Depression

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:

Mac: Time Sink, Pomodoro

Windows: ProcastiTracker

Thinking

I've decided that in an effort to get my blog to once again become active, I'm going to base much of my blogging on things I read else where on the internet. I installed this handy blogger extension to my web browser to help me quote and link these interesting pages. So for my first entry this year, I draw on some thoughts from a blog post about aging computer programmers losing their skills. Now while this post is specifically about programming, the points I will address I believe to be applicable to more general audiences. Davy Brion mentions his simple plan to keep his skills up in his Thoughts On Developer Longevity:

"

1. Keep feeling stupid

2. Question what you know and think, all the time

"

Now I for one agree much more with the second point than the first. However, to address these points in order, "Keep feeling stupid" is a directive to keep from being too confident in ones own skills to be willing to change and learn new things, especially from other people who might be younger and less experienced. I think that is a very valid motivation, but at the same time, "feeling stupid" can be a demoralizing practice if not done right. I would modify the first point to say, "Stay humble" since humility does not require the self-destructive practice of feeling stupid.

As for the second point, "Question what you know and think, all the time." I try to live by this rule in all aspects of my life. People close to me may notice that I ask a lot of questions and that I twist words around and wonder why things are said how they are said. For me, this is my way of questioning not only what I think, but what everyone else thinks. I know at times people think that my questions are meant to point out something wrong with what they have said or thought, but if anyone is reading this, I am much more hard on myself than I am on people around me. Every time I say something I ask myself why I said it that way. When I step over a crack in the sidewalk, I ask myself why I did that and whether it served a useful purpose or was merely an interesting diversion. So to me, questioning myself is a constant effort that I can achieve on my own. My greatest growth however comes from questioning others and learning about who they are and why they think the way they think. I truly believe that everyone has something good to offer the world, and I for one would like to hear your answer as to why you say "egg" they way you say it if you happen to be able to figure it out.