Motivation

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11 comments, last by Sporniket 11 years, 2 months ago

Then, it is your responsiblity to seek a medical attention. FYI, everyone goes through depressions in their life. It's not a specifically your problem. Finding it hard to do things that you enjoy is exactly one of the symptomps of depressions.

This.

Depression doesn't necessarily mean clinical depression, but it certainly can make the smallest task into a herculean effort.

I know I went through a very dark period, where I was working a job at a company that had gone through heavy ongoing headcount reductions, working for a bipolar boss to boot. I didn't realize how much of a fugue I was in at the time, but it was crippling, in my own time I accomplished almost nothing... I wasn't pleasant to be around, I was having minor health problems ( acid reflux, heartburn, indigestion, that kind of stuff ) and it was all linked to being trapped in that situation. To make matters worse, I had a child on the way so it wasn't exactly the best time for me to do anything about it. I almost literally accomplished nothing during this period, nor did almost any of my fellow co-workers.

Little things got me out of it... joining a gym and actually exercising, eating better, taking a few supplements ( Vitamin B and Ginseng if you care ) and things were night and day better. Once I started feeling better, I realized how much it was my environment that was dragging me down and shortly after my daughter was born, I took a massive career change. ( Quit job and went self employed / full time dad ) My productivity tripled, even though my sleep and time available halved.

Do not underestimate how much being in a dark place can drag you down. It's certainly worth talking to a professional, especially if you can't identify the causes. As frankly, until you lick that problem, you will fight really hard to have any motivation.

My other piece of advice... turn off the internet. When I need to get stuff done, thats exactly what I do... grab my laptop, leave my phone ( so I cant tether ) at home, and bring a few dead tree books with me if I need reference materials. Without the distraction and sirens call of por... er... internet, you become way more productive.

I still work from home, and I will admit that its still a constant fight. Distractions are... everywhere.

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As for finding excuses so you can get work done... talk about what you're doing like it's your job. Even if other people don't get it, pretend you're making money from it or something.

I've written a novel, and I've worked on a lot of commission artwork. The hardest parts about those were that I felt an obligation to people who wanted to spend time with me or even just have idle time with me--my friends, my family, my husband, etc.

Just tell people you've taken on software development as a second job, and if you don't have a first job, say you work as a software developer. Say you can do it from home, and you're still a novice, but that's your job. Hell, you can even say this to your spouse. I mean, it's easier to sit down and have a conversation with your husband about why you're shutting yourself in a room for 10 hours a day. But you don't need to sit and have that conversation with every friend and relative you have. Just say it's your new job.

People are a lot less likely to pressure (both directly and indirectly) to stop working if they see it as work and not as play.

And as for "getting stuck on concepts hurts," Luckily you have us. And the rest of the internet. One thing I've found about software development is that there is so much community out there. You can ask questions here and get a variety of responses from people with all kinds of explanation styles. It's a big community, and a very helpful one. Getting stuck on a concept is very frustrating, and we all deal with it. But often it really helps to hear someone else explain it, and when you can volley back and forth, saying exactly what parts confuse you, and getting help tailored to your needs.

As for me, in order to be able to release my first game on Android I had to :

  • prioritize this personnal project against other personnal project : time spend on an hobby is lost for another one
  • choose a very simple game, as you will struggle to discover all the thing you must implement to do things like displaying animated sprite, process input event, etc... I had to restart 3 times : the first projet was too ambitious, the second one was mildly complex but finally not fun at all when the prototype was up and running, the third one was simple and fun enough. For my second project, my initial idea piled up features over features, so finally I keep it for later, as I will not have enough time to release it in three monthes, and started with a simpler project. But it will be more complex than the first project, as basic technical problem are already solved.
  • setup a work session of 45 minutes and try to achieve something : add a button to a screen, test something, etc. if 45 minutes is too short, prepare 2-3 sessions. The goal is to have a little pressure to drive your mind, and get the feeling of going one step forward. Plus, 45 minutes should be easy to take somewhere in an otherwise busy schedule.
  • manage a list of what you have to do. I discovered a web app named trello (trello.com) that, to my taste, is one of the best list manager I ever used.
  • Decide on a realistic date of release, and try to stick to it, or at least do not release too far from this date : you will have to choose what is really required.

Hope this help.

Space Zig-Zag, a casual game of skill for Android by Sporniket-Studio.com

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