I recently read a post about something Michael Todd said at the recent Game Developer Conference. He develops games as a profession, but the interesting part is how he modifies his work to deal with depression. As mentioned in the Choice of Games Blog : Five Tactics for Designing Games While Depressed, he has 5 tactics to keep himself productive, knowing that he is regularly depressed.
The primary focus of these tactics is to focus on rewards and to do your best to break up the boring or tedious parts of your job (every job has these) with things you're excited about. A big part of this is choosing things that excite you and developing in a way that allows you to more quickly see results. He also suggests using others to bounce your ideas off of. In his case, let people play your game sooner rather than later to give you feedback. Another important aspect is to focus on things that play to your strengths. So if you happen to really not enjoy math, don't work as an accountant. In general, you should do as much of what you like as you can, and avoid the things you don't like if possible. That doesn't mean to put off the things you don't like indefinitely, but if you find yourself in a job that is 80% unenjoyable tasks, then maybe you should consider a career change.
As part of this discussion, he suggests getting a tool for keeping track of what you spend your time on. Here are some tools that might help you:
Windows: ProcastiTracker
1 comment:
That reminds me very much of how I have learned to manage my own motivation/mood/drive, when I'm given enough liberty to do so. It's really quite effective, but I've found that some employers micromanage too much to allow one to implement these strategies or perhaps, penalize you for what I call "flagrant enjoyment of your work".
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