Sometimes I find myself unable to get myself to work on something I’ve been dying to work on because my schedule has been so packed that I just need some time to do nothing of any significance, just to decompress. Even though I want to work on my project, I find my mind wanders to different things. Gaming, Facebook, 4Chan, reading MMA news, anything but my project. In the past I often thought that my avoidant behavior was because I secretly didn’t want to work on my project, but upon further reflection, that really isn’t it. After having wasted about half a day doing everything but the work I wanted to do, suddenly I’ll start working and suddenly I’m getting into it. It sucks because instead of the ten hours I had wanted to work on it, I only work on it for three because the first seven hours were wasted on other things.
It helps that there’s some pressure. It helps that this isn’t a solitary project anymore. With a handful of regular players and daily activity, Corrosion has strangely attracted a few people that keep coming back, even though we haven’t really advertised its existence.
It also helps that my brother is involved. A collaborative project is much nicer than a solitary one, especially when you’re both enthusiastic about it, work on it together, come up with new ideas and develop them together. To have someone sit next to you and work in a deep voodoo team, passing the keyboard back and forth trying new ideas and coming up with new solutions is even better. Unfortunately, that’s not the level of involvement I experience from my brother. Has good ideas and likes to think along, but he’s not nearly as dedicated as I am, nor has he put in even a tenth of the time I have. He wants to be involved and he knows what he has to do in order to be involved, but he can’t seem to get himself to do it. Perhaps much like me, he needs time to do nothing of importance before getting to his projects, too, only to never really get to it.
Sure, he lacks the technical savvy, but that’s not anything that can’t be remedied with a little elbow grease. I had to start from scratch, too, and I didn’t have the luxury of asking help or advice from someone. (He’s in a privileged position, really.) No, it’s not the technical knowledge he lacks, he lacks assertiveness and the drive to do learn what he needs in order to make a bigger impact on a game we started together. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to motivate him in this regard. I guess being part of this isn’t enough.
