Identifying and understanding other indie game developer's habits can really help improve your own game development. One particular habit that has been on my mind lately is time management.
Essentially, there are two types of indie game developers: those that develop games full-time, and those that develop games it in their spare time outside of a full time job (or studies, etc). Personally, I fall into the second category. You would think that a hobby developer wouldn't be able to learn much about time management from a full-time, but you would be wrong. :)
Brendon Chung of Blendo Games is the developer of the successful Atom Zombie Smasher, Flotilla, and Gravity Bone (I highly recommend taking a look at all of those games). He mentions that he stays productive by focusing intensely for 30 minutes at a time when he is actively developing. That may not seem like a lot of time, but he swears by it. The key is to steer clear of all distractions (texts/emails/phone/news/TV). Just code. I think this hits home for me. I can hit stretches of hours when I'm "in the zone" with coding, but when I get stuck, I end up browsing online... wasting tons of time. One suggestion I think is helpful is to keep a timer. Try to go 30 minutes without any distractions.
The clear message I've heard from dozens of hobby developers is "Put the time in". You don't have to go to far to see how productive successful hobby developers are. We all need to learn how to develop good habits and put the time in. I personally think its easier to code a little everyday, rather than have epic coding sessions on the weekends. It becomes a habit if you code everyday, particularly if you do it at roughly the same time each day. For me, that means in the morning when I wake up, or a night before I go to bed.
Just remember, be a little better today than you were yesterday!
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