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[Alec S.]

So I've been thinking about ways to get motivated to work, and I think setting deadlines for yourself can be a good way to push yourself forward.  However, if you just say to yourself "Alright, I'll do [thing] by [time]," it's really easy to just forget about your deadlines and not pay them any mind.

So I thought it might be useful to have a tread to publicly declare your own personal deadlines, either for games or for parts of games, like artwork or music.  If they are written down, online, you might feel a bit more real and work better.

You can also use this thread once you've hit the deadline you set for yourself to announce whether you made your deadline (and, if not, how close you got.  I mean, can't always make your deadlines, but they still pushed you to work more  .)

I'll start:

Create a playable and presentable version of my game "Dadaists Gone Wild" by two weeks from now.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

these are for saturated dreamers, though i've a bad track record with deadlines it's still good to have them.

end of may: all enemy behaviors and the save/load system
june 15th: improve all ship functions and apply to all creatures except for the sound functions
june 30th: more of the areas/world of the game
end of july: camp mode dialogue, function upgrading system due to friended creature percent
end of august: sound effects and the sound functions
end of september: playtesting and bug fixing
end of october: story scenes, intro, endings, boss behaviors
end of november: rest of the areas of the game
sometime in december: release

[davidp]

i tried doing that but failed miserably. the thing is i never do anything in time if not forced (for payment, evaluation, etc).

:/ everything i work on just for fun ends up being mega prolonged project, most likely never finished.

[Klaim]

I was like that too. It changed when I really decided it was time to finish projects.
Now I'm really working toward this objective : finish a playable game. (without a clear deadline - other than the IGF).

[mirosurabu]

I will make a game tomorrow.

Let's see how that works.

[Halcyon]

When I make deadlines I usually just wait until the last day to complete it, which often isn't enough time. 

[Xion]

With TIGS as my witness, I deadline myself to paint something awesome by this time next week.

[mirosurabu]

I will make a game tomorrow.

Let's see how that works.

That's how much personal deadlines work for me.

[lordmetroid]

I found personal deadlines to personally be ineffective. I get better result with burndown charts and ticking off features from a list I wish to add. To actually be able to physically see your progress is very motivating rather than just knowing that I got something finished.

[shrimp]

I found personal deadlines to personally be ineffective. I get better result with burndown charts and ticking off features from a list I wish to add. To actually be able to physically see your progress is very motivating rather than just knowing that I got something finished.

Yes! This seems to be working well for me too, although I've never really tried the deadline-based method. Probably because my free time to work on stuff is quite unpredictable so short deadlines don't work. (And with longterm deadlines I think I lose focus)

I'm using www.acunote.com, which is free for small teams (including teams of 1) and really slick. It does burndown charts and stuff, but i'm not really using for anything more than dumping a vast list of tasks and then organising them into "sprints" (it's an implementation of Scrum, but it's much simpler than it sounds)

[team_q]

I'm using www.acunote.com, which is free for small teams (including teams of 1) and really slick. It does burndown charts and stuff, but i'm not really using for anything more than dumping a vast list of tasks and then organising them into "sprints" (it's an implementation of Scrum, but it's much simpler than it sounds)

Reminds me of assembla. One of the main issues of online scrum is you miss the real world shame element that drives scrum IMHO.

[Matt Thorson]

I'm using www.acunote.com, which is free for small teams (including teams of 1) and really slick. It does burndown charts and stuff, but i'm not really using for anything more than dumping a vast list of tasks and then organising them into "sprints" (it's an implementation of Scrum, but it's much simpler than it sounds)

Reminds me of assembla. One of the main issues of online scrum is you miss the real world shame element that drives scrum IMHO.

This is totally a huge factor. 

Also, shame and guilt are big reasons why pair programming works so well.  If you don't work hard your partner will think you're lazy, or he'll get in trouble from the boss unfairly because of your laziness (pairs are treated as a single person for deadlines, etc so if the code doesn't make the deadline or is horribly buggy it's the pair's fault, not just the lazy half of the pair).

But yeah, on topic, I use personal deadlines a lot, but never seem to meet them.  I see this as a good thing: they keep me working but I don't sacrifice quality for meeting them.

[Overkill]

I've found that keeping to-do lists is the best way to motivate myself to work. I'll be bored, and go "hey, I can finish those items on my list right now", and once I get a few easy things done, I usually feel driven to pick up harder tasks.

Meeting deadlines isn't extremely effective, but I can motivate myself to work on stuff by leaving physical reminders (do this soon, or you smell!). Usually I change my desktop to godawful MS Paint whiting on a black background. And I tape notes on some cheap line paper all over my bedroom. I make sure the task to be met is something I know I can achieve.

I usually I reward myself somehow, to psyche myself into working. Like, going for a walk, or watching some TV for a bit. I'll keep telling myself "after this is done, it's work time" repeatedly. Eventually that message will get through and I'll being thinking "alright, let's do this", and start working.

If I can't make myself motivated or remember to start work, I doubt threatening myself with deadlines is going to help me much. I'm a procrastinator, so deadlines have always been my enemy. I've definitely forgotten a few in my school career, and it has sucked. It's much worse for things where there are no dire consequences for failing to meet the deadline. Relying on them to get progress is not likely to be effective for me today anymore than it was the other times I've tried using this methodology to try to complete games.


That said, I want to get a working demo of my game, Radio Rogue, out before the end of the summer. I think this is just wishing since there are a lot of features to code and art to create, but I can try! I won't hang myself if I don't meet it or anything, because I figure it's all about enjoyment. If there's no enjoyment or driving motivation to making your game, you might wanna reconsider your idea rather than marching yourself through schedule hell.

[shrimp]

Reminds me of assembla. One of the main issues of online scrum is you miss the real world shame element that drives scrum IMHO.

Heh, yeah, looks almost identical 

Sadly, I've never used Scrum (or any other Agile system) in a "day job", so I can't compare it for effectiveness of collaboration. Putting stuff from the backlog into a sprint, setting a vague end date and ticking it all off is quite satisfying though, in a softer more fluid way than deadlines (especially because my sprints grow and shrink quite happily).

Is pair programming really based on shame and guilt? Jeez... sounds terrible! 

[muku]

Is pair programming really based on shame and guilt? Jeez... sounds terrible! 

From the (very limited) real-life experience I have with it, I'd say that shame and guilt are minor factors at best. Pair programming is actually quite fun; your partner will catch errors that you would have overlooked, you can constantly discuss design choices with someone, and often the other guy has an idea that works better than what you were planning to do.

[shrimp]

Heh that's what I'd hope!

Actually on my current work project we do a sort of pair-programming, in that we review eachother's code with both people at the same PC before checking in. It has much of the same benefits. Even just having to explain something to someone else can make you think critically.

[Matt Thorson]

Heh that's what I'd hope!

Actually on my current work project we do a sort of pair-programming, in that we review eachother's code with both people at the same PC before checking in. It has much of the same benefits. Even just having to explain something to someone else can make you think critically.

Yeah pair programming is awesome.  Shame and guilt are huge factors in why it works, but that doesn't make it bad.  Reviewing eachothers' code is also a tactic based on shame (you'd be ashamed if you didn't even try to code it right and just lazily wrote bad code - as long as you at least tried to code it right, your partner won't be like "okay, this guy's useless"). 

I think the idea is that a partner more correctly applies shame and guilt than a detached manager who might shame/guilt you when you genuinely tried to do it right and alienate you from the project etc.  And no, the partner doesn't actively, literally "shame you"... you will automatically feel shame for doing lazy work and then having to explain it to him on review.

The flipside to shame and guilt is pride and friendship if you aren't lazy I'm actually a huge fan of pair programming.

[shrimp]

Well exactly - it sounds less depressing when you put it like that!