Maximizing Your Game Design Time, Part 1

One thing that I’m known for is getting a lot of things done. This isn’t something that happened overnight, but after a few years of learning different tricks on how to work well and how to be efficient when working. Here’s part one of what I’ve learned over the years!

When You’re Not Game Designing

• Write down the ideas you have when you have them so you don’t get distracted throughout the day. You also won’t lose the idea if you write them down! If you’re like me, you forget way more things than you’d like and that’s the saddest part of game design for me; knowing I had an idea or solution, but not being able to recall what that was.
• If you have a day job, make sure you leave the job at the workplace. An easy way to do this is to try at the end of the day to make a list of what you did, where you are with things, what you need to start on tomorrow. This way, you’re not still thinking about work when you get home.
• Make sure you have what you need to work on things. This could be having enough paper to print, having sleeves, etc. Make sure to check your stocks so that when you go to do something, you don’t end up surfing amazon and spending more money and time than you anticipated.
• I try to have a lot of spare components around for just this reason. Whenever I have to order something for a specific game, I tend to order a bit more than I need just to have it in the future. Plus, a lot of stores to get components charge less per component if you get a certain amount, so it should pays off in the long run!

Efficiency Tactics

• Spend some time to make a list of everything you need to do so you can quickly go from one task to the next. Less time spent figuring out what you’re doing means more time completing things!
• Give tasks different priorities, so you know what’s the most important thing to get done and you can get that done first. I really like using todoist for this. At the start of each of my work sessions, I look over my task list, figure out what the best order for things are, then start working. As I know what I’ll be working on, I can quickly move from one task to another without having to think about what should be done next.
• It’s not always important to get things done in priority order and at the start, I might do a task that’s really easy just so I can say I did something, then work on a harder task that has a high priority. It’s all about doing what you can to get more things done.
• Put like tasks together, so you can complete them all at once. For instance, if you have a lot of emails to send, do them at the same time, as you’re going to be in the same window. If you have a lot of things to cut out, cut them all out and throw all the remnants away at the same time.
• Break up large tasks into small ones, so you can complete things and build momentum. You also want to have a variety of sizes of tasks and tasks that require different levels of brain power, so you always have something to work on.

Finish what you Start

• Try really hard to finish what you start. This means that you should choose tasks for the time frame you have. If you have two hours, don’t start on a four hour task unless you know there’s a good stopping point. If that’s the case, why not break it into two tasks anyway?
• Don’t take this too far, though, just so you can check something off your list every 5 minutes, unless you really need to check things off to stay on task.
• You never want to leave a task in the middle as you’ll then have to remember where you were when you pick it back up again. If you get rid of the wasted time you spend trying to figure out where you are, you’ll finish a lot more.
• You’ll have to figure out how fast you can finish tasks and that you can’t always work on what you want to at a certain time. If you only have a half an hour, you shouldn’t start a 4 hour task as you’ll probably spend just as much time remembering where you were as you will spend working on things.
• HOWEVER, If you can’t finish a task, write down where you were and what you need to finish. This way, you don’t have to remember and possibly forget and you’ll get things done much more quickly when you do get the time to finished.
• To figure out how long it takes you to complete things, when you finish a task, write down what you did and how long each task took you. You’ll slowly learn how long different tasks take you to finish and get a lot better at choosing something to do and finishing it in the same sitting. Plus, you’ll get a list of everything you’ve done!

Small Things that Make a Big Impact

• One part of getting a lot done is staying motivated and having a list of all you’ve accomplished will go far in helping you stay on track. I try to spend at least a few minutes every night going over what I’ve done and celebrating the fact that I’m closer to my goals.
• Stay Hydrated! It’s a simple thing, but if your brain works better, you’ll do more. The same with being hungry. Don’t give your brain any excuse to distract you from what you want to be doing.
• Minimize distractions. Don’t let social media get in the way of designing. Turn off all sounds and notifications if you’re on the computer. Even letting something little like reading a twitter notification can get you out of the zone and make things take a lot longer than they need to. If you can, leave your phone in the other room so you’re not tempted to check it every 10 minutes.
• Get a game design location. Make sure there’s something about this location that’s different, that’ll make it easy to focus and actually design, vs playing around on the internet. This could be an actually different room, different computer, or just sitting in a different location. Once you get used to working differently, you’ll train your brain that it’s time to focus and get things done.
• Have a location for everything. You’ll then never waste time searching for things and your brain will be happier without clutter everywhere.

I’ll have the second part of this posted soon! I now also host Game Design Live Chats every Sunday and Thursday! You are welcome to participate or simply listen in whenever the time fits in your schedule. Click here for our calendar of events.

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