Finding energy to work

    Quote from hessi

    i recently had a seminar on motivation. a thing that i learned is that feedback can motivate you a lot! it's doesn't have to be positive or negative. as long as someone cares and shows this to you, you are aware that your work is considered useful and hence you are too. warby is kind of going for a social competition which is okay, when it stays within his soul and doesn't affect others.an important thing to always stay motivated is to associate yourself with the companies/projects goals. if you can't agree with them, then you won't bring your self in a 100%.

    Yes ! Totally. I am a big fan of the mentor system where you have somebody who keeps an eye on you. This helps so much. To bad its hard to find a mentor.

    Quote from Zyndrome

    I am the opposite. "Shit, that guy made some fantastic stuff ... I will never be that good, not going to even try ... *goes back to WoW*"

    Is this why you've been unemployed for so long?

    My own recipe for motivation is a healthy blend of feeling like my work actually goes towards something valuable, receiving people's feedback, and testing something I just made and realizing on the spot what works and what doesn't. That gets me fired up real fast.

    On the contrary, if I ever know that my work is not going to go into a final product, or contribute directly to it, I can't even find the motivation to start the program that I would be doing the work on.

    So yeah that makes me a production guy.

    Quote from FrieChamp

    Is this why you've been unemployed for so long?

    Maybe. Or that I lack everything that is required to even generate motivation. I have tons of ideas, but that's where it ends; Ideas.

    When i'm not motivated i will do something anyway. I will not be as productive then but at least the time doesn't go to waste completely. Even the small stuff you do will add up to something big over the weeks or months.

    Another thing that i do to stay productive is to set myself small goals for every day. Usualy this happens the day before when i go to bed. These goals are always realistic, like stuff that i can achieve with only 50% productivity. So its easy to achieve more on a day then what my goal was and that is always a good and motivating feeling.

    I generally break things down into smaller steps. "Okay this area plays nicely. Let's tear it down, and re-build it into a roughly detailed but 'finished' state."

    Here's an example:

    [Blocked Image: http://i49.tinypic.com/2rvyh00.jpg]

    I threw this down in my 'creative layout mode' when I was first blocking out the map. It was crappy, it was rushed. However, it left a trigger there. Eventually I'd get annoyed at how it looked, and I'd re-make it. Re-making it then catapulted my interest.

    [Blocked Image: http://i45.tinypic.com/b8k75j.jpg]

    Now it's acceptable. It's no where near final detailed but it makes me feel good about having it in my map, which inspires me to work on my map more (Because I like it now vs the fugly blocking stage). I'll then look at later parts of the map and say "This feels so crappy compared to the start" and that starts me off again with working on it to bring it all up to speed.

    Another thing: Don't expend all of your energy in one day. I'll often try to go to bed while I still want to work on my project so that it grows overnight. I then wake up dying to work on it.

    And third: Don't concentrate all on one aspect. This probably applies more to freelance work than paid work but: I'll often like to take breaks to manage the publicity side of things, or to create a new logo or pimp it somewhere else, or make a placeholder model or something. It's just different workflows and difference experiences breaks up the repetition which kills energy.

    Also last time I looked it was 11am. It's now 4pm. D:

    Besides all the obvious things and the good tips already mentioned, here's one. On an evening when you've got nothing else to do at all, watch the documentary called 'Man on a wire', i think that's what it's called. It's about a man who walks on wires (captain obvious to the rescue), he's the guy that walked on a wire between the Twin Towers. Now i couldn't give a damn about the wires or whatever, but that guy is so passionate about the whole thing that it gave me a lot of energy, and i spent the week after working insanely hard. Also, there's some very cute scenes where he's walking on a wire with his girlfriend sitting on his back and they're both chatting and all.

    And don't use cocaine. It's a mind-narrowing drug and it also makes the peepee go limp so no fun in the bedroom. But i've made some really good drawings after eating mushrooms!

    Oh, last thing. Spend an entire day breaking as many of your own patterns as possible. When you go to work, take a different route, walk on the other side of the street, brush your teeth under the shower if you usually don't, eat things you've never eaten before. No need to go bunjee jump or whatever, just do everything you do in a different way. Everything. Things will feel fresh. Sad thing is it's hard to do this every day.

    Quote from DaanO

    And don't use cocaine. It's a mind-narrowing drug and it also makes the peepee go limp so no fun in the bedroom. But i've made some really good drawings after eating mushrooms!

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