying problem, it's not some character flaw at work, it's just that someone who doesn't do that doesn't have the habit of doing that.

Of course, there *can* be underlying problems. Maybe someone has no energy because they don't exercise or because they eat mostly junk food or because they're depressed. One of my friends was very lazy until he gave up the standard American diet of mostly meat and soda in every meal, and switched to a more traditional diet that was heavier on vegetables and fish and tea. After that, his productivity increased quite amazingly. Similarly in myself, I go through periods where I'm lazy and don't work, and I find that the reason is sometimes because I'm not getting enough sunlight and exercise. But more often than that, the reason is simply that I've lost the habit and need to restart it again through daily practice.

Another thing I can't emphasize enough which I mentioned earlier is: the first thing you do each day sets the tone of the day. If the first thing you do each day on the computer is check the forums or check your email, you probably aren't going to work on your game that day. You should work on the game first thing, even if it's just 15 minutes of work on it before checking your email. And chances are you'll get caught up in working on it and want to return to it after email, and even if you don't at least you've worked on it 15 minutes that day. Simply following that rule every day, which takes almost no effort, would cure virtually everyone's "lack of focus" or "laziness", because it'd develop a habit of working on the game every day.

Here's a quote which I've forgotten the source to, but I think it's funny and relevant:

Q. "How does a game get delayed for a year?" A. "One day at a time."

[ChevyRay]

i dont focus, focus phil fishes.

:D Jesus

Another thing I can't emphasize enough which I mentioned earlier is: the first thing you do each day sets the tone of the day. If the first thing you do each day on the computer is check the forums or check your email, you probably aren't going to work on your game that day. You should work on the game first thing, even if it's just 15 minutes of work on it before checking your email.

I usually can't get working on my game until I do something else first. You're right about forums or email, though, those things don't usually inspire creativity. But I usually will load up/browse some game music, check out some pixels at Pixel Joint, or play a couple of games to get in the mood, first. After a few minutes of getting in the "game zone", my enthusiasm is pumping enough to get in gear and start programming and pixelling myself.

[jonny]

Getting enough sleep (not only that, but going to bed early and waking up early) is a big thing for me. Otherwise I sit down to code and two seconds later my mind starts to shift towards something which provides more stimulus.

For me, it's usually not lack motivation that's a problem, but rather getting too easily discouraged. I've found that sleep helps that too...

But I guess that's only for the things that I want to do. For the things that I have to do, I have no motivation. For the things that I want to do, I get discouraged.

But yeah, sleep fixes that.

Joel Spolsky has written a lot about the state of "flow", which always kind of resonates with me.  His articles are geared towards programmers but I think they probably fit well across a range of creative endeavors.

I can relate to that perfectly.

[Derek]

Joel Spolsky has written a lot about the state of "flow", which always kind of resonates with me.  His articles are geared towards programmers but I think they probably fit well across a range of creative endeavors.

I can relate to that perfectly.

Michal M. (Soldat dude) wrote about "getting things done" in his latest blog post.  It's in typical Michal-style, which means it's a bit over-the-top, but hey!  I think a lot of it makes weird sense.

[György Straub]

Joel Spolsky has written a lot about the state of "flow", which always kind of resonates with me.  His articles are geared towards programmers but I think they probably fit well across a range of creative endeavors.

I can relate to that perfectly.

Michal M. (Soldat dude) wrote about "getting things done" in his latest blog post.  It's in typical Michal-style, which means it's a bit over-the-top, but hey!  I think a lot of it makes weird sense.

he makes perfect sense (or I'm over the top!=) )... google for Osho. this is something I've never done, I got his books in Hungarian (my superficial search for them in the UK were without results). he's got stuff like that. also very well worth reading.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Michal M. (Soldat dude) wrote about "getting things done" in his latest blog post.  It's in typical Michal-style, which means it's a bit over-the-top, but hey!  I think a lot of it makes weird sense.

That's a good post, although, I don't think you have to realize that your worldview is an approximation and that thoughts aren't real in order to be productive (even though those are true and can be helpful), because there are plenty of people who are productive who don't think that deeply about the types of things he's talking about. So in a way I think he's over-complicating the problem, and it usually has a simpler solution of just doing a bit of work every day and eventually making it a habit.

Although I do wholeheartedly agree that most people think too much, they dwell in a type of internal dialogues and floating abstractions and worries instead of just living in the present, in sensory reality.

The media saturation virtually all of us have around us all the time (all the tv, internet, movies, music, books, etc.) kind of gets in the way of physical reality too. A lot of people spend most of their waking hours dealing with media in one form or another, even though media is just transmitted information a step removed from sensory reality, and is distancing.

[jonny]

Michal M. (Soldat dude) wrote about "getting things done" in his latest blog post.  It's in typical Michal-style, which means it's a bit over-the-top, but hey!  I think a lot of it makes weird sense.

That's a good post, although, I don't think you have to realize that your worldview is an approximation and that thoughts aren't real in order to be productive (even though those are true and can be helpful), because there are plenty of people who are productive who don't think that deeply about the types of things he's talking about. So in a way I think he's over-complicating the problem, and it usually has a simpler solution of just doing a bit of work every day and eventually making it a habit.

Well, it really depends on the type of person you are. If you're very intellectual and tend to analyze everything to the bone, and even more to the point, if your the type of person to come up with something like that in the first place, then reaching this kind of intellectual understanding could be very helpful in allowing you to free yourself of your intellect.

People who are less intellectual tend to be more feeling based and because of that are less likely to get stuck in an infinite mental loop. There's nothing to solve so no solution is necessary. But for the people who do have this problem, such a solution often is necessary, and actually isn't over complicating things because thinking like this is second nature them. And in fact, saying "Just do a bit of work every day" isn't really a solution to problem: the "doing" is the problem itself.
 

Although I do wholeheartedly agree that most people think too much, they dwell in a type of internal dialogues and floating abstractions and worries instead of just living in the present, in sensory reality.

I agree with that to some extent, but it's not really fair to treat it as a problem. Some people, as I said before, are simply intellectual by nature so thinking a lot is really just the way they built. It's more of a personality trait than a flaw. Of course, it does cause problems which aren't shared by people who think less, but not thinking can also causes problems too. I guess it comes down to a balance, which is probably what you were getting at in the first place. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think it has anything to do with the intellect. Some of the least intellectual people live in a mental world of internal dialogue, worries, abstractions and so on. As an example, most very fundemantlist religious people are living in that type of "thought-world", a land of abstractions and intangible things which they can't see or touch, yet you wouldn't really call such people intellectuals.

I think an intellectual is just someone familiar with a wide range of knowledge. One can be an intellectual and live in the present moment. A good (fictional) example of that is Yoda: Yoda is definitely very smart, he's quite intelligent, but he also very wise and lives in the present moment. Another similar example is Gandhi: Gandhi was a lawyer, he was very sharp, he was widely read and knew his stuff, but he also lived in the present moment, not an imaginary world.