How many other indie developers out there have full-time programming jobs? I do, and I work around 45-50 hrs a week, and when I finally get home the last thing I want to do is sit down in front of a computer again and code some more. How do you find the time to start out as an indie developer, and still make enough money to pay the bills? Most of the things I''ve read about trying to actually get a publisher or some kind of funding for your game seems to indicate that the game should be practically done before you even try. I could see having the time to do this when I was still a student, but now that I''m working full-time, it''s pretty tough.... any suggestions?

When I worked at Elixir I bought a Psion handheld and wrote code on the train on the way to/from work, I even coded walking down the street to the office.
Sounds ridiculous but its true.

http://www.positech.co.uk

Kill your T.V. Honestly, I dont have cable, I dont even have an antenna. I'll i have is my X-box to play DVD's occasionally. You will be amazed with how much perfectly good time you waste watching T.V.

I am in a very simmilar situation to you, but i've been working on my game 3-4 nights a week (4-5 hrs a night) consistantly for the past 7 months. Some things I do to stay motivated is when i'm about to crash for the night I make a list of the next couple things I was going to work on. The next day when I get home from work I look at that list and I know exactly where I need to start. Starting is the hardest part, and having to look over your old code and try to remember what you were working on is makes it even harder. If you make it very easy for yourself to jump in and get coding it will be that much easier to motivate yourself.

The other thing is to not get too involved at work, you have to be a little apathetic toward things at work and be able to just leave when you day is up, regardless of what your working on. If you overwork yourself at work there's just no way you'll have anything left to spend at home.

It's all a matter of priority. Steve Pavlina of Dexterity Software reccomends you burn your boats and quit your day job. Go all the way, as it were. I feel however that if you are responsible and comitted you can make it work doing it part time. You just need to be able to make game dev your highest prority and realize that the only purpose for your day job is to pay your mortgage.

I could go on and on, but that outta get you started



[edited by - Ironside on September 23, 2002 5:53:49 PM]

My work schedule is M-F, 8am-6pm, and then I have a 45-50 minute commute home. What I do is schedule time between 9 and midnight for working on my game, and schedule all day Saturday and Sunday as much as possible. This way, I don''t come home and immediately hop on my computer, but still manage to fit 30 hours of work on my game into my week and a couple hours a night with my family. Most other things slide a bit, though. I''ve given up going out with my friends, I don''t watch TV, I don''t watch movies more than about twice a month, I don''t watch sports anymore, I don''t read much that doesn''t have to do with the game, I try not to surf the web too much.

Another thing you can try if you have trouble coming home and coding is to do other necessary work like art, game design, sound effects, etc and save the coding for the weekend.



Mark Fassett
Laughing Dragon Entertainment
http://www.laughing-dragon.com

Time management becomes pretty important in this type of endeavor. You could do some reading to get some ideas, and then do some experimenting to see what works for you.

The thing you have to realize is that time can''t be found. It can only be *made*.

And I agree about dropping your TV time down to a minimum. That alone will probably net you at least 2-3 hours a day.

DavidRM
Samu Games

One of the best ways to start is by keeping a written time log for a week. The difference between how people really spend their time and how they believe they do is tremendous. Our memories of where the time went simply don''t correspond very well with reality. So start by logging how you spend your time, and then review the logs after a week. You''re likely to be surprised. There''s an article that goes into more detail about this here:
http://www.dexterity.com/articles/get-more-done.htm

When you really get into time management, it''s amazing what you can do. The average person works at such a low level of efficiency that it''s certainly not impossible to double your productivity. Here''s another article about that:
http://www.dexterity.com/articles/do-it-now.htm


Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
"Boredom''s Greatest Enemy"
-------------------------------------------------------
Earn $1000 - $10,000 USD per month in royalties when we publish your next game. See developer.dexterity.com for details.

Thanks for the responses. I have already killed my TV; but I do still waste some time surfing the net or playing video games instead of making them. Not to mention occasionally hanging out with people.
I guess I''ll just have to start setting a schedule and keeping to it. I like the idea of working on art and design instead of coding during the week; I just have to make sure that I actually code over the weekend instead of getting distracted.... Ah well, once I sell my first big game and make trillions of dollars I won''t need to worry about it as much

I just wanted to add a thank you to Dexterity; i didn''t read the post until after my previous message was posted. Those articles were great! A lot of good ideas; I''m going to get started on a new plan of attack as soon as i get home.
I think one thing I will try to come up with on my own is a "How to work on what you really care about while at your paying job that you don''t care about, without getting fired" list...

Personally, I dont do any coding on the weekends. It's the time I split between doing things with my family and doing pixel art (my other hobby). I took Steve's advice and took a stopwatch to work with me for a couple weeks. I was getting so much stuff done that I decided that putting in 5 hrs of 80% work was much better then 8 hrs of 30% work. So I would take off after 5 solid hours of work. I found out later that they almost fired me, apparently employers dont care about efficency One of the things I did get a feel for is what it's like to be highly effective with your time and not waste any getting distracted by websites etc. This gave me an accurate gate to measure myself against when I stopped using the timer and just organized myself as I saw fit. Even if you dont keep it (timing yourself) up forever it's a very worthy exercise to go through.



[edited by - ironside on September 23, 2002 8:46:26 PM]

Even if you lose the stopwatch for a while, it''s a good idea to go back to it every 3-6 months... at least for a few days. It''s very easy to drift w/o knowing. Peter Drucker recommends this practice in his book The Effective Executive.

What''s interesting is that the very act of measuring tends to make you more efficient as soon as you start to do it because you immediately become aware of all the time you spend on low priority things. I guess this is sort of a time management version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (i.e. the act of measurement changes what you''re trying to measure).

Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
"Boredom''s Greatest Enemy"
-------------------------------------------------------
Earn $1000 - $10,000 USD per month in royalties when we publish your next game. See developer.dexterity.com for details.