Game Development with Full Time Job: 6 Time Management Tips for Making Games
Can you do game development while working another job full time? YES! In this video I will share my time management tips for making games and how to handle game development with full time job.
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0:00 Intro
0:41 Prepare in advance
When you are done with your 9 to 5 and finally get the time to sit on your computer to do some gamedev, that is your primetime. You don’t want to waste that time by thinking what you should do or how you should do something. You want to pre-chew your tasks so that when you sit on that computer, you know exactly what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. This way you can get started right away and utilize your time effectively.
My advice is to use any small breaks during your day to organize and plan your tasks so that you have a ready-made list of your next tasks in priority order. For this, my recommendation would be to use Trello. It can be used for free and is a very simple tool for organizing your work.
2:16 Guest appearance!
2:30 Find your ideal working time
Try to find the times when you are naturally most productive. If you are a morning person, you could try fitting in an hour or two of gamedev before you start your actual workday while you are still feeling fresh and your mind is clear. If you like staying up late, maybe try to utilize those quiet midnight hours to work on your game - if you are not doing so already.
3:53 Make time for GameDev
If you want to take game development seriously while also working full-time… The harsh fact is that you will need to make sacrifices. If previously your free time was spent playing games, watching movies or spending time with friends… You might have guessed it, but you will need to cut down the time you use for those other activities. There’s no way around this and you will need to think hard how you want to prioritize your use of time. The good news is that if you prioritize game development and once you get used to it, the time spent on making games will often also be very enjoyable and can be comparable to other forms of entertainment. At least this has been my experience.
5:39 Remove temptations
Once you have made time for game development, you want to ensure you get to keep that time by removing temptations. This can be many things, but one concrete example is not buying new games that you know to be time-sinks. I still find time to play games now and then. Not nearly as much as I used to, but still sometimes. What I found is that I can keep a good balance if the games I play are familiar to me and if they are games that are easy to put down whenever you want to or they have short play cycles.
6:51 Have a work-day ending ritual
Working a full day and then going home to work on your game can be really exhausting. Essentially it’s like working 2 jobs. To help reduce this exhaustion I recommend having a work-day ending ritual. This could be for example taking a walk, watching an episode or two of a tv serie or having dinner with your wife. The purpose of it is to get your mind off your work day and tell your brain that that part of the day has ended. Sort of like a soft reset for the day. Different things work for different people so again you should try experimenting and see what works the best for you. Also realize that this trick might not remove all of your exhaustion for the day and after really tough days it’s ok to give yourself a break.
7:52 Make plans
Have a concrete plan what you want to accomplish with your game and what the scope of your game will be. Don’t be afraid of cutting out features from your game, but be very afraid of adding features to it. Your plan should also include a realistic timeline when you will finish and release your game. Try to stick to it, but also accept that you might have to double your estimated schedule.
You should also make long-term plans for your gamedev career. Do you want to turn game development from a hobby into your full-time job that feeds you and the family? If so, you should have a plan how to get there. This plan will give you motivation when you need it, acting as your lighthouse when you are lost. Game development is not easy to succeed in so your plan should be conservative. You need to give yourself enough time to act out the plan. In practice this means giving yourself more chances than just hoping to hit it big with just one game. You should chase your dreams, but you should do it with a plan in mind and not jeopardize everything else in your life.