One Project at a Time

2024/09/10

Categories: Just Talking Tags: projects focus note-taking adhd

So many good ideas

My mind is a damn mess. For my whole life, it’s been a constant putrid flow of nonsense, but sometimes in that nonsense slurry, you can find something interesting. Occasionally, that something interesting might be worth polishing up and taking a closer look at. And on some very rare occasions, that shiny, clean something interesting has some value to it, and sometimes it’s even worth keeping. Did I mention this flow is constant?

It took me until I was a teenager until I realized that ideas are entirely worthless, full stop. Everyone has ideas, everyone can come up with one and tell you about it, but what is that worth? Nothing. Ideas die with the person who has them. That is, unless that person actually acts on their idea.

The moment I found out what value an idea actually had was the day after I uploaded Everything Wrong with Gem Glow and saw how it was something that people actually were interested in watching (at the time, it’s an awful video looking back). I learned that ideas were only worth as much as their execution. Had I executed the first episode of Crystal Sins better, I bet that it would have garnered a lot more views. Maybe I’d still be making those videos today. Hell, maybe I would have covered the whole show by now.

The dilemma I find myself in frequently is having these ideas, and then trying to execute as many of them as possible. Even today it can be hard to realize that is unreasonable. Not every idea that I have needs to be executed, especially right now. It’s easy to forget an idea, though. Even today, I had an idea for a different article to write, and I forgot it by the time I got home and started writing. That’s why I take notes now.

Write that down!

I have a spiral notebook that lived on my desk for a few years. That was my ideas notebook, and it was executed horribly, but it was better than nothing. Any time that I was sitting at my desk and suddenly had an idea for a project or a video or something to draw, I’d jot it down on a line in that notebook. Each line had a different idea, and it was just as much of a mess as the brain slurry that I talked about earlier. However, a lot of ideas (at least like 25%, I’d consider that a lot, considering) had been started and completed. That notebook did its job for the time that I used it.

Taking notes is something I severely underestimated when I was younger. At some point, someone told me that the human brain is much better suited for generating information that it is for retaining that information. After using my notebook for that long, I started using Obsidian for note-taking, since Obsidian runs on pretty much everything, and it’s much easier to type something into my phone than it is to carry a spiral notebook everywhere I went. For the most part, that notebook stayed on my desk at home, and only followed me when I went on longer trips.

I still use Obsidian, I think it’s great. Creating links between notes makes a ton of sense to me, and allowed me to make tiny detailed notes about one thing at a time, instead of trying to cram all of the details into one giant text file. Obsidian is second to none when it comes to organizing your notes. I highly recommend it.

However, I think I need to go back to that original spiral idea notebook, at least partially. Obsidian is fantastic, and I will keep using it for the forseeable future, but something about writing an idea down, by hand, on a physical sheet of paper makes it easier for me to remeber back to when I wrote it. I know there’s been studies of how handwriting and the muscle memory that goes with it helps you remember things better than typing it out.

The actual problem in my mind zone

Going back a bit, I have a habit of starting projects and then getting bored, then moving onto a different project, or even starting a new one. I’ve been working on Pilot Light for the past several months, and I’m planning on releasing that sometime in 2025, so that has to be my main project for now. But just a week ago I found myself going back to Biotype Alpha, and writing some scenes for that (mostly for fun).

The biggest reason Pilot Light needs to be my top project is because in less than a month, I have to have a demo build uploaded to Steam so it can be included in Next Fest. I am nearly ready right now. I only have 11 issues left to close on my issue tracker, plus I need to upload a trailer. Yet I struggle to complete that final sprint, because I’m bored, and I have ideas.

Projects as breaks from projects

After I started working on Biotype Alpha and before I started work on Pilot Light, I deciced to start writing another cartoon, a fantasy show set in modern times. I won’t go into detail about that until I am ready to talk about it. The point is, I got done drafting the pilot for Biotype Alpha, and then I went on and wrote SEVEN EPISODES for this brand new show idea. Credit where it’s due, when I decide I have a good idea, I tend to focus on it and get a lot done.

That all being said, I don’t consider that a bad thing after all. In fact, everyone I’ve talked to said it was cool to have different projects running parallel to each other, so when I got bored of one, I could just bounce to another one, and repeat the cycle as I see fit. There is a problem that stems from that, though. I’m only one person, and I can only work on one project at a time.

Sometimes I get the idea that I’m slow at working on things, but that’s not true. I am slow at completing things, and I’d like to change that about myself. Starting a new project and getting getting to see a new idea start to come to life is super satisfying, but finishing a project and being able to show it to everyone is even more satisfying. That’s why I’m focusing so hard on Pilot Light. It’s the biggest project I’ve ever started, and it’s going to be so rewarding to see people play it. Not to mention I’ll be earning money from all of my work on it.

But after I release the demo, I’ll probably take a break from that project and work on a different project for a week or two. Maybe I’ll even upload a video to YouTube. And once the game gets a full release next year, who knows what I’ll do? Maybe I’ll finally take some time to just relax. Maybe I’ll continue working on Biotype Alpha or my fantasy show. Maybe I’ll start a new project. Maybe I’ll write a blog post.

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