0:00

What's up my friends and welcome to the Bohr Game

0:02

Design Lab. Today I've got a little something

0:04

different, a little something special for

0:07

you. I've been cooking up and this is a presentation

0:10

that I did recently about

0:12

productivity. Kind of a little game

0:14

design productivity hacks type

0:17

of thing. And I'm talking about a topic called

0:19

habit fields and how

0:21

pretty much everything around us creates

0:24

different memories, different behaviors, and ultimately

0:26

different habits. And how can

0:29

we be intentional about that so

0:31

that we can be productive, so that we can actually

0:34

sit down at our desk or

0:36

at our favorite chair or wherever

0:38

you sit to do your game design in and actually

0:40

get things done as opposed to defaulting

0:43

to the

0:44

ever present doom scrolling throughout

0:47

social media or YouTube or whatever your particular

0:50

digital drug of choice is.

0:51

And this presentation is part of something called Bohr

0:53

Game Design Pro, a brand new

0:56

online resource that I'm launching

0:58

to help game designers that want

1:00

to get into the professional side of things,

1:03

that you want to turn your game ideas into marketable

1:05

products. And you know, how do you do that? What

1:08

are the resources you need? What's the information

1:10

that you need? Well, I'm putting it all together

1:12

into this membership type of

1:15

website. It's not a course though,

1:17

it's not a cohort, it's not an online

1:19

community or anything like that. We've

1:21

already got the Facebook community, which is just phenomenal,

1:24

continues to grow by leaps and bounds and just

1:26

some of the most amazing people in the world

1:29

in there. So I didn't want to recreate that. I wanted

1:31

to do something different, something that didn't

1:33

exist on the market. And so

1:35

Bohr Game Design Pro is a series

1:37

of what I'm calling skill sessions, which

1:40

are these roughly one hour presentations

1:42

where an expert on a particular topic

1:44

comes in, does a presentation, does a

1:46

live Q&A at the end for anybody there

1:48

in attendance. You can ask your questions to

1:50

that expert about whatever the topic is, topic

1:53

is related to game designing or

1:55

publishing or crowdfunding.

1:56

We're going to get into business side of things like so

1:59

many different. topics that we've already

2:01

covered. This has already been running

2:03

for about a month. I had kind of a pilot group

2:06

of members, people from the Board Game

2:08

Design Lab community that were so gracious to be

2:10

part of the launching of this thing, helping me to get this thing

2:12

right, and now it is open to the

2:15

public, and I am just so incredibly

2:17

excited to share it with you and

2:19

bring it to life. And so if you're interested

2:22

in going pro, not necessarily full-time,

2:24

right? I'm not saying, okay, go quit your day job or

2:27

anything like that, but I'm just saying, if you're interested in actually

2:29

making money, getting into the business

2:31

side of things, whether you're licensing games

2:33

out to publishers, we talk a lot about contracts

2:36

and development and different things like that, or

2:38

you wanna run crowdfunding campaigns,

2:41

we've got skill sessions about logistics

2:43

and shipping rates and building a community

2:45

and all sorts of things like that. If you wanna get

2:47

into publishing, we've got skill sessions

2:50

all about that as well. And so if that interests

2:53

you, please head on over to boardgamedesignlab.com

2:56

slash pro and check it out.

2:59

Just learn all about what we got going on, what's

3:01

coming up. There's a big list of

3:04

the skill sessions we've already done, and then a big list

3:06

of what's coming here in the near future

3:09

as well. And like I said, this podcast

3:11

is a presentation that I did recently about

3:14

productivity to kind of give you a little bit of a taste of

3:16

what's inside Board Game Design Pro.

3:18

And again, that URL is boardgamedesignlab.com

3:22

slash pro. In other news,

3:24

this episode is sponsored by Blue Falcon Board

3:26

Gaming, a United States Marine Corps

3:29

veteran-owned business with the hopes of promoting positive

3:31

mental health through board gaming, and with a goal of making

3:33

board games more accessible to the community by hosting

3:35

and co-hosting free events. Their first

3:37

game, Hen House Heist, is a competitive three

3:40

to five player game that uses dice-driven location

3:42

selection, secret bidding, and an old-fashioned

3:44

battle of wits to compete to be the fox to swipe

3:46

Farmerdale's most prized chickens. So

3:49

be sure to visit the Blue Falcon Board Gaming Facebook page to

3:52

learn more, and you can expect a Kickstarter in May

3:54

of 2024. In other news, this

3:56

episode is sponsored by Crowdfunding Nerds, also

3:58

known as Next Level Web.

5:59

So try it

6:01

give it some time see if it works for you if

6:04

it doesn't hey, no worries There's a lot of other things

6:06

and like I said, I'll do some more presentations here soon But

6:08

kind of volume 2 volume 3 that I go

6:10

into some other topics as well. Just some

6:12

other ideas No, like

6:15

I said, figure out what works best for you All

6:18

right. So a few things about me. So I

6:20

am the founder of the board game design lab founded back

6:23

in 2016 it's got

6:25

over 300 podcast episodes at this point The community

6:28

is over 16,000 people which is

6:30

still mind-boggling to me You know

6:33

when I was starting the show way back when I thought

6:35

if I could just get 10 regular listeners

6:38

I'll be over the moon I'd feel great about it And now

6:40

the show's been downloaded over 2 million times

6:43

coming up on 3 million to think of this one And so

6:45

it's crazy just to see how things have grown

6:48

and all the amazing people that have come into The

6:50

community over the years and so

6:52

anyway, I started designing games back in 2009

6:55

when I was in college I started playing D&D

6:57

Katahlin a lot of the games that kind of bring people

7:00

into the hobby in general and then I started thinking I

7:02

think I could do one of these myself. And so I

7:04

just started messing around. It was just for fun I never

7:06

thought oh I get games published or go

7:08

to kickstart or anything like that. It was just for fun I

7:11

didn't really start thinking about it professionally until

7:13

many years later But at this point I

7:15

have 10 published games and

7:18

now I just published my own games I

7:20

do still work with other companies to pitch

7:22

to them if it's a game that didn't quite fit with my company But

7:24

for the most part, I'm publishing my own stuff started that

7:27

back in 2019 I've run 18

7:29

crowdfunding campaigns at this point. I've

7:32

written nine books I'm

7:34

married before kids and so

7:36

you know, and for most of my time

7:39

doing designing doing publishing I've had

7:41

at least one sometimes two full-time

7:43

jobs. So basically what I'm saying

7:45

is I'm very busy. I've

7:47

got a lot going on. I'm not saying any of that stuff to say. Hey, look at

7:50

me I'm saying I'm saying

7:52

I have had to figure out how

7:55

to squeeze more time out of

7:57

the day Right. I've had to figure out how to

7:59

get

7:59

thirty 35 hours work done in 24 hours

8:00

and Especially

8:04

now as my kids get older and I'm coaching

8:06

Little League soccer and you know, we do home

8:08

school So I'm helping out with some of the home school stuff Like there's just so

8:11

many things pulling on my time. And so

8:13

I've had to figure out Both

8:15

for me personally and also also for my company

8:18

how to get things done And so

8:20

I'm gonna share with you today some of the things

8:22

that have worked for me There's kind

8:24

of what's coming up. We're gonna talk about habit fields

8:26

We're gonna talk about your time and energy and what managing

8:29

those looks like we're gonna talk about productive

8:32

Procrastination procrastination doesn't have to be all bad and

8:34

then we'll have some Q&A at the end if you have any questions

8:37

about any of this stuff Alright,

8:39

so the first thing let's talk about habit fields

8:42

now this idea has been around I think since 2010 That's

8:45

where at least this article by a guy

8:47

named Jack Chang He wrote it many

8:49

years ago And it's kind of funny to

8:51

go back and read it now and I'll put a link to this article down

8:54

below the recording So you can go read it yourself because it's it's

8:56

not super long, but it is very in-depth I'm just gonna

8:58

kind of go over the high level ideas

9:00

things that have been helping me But

9:02

then be sure to to go read this

9:04

article yourself because he goes into some

9:07

really cool details and things that have been working For

9:09

him and so definitely check out this article But

9:12

it's been around since 2010 and things have only

9:14

gotten more challenging when it comes to productivity

9:17

Because our lives continue to

9:19

get more filled up, you

9:22

know back in 2010 This is before social

9:24

media really became what it is now This

9:26

is before smart phones were just in

9:29

every single person's pocket on the planet basically And

9:31

so even back then he was talking about

9:33

these things and and now they apply even

9:36

more so and so Just

9:38

excited to have with you. So kind

9:40

of working definition About

9:43

what a habit field is right? So

9:45

your desk the computer on top of it the chair you sit

9:47

in and the space they comprise are all

9:50

Repositories for memory. So a lot of this is

9:52

about your memories and how they shape

9:54

what we do But these things don't just store

9:56

our memories. They also store our

9:58

behaviors And some of these storage behaviors

10:01

is an object's habit field. Right?

10:04

And so merely being around these

10:07

things, these places, compels our bodies

10:09

and our minds to act in certain ways.

10:13

It's amazing how an object

10:16

or place or even a person will

10:19

cause our brains to do

10:22

different things and saying

10:24

that out loud. It's common sense. We know that. But

10:27

do we live like it is maybe the

10:29

better question. Are we intentional about

10:31

it? And so let's talk from a what's

10:34

called declarative memory. And these

10:36

are things that are kind of based on emotions and

10:38

these are these are things, right? These are objects,

10:40

right? So if you go on vacation and you

10:42

buy a souvenir, right? You buy a little snow globe

10:45

and you bring it to your house. Well, every time you

10:47

walk by that shelf and you notice that

10:50

snow globe, it reminds you of your

10:52

honeymoon or reminds you of that time at the beach and

10:54

your kids were there and you know, little Johnny

10:56

got stung by a jellyfish, like whatever it is. Like it

10:59

brings back these memories and these

11:01

emotions from that time

11:03

just based on that object, right?

11:06

And the same thing about if you have a lucky t-shirt or lucky

11:08

pair of socks, right? Where you know, you're

11:10

wearing that shirt when your favorite sports team won the

11:12

championship. And so now that shirt carries

11:16

a memory. It carries something that changes

11:18

your brain state, changes your mindset, right?

11:20

Same thing with certain smells, right? So I played

11:23

football for 10 years of my life and

11:25

pretty much every time I went out to practice

11:28

or to play, you get that smell of freshly

11:30

cut grass to the point now,

11:32

even though I haven't put pads on, I haven't been in

11:34

a meaningful game since 2010, right?

11:38

So talking 13 years at this point, even

11:40

still when I smell freshly cut grass, my

11:43

mindset changes and I'm reminded

11:46

of so many moments and emotions that came from

11:48

playing football for so long, right?

11:50

And so maybe it's the same with you. If you smell

11:52

a certain, like when you go to your grandparents house

11:55

and you smell it and it takes you back

11:57

to when you're a kid, it was Christmas morning, whatever

11:59

it is.

12:00

these things create changes

12:03

in our brains, in our brain chemistry, right?

12:05

And they typically turn into stories,

12:09

right? And it typically brings about something

12:11

that we want to either share with other people or

12:13

at least it kind of bounces around in our own minds and we

12:15

kind of go from one idea to the next remembering these

12:18

things. And so it's interesting how our brains

12:20

work when it comes to certain

12:23

objects, certain places, certain smells, and

12:26

how things can change. And it even adds

12:29

value to things that don't actually have value.

12:31

Like your lucky shirt that you had for 15 years

12:34

that's got holes and stains, you

12:36

could not pay someone to take

12:38

it from you, right? It has negative

12:41

value in general, objectively.

12:44

But subjectively, to you, it is priceless,

12:47

right? That little snow globe that cost you $5

12:49

at the beach. To you, it's worth

12:51

way more than $5 because of what it represents,

12:54

right? And so this is kind of a

12:56

sciencey, higher level place to start.

12:59

But what I want you to understand is that our brains are

13:01

very interesting things when

13:03

it comes to how our mindsets can change.

13:06

And so then how can we hack that? How

13:09

can we use that to our advantage and be intentional

13:12

about it when it comes to these habit fields,

13:14

right? So if you think like a force field, there's

13:17

a little force field, a little habit field around that

13:19

snow globe. There's a little force field, a habit field around

13:21

your lucky shirt, right? That when you come into

13:23

that field, your brain chemistry changes

13:25

in some way. Interesting. Okay,

13:28

that's cool. And this is all science based. This is not just anecdotal.

13:30

I mean, there's all sorts of studies and

13:32

Jack and his article talks about some of those. You

13:35

can kind of go back and read the science of it. But it's just

13:37

interesting how it works. And so what does it look

13:39

like to then use that to

13:41

our advantage to be productive and

13:44

get not only get more done, but

13:46

actually get things done in general. Because

13:48

I don't know if you struggle with this like I do. I

13:51

can't tell you how many times I

13:53

will sit down to work on something.

13:55

Maybe I'm working on a book or a podcast or

13:58

a game of prototype, something like that. And

14:01

three minutes later, I'm

14:03

scrolling social media. I'm

14:05

surfing YouTube, you know, watching some random

14:08

video about people throwing

14:10

a basketball off the Hoover dam and

14:12

how it changes the like trajectory. Like all of

14:14

a sudden you find yourself doing things like,

14:16

wait a minute. You have to snap yourself out of it and go, well,

14:18

no, no, no, I need to be productive. I need to go do this thing.

14:21

If you've ever wondered why that happens, this

14:24

is why. And so if we can kind of use

14:26

that to our advantage and be intentional

14:28

about it, things can change. So

14:31

implicit memories are

14:33

related to behaviors. So you had declarative memories,

14:36

which are related to emotions and stories, implicit

14:38

memories, as far as how it feels related to behavior.

14:41

Right? So these are things like playing the guitar, driving,

14:45

exercise, like the techniques you use when

14:47

you're doing a bench press or something like that. Right?

14:50

These are typically things we call muscle

14:52

memory, even though it's not, it's not muscle memory, you know,

14:54

your muscles don't have memories. It's still in your brain,

14:57

but you've done things so many times that

15:00

your brain just goes, Oh, this is what we're doing. Cool. And

15:02

it locks in and you don't even necessarily have to think about

15:04

it. Right? You know, you get to a new level of

15:07

behavior when you're just acting

15:10

and you're not having to think and then act your

15:12

body just responds, right?

15:14

Because you've done it over and over and over again.

15:17

Right. And the cool thing is behavior

15:20

is a form of memory.

15:23

Right?

15:23

That's, that's an epiphany. That was an epiphany

15:25

for me is realizing my

15:27

behavior is

15:30

out of memory. Okay.

15:33

But what does that mean? And how can I use that to

15:36

design games, get things done? Right.

15:39

And you have all sorts of behaviors that

15:41

get triggered by people, by

15:43

places, by things. And

15:46

if you've ever done anything as far as studying

15:48

addiction, if you ever been through an addiction yourself, if

15:50

you ever helped anyone through an addiction, you

15:52

probably already know some of these things because the

15:55

number one thing they tell people who are struggling with addiction

15:57

is you have to change people, places.

16:00

and things you need to move you

16:02

need to stop hanging around with that group of folks and

16:04

you need to get rid of anything Around you

16:07

in your house any possession whatever that

16:09

reminds you or triggers that addiction

16:12

And that's like one the number one

16:14

way to overcome is to get rid of all

16:17

the triggers Because these these things in

16:19

your life whether people or places create

16:22

a behavior Well, if they can

16:24

create an addiction they can create a bad habit

16:29

How can we flip it to

16:32

create a good habit right now that we

16:34

need to be addicted to work? Ridicted to game

16:36

design. That's not what I'm saying But how can we use these

16:38

things to actually get things

16:41

done? So I want you to take a moment and

16:43

just think about Your living

16:45

room Versus your office if

16:47

you have an office or if you have an office just the space

16:49

where you you do work If it is your living

16:52

room, we'll just hypothesize for a month What

16:56

are the different actions you do

16:59

in those spaces For

17:02

me in my living room. I

17:04

sit on the couch Maybe

17:06

I scroll my phone. I'll talk about that in

17:08

a minute I don't use my phone for a lot of things at this point

17:11

mainly because of these habit fields I

17:14

you know watch Netflix. I'm usually hanging

17:16

out with my kids You know, we've got like this big beanbag

17:18

kind of thing where I'm power bombing them and

17:20

throwing them around and we're you know Playing and fighting

17:22

and running around like that's the stuff I do

17:24

in my living room In

17:26

my office. I don't do any of

17:29

those things I've never once

17:31

once watched Netflix in my office. I've

17:33

never power bombed one of my kids

17:36

in my office I've never I don't have a couch. So I'm not sitting

17:38

on the couch. I've never taken a nap in

17:40

my office The behaviors I

17:42

do in my office are very very different than

17:45

the behaviors I do in my living room

17:47

to the point where if I were to

17:50

come into my office And lay

17:52

down on the floor. Even if I made like a nice little

17:54

palette, you know put a mattress in here My

17:56

body my brain would go. This is weird. Like you

17:58

don't take naps here. That's not What we do here you

18:01

need to go somewhere else and I don't even know if I

18:03

could fall asleep Because I've not trained myself

18:06

in my office to do that if

18:08

I started to watch Netflix in my office My

18:10

brain would go why don't you just go to the couch? Wouldn't

18:13

you be more comfortable? Would that be a better place to do

18:15

this and I would probably get up and go

18:18

do it there because that's where I watch Netflix so

18:20

how can we use that to our advantage right

18:22

if you think about the things you do on your

18:24

couch versus your desk You

18:28

probably don't design games on

18:30

your couch Versus

18:33

you probably do design games at a table

18:35

at a desk where you have your prototypes laid out Okay

18:38

So each one of these things has

18:40

a field has a habit field around it that

18:42

we can now use to our advantage And

18:45

then we start getting into some

18:47

Interesting

18:48

territory and we'll talk about fuzzy fields

18:50

in a minute. But what are the things you do on your

18:52

phone? versus your computer

18:56

So if I'm on my phone

18:59

at this point, I take I took

19:01

off social media I took off a lot of things that were distractions.

19:04

So if I pull out my phone, I Use

19:06

it for certain things But if I'm on

19:09

my computer, I use it for very very different

19:11

things

19:12

to the point where I don't ever cross over

19:14

Right my brain. It just doesn't work

19:16

that way because I've trained that habit

19:19

So here's a thought from Jack

19:22

every object comes with a habit field baked in often

19:25

this stems from the physical nature of the object in

19:27

our past experiences with similar

19:30

objects, so on a daily

19:32

basis really moment by moment we

19:34

are

19:35

enforcing

19:37

certain habit fields based on what

19:40

we're doing how we're using things right and

19:42

so the more we can Adjust

19:45

that and change things for the positive and

19:47

for the better the better life will

19:49

be let's talk about some What are called

19:51

firm fields? Right,

19:54

and these are things that are kind of obvious, but

19:56

hopefully you can start piecing together What

19:59

we're really deep down I'm talking about so a book

20:01

has a very firm habit field what

20:03

I mean by that is when I pick up a book

20:06

I Don't think oh,

20:08

I need to check email when I pick up a

20:10

book. I don't think oh,

20:12

I wonder what's going on on Twitter or Facebook Right now. I've

20:15

never once thought that when I pick up a book I

20:17

read it because that's kind of all you do with a book

20:20

you can either read it Or you can put

20:22

it under a wobbly coffee table like that's only the

20:24

two uses you have for a book It's

20:27

a very firm field It doesn't multitask

20:30

because it doesn't do a whole lot other than

20:32

be read when I go to my closet.

20:34

I Don't think about game design

20:37

when I go to my closet I'm not thinking about the next

20:39

Kickstarter campaign when I go to my closet.

20:42

I'm thinking what am I gonna wear? Like

20:44

that's the only thing crossing my mind. There is no other Options

20:47

because that's all it does that space

20:50

in my house is only for that

20:52

purpose

20:53

As far as doing an action when I'm brushing my

20:55

teeth That's all I think about maybe

20:58

my mind wanders for a minute and I ponder something but

21:00

in general. I'm only thinking about Brushing

21:02

my teeth because that action really

21:05

only does one thing So

21:08

these are very firm Right. There's

21:10

not a lot of other stuff going

21:12

on however in

21:14

modern day because of Technology

21:18

and its ability to multitask and

21:20

do so many different things Unfortunately,

21:23

we have a tendency to use Objects

21:26

and different technologies that have very fuzzy

21:28

fields for instance your phone when

21:31

you pull out your phone You

21:33

could do a million different things there. There's an

21:35

app for that. Whatever you want to do. There's an app

21:38

for it Which is why if you're

21:40

like me you have a tendency to open up your

21:42

phone and maybe you're gonna

21:45

check email Maybe you're gonna check, you know social

21:47

media or you're gonna watch a YouTube video or something like that And

21:50

then five minutes later you're doing something else

21:52

and you can't even remember why you pulled out your

21:54

phone to begin with and

21:56

you're like Wait, what was I doing and you have to

21:58

like backtrack and go

21:59

Kind of deep down in the file and go wait what

22:02

oh, that's right. I need to message John about

22:05

this thing That's why I opened my phone not

22:07

to play Angry Birds Right, but

22:09

because of the way we interact with

22:11

these technologies Right

22:14

the fields get so fuzzy and you end

22:16

up doing a lot of different things

22:18

the same thing when you open a web browser You know

22:20

you go to Safari or Chrome and you

22:22

go for a specific purpose, right? So let's say you're

22:24

working on a game and you wanted to research You

22:27

know something about the theme that

22:30

you've got going on you had an idea and you're like Oh I wonder how

22:32

this worked in the real world and so

22:34

you go to Google or YouTube and you type

22:36

in a search Result and you're looking into

22:38

it, but then something else pops up And

22:41

because we've created these habits we click

22:43

on the notification or we click on the other thing And

22:46

now we're gone. We're not working on

22:48

game design anywhere now we're working on

22:50

other things that probably aren't even useful or

22:52

helpful or productive and we can't even

22:54

remember why we open the web browser and

22:56

to begin with The same thing

22:59

in your office if you multi

23:02

purpose your office Right, if

23:04

you use it for lots of different things,

23:07

then it makes the habit field around it fuzzy,

23:10

right? This is this is also why they tell you don't study

23:12

in bed Right because when you lay in

23:14

bed your brain goes Oh, it's time

23:16

to sleep And so if you try to study while

23:19

in bed, you're probably just gonna fall asleep because

23:21

that's what you do in bed It's the same thing.

23:23

So when you go in your office if you use

23:25

it for lots of different purposes Your

23:28

brain is gonna have a hard time focusing

23:30

and it's probably going to default to

23:33

whatever things you you do The majority

23:35

of the time now, I'm going to guess you're

23:37

not spending the majority of your time in your office

23:40

designing games So why

23:43

would your brain think about game design

23:46

when you're training it to think about other things?

23:49

Right and we'll talk about some ways to overcome this in a minute but the

23:51

bigger picture is to start understanding how our

23:53

brains work and Then we

23:55

can intentionally start making some changes

23:58

that then create advantages

25:37

And

26:00

so if you find that you do struggle with

26:02

focus, you do struggle with getting things done. Your productivity

26:04

is suffering in certain ways. Goodness

26:07

is it's changeable. You just have to be intentional in

26:10

the doing. So I like to think

26:12

of kind of this dichotomy as

26:15

far as habit fields. Where do I create

26:18

and where do I consume? On what

26:20

device? In what location? In

26:22

what chair? Like all these different things come

26:24

into creation

26:27

versus consumption. Because

26:29

if you have a space where you

26:32

typically consume, when I say consume,

26:34

I mean scroll social media, watch YouTube videos,

26:36

watch Netflix, whatever, like you're just consuming

26:39

content. If you have a certain device,

26:42

certain place that you do that, it

26:44

is very difficult to switch

26:46

gears and use that exact

26:48

same place, space setup to

26:51

create. Because again, you've trained

26:53

your brain to say this is where I consume.

26:56

And so when you go to that place, your brain

26:59

defaults to that and to try

27:01

to flip it around and go, no, no, no, I want to create. I

27:03

want to write. I want to prototype. I want to play

27:05

test. It's a very challenging thing. And

27:08

so where in your life are you creating

27:10

and where are you consuming? Because

27:14

we need to be intentional about how we separate

27:16

the two, right? We can

27:19

train our brains in the separation. Jack

27:22

in his article, he talks about he

27:24

has a chair in his office that

27:27

is only for leisure activities.

27:29

So this is a place where he would scroll through

27:32

Twitter, where he would, you know, read

27:34

emails that are from friends or send

27:37

text messages or like he has a specific place

27:39

in his office that he will sit down. And this is only

27:42

for consumption, having

27:44

fun, goofing off, whatever. So

27:46

if he's in that chair, that's where he does

27:48

it. If he's at his desk in

27:51

his office chair, he doesn't do any of those

27:53

things. And over

27:55

time, trained his brain to

27:58

have the separation of created. And

28:01

consumption and it just helped him to get a

28:03

whole lot more done. I found it to be the case as

28:05

well

28:07

As far as separate places the desk I am talking to

28:09

you from right now If you've seen

28:11

any of the video podcasts, I've been doing you'll

28:14

see you'll notice the same back backdrop Well

28:17

this desk I went out and ball just inexpensive

28:20

desk. I got an inexpensive chair I built the backdrop

28:22

behind me, but I created this extra

28:24

little space in my office that

28:26

is only for work. I Record

28:29

podcasts here. I record videos here. I

28:31

do these presentations here but

28:34

everything I do in this spot is Game

28:38

design or board game design lab related.

28:40

I don't do anything else this

28:42

computer that I'm on right now Doesn't have any

28:44

email on it. It only receives notifications

28:47

from my wife, right? Just in case, you know She needs

28:49

to get a message into me while I'm here working. I Don't

28:52

use this for YouTube. I don't use it for anything

28:55

other Than creative

28:57

work And because of that

29:00

when I sit here my brain doesn't even think

29:02

I wonder what's going on YouTube I wonder what the latest

29:04

news is that need to go, you know, figure out what what's

29:07

happening today My brain doesn't even that doesn't

29:09

even cross my mind because when I'm in this spot

29:12

There's only a very small number

29:14

of things that I do and

29:16

it just makes it so much easier And so

29:18

if you're able to do that, you know, just go out to a thrift store or whatever,

29:21

you know You don't have to spend a lot of money But

29:23

just to create a separate place to

29:25

do separate things to

29:28

use separate devices Like I just said this computer

29:30

I'm on right now is only for

29:33

a select group of actions and activities

29:35

That's all I use this for

29:37

My computer over there is

29:39

a little bit fuzzier Right because I use

29:41

it for a lots of different things and I'm slowly

29:44

trying to work my way into putting more

29:46

and more work Stuff here at this desk

29:48

on this in this setup and

29:51

less and less You know creative

29:53

and work related stuff on that computer over there Just

29:56

because I'm doing my best to separate these things out.

29:58

So my brain has a much easier time understanding

30:02

the dichotomy and the differences, right? But

30:04

it's really just separate anything.

30:06

So

30:07

you can kind of train your brain where when

30:10

you dress a certain way, when

30:12

you drink a certain beverage, you eat a certain meal,

30:15

when you do certain activities

30:18

that it tells your brain, hey, this

30:20

is the actions that we're about to

30:23

do, right? So it's almost like

30:25

creating a ritual, right? A little setup

30:28

routine, right? So if

30:30

you think about sports, a lot of times you want to warm up

30:32

and stretch before you go out on the field, that

30:34

way you don't get injured, right? Well, the process

30:36

of warming up and stretching is

30:39

also getting your brain in the mentality

30:41

of we're about to go do the sport.

30:44

And so it's all part of it, right? And so if you can kind of create

30:46

a similar ritual for creative

30:49

work, it trains your brain

30:51

to switch over and say, oh, we're

30:53

about to go get stuff done and be productive. And it starts

30:55

changing your brain chemistry to make that

30:57

happen, right? So anything you can do so separate

31:00

anything, right? If you have a certain

31:02

beverage, you know, a certain type of coffee or something like that, certain

31:04

flavor, right? I would I would

31:07

say find something that you only drink when

31:09

you're about to do creative work, right? So

31:11

literally at the taste of that flavor, your

31:14

brain is automatically switching over and saying, okay,

31:16

we're about to get some stuff done. Just

31:19

to bring anything out like that will help you

31:21

to be more productive. You

31:23

can intentionally manipulate your brain with

31:25

friction. So a lot of these things I'm talking about

31:28

are either creating friction or diminishing

31:30

friction to getting the thing done. So

31:32

when I say friction, I mean, anything that

31:35

either puts a barrier or an obstacle

31:37

in the way or kind of greases the tracks,

31:40

right? Those are the oil in the tracks to make it faster

31:43

to get to a certain thing. So for

31:46

instance, if I'm in this spot,

31:50

the way my desk is set up, this chair doesn't roll,

31:52

it actually takes a bit of effort to get

31:54

out of my chair, right? The way it's kind of placed

31:56

underneath my desk to get up and go do

31:59

something else.

32:00

That's friction.

32:01

So once I sit down, it's kind

32:03

of annoying to get back up. So

32:05

once I'm here and I'm working It

32:08

takes more effort to get up and

32:10

go to my other computer or to go to my couch or

32:12

to go to the bathroom even And I'm

32:14

less likely to do it. So it's nothing about

32:16

having a different space or a different device Now

32:19

if you're going to switch if you're gonna switch over from creativity

32:22

to consumption if there's a barrier

32:24

in the way if there's friction in the way as Lazy

32:27

humans that we all are your

32:29

your brain your body would be like, ah, I'll

32:31

just stay Right. I could but the

32:33

old line is in a song like I could leave but I'll just stay

32:36

because all my stuff's here Anyway, you know, it's it's

32:38

just easier. There's less effort involved Versus

32:42

the almost zero friction of

32:44

you know If you go to YouTube to do some research

32:47

or to watch a game review because you're trying to study

32:49

a dick building mechanism You're trying to figure out. Oh,

32:51

there's there's also that interesting video I've

32:54

never seen before about something completely unrelated

32:56

and useless to me click All you

32:58

have to do is click on it Like there's no friction in

33:00

moving your finger like it's effortless. And

33:02

so anything you can do to avoid

33:05

that right to create a barrier

33:07

or

33:08

Anything you can do to diminish friction Towards

33:12

productivity, right? So for instance if

33:14

I know that I'm gonna do some

33:17

play testing tomorrow morning Then

33:20

the night tonight the night before I

33:22

will go ahead and set up the game on

33:24

the table Right before I go to bed.

33:26

I'll put everything out Now if you have cats you

33:29

have animals you have kids like this can be a little bit, you know

33:31

interesting So maybe you know to each their own but

33:33

I will go ahead and do everything I can to make

33:36

sure that tomorrow It's

33:38

easy. There's no friction. It's already set up. It's

33:41

good to go I might as well because it's already

33:43

there Versus if I had to set

33:45

up the game and pull out the button, you know everything out of the box and everything

33:47

all on The table a lot. Well, that's a barrier. So

33:50

anything you can do to manipulate friction Will

33:52

kind of help you with these different habit fields

33:56

Alright, so you manipulate your

33:58

brain through friction, but also So through

34:01

boredom, uh, we'll talk a little bit more about that

34:04

in a minute, but basically your brain

34:06

would rather not be bored Right. So

34:09

if you can set up a situation or a scenario where

34:11

your two options are be productive

34:14

Or be bored You're going to

34:16

choose productive now. Unfortunately in modern

34:18

life We have a third way where it's be

34:20

productive or be bored or

34:22

pull out our phone and scroll mindlessly And 99.9

34:25

percent of the time we pull out our phone and scroll

34:27

mindlessly if you're standing in line to you know Get

34:30

in the movie theater if you're waiting around

34:32

in a traffic jam and you know, everybody's kind of stopped Hopefully

34:35

you're not texting anything on your phone in traffic But if you

34:37

just stopped and sitting there because of a wreck or something like that What

34:39

do we do? We pull out our phone, right? So

34:42

many activities Our brain is like

34:44

oh i'm bored. I need to fix this. Oh, I could

34:46

be productive That's a lot easier just to scroll

34:48

on my phone And so that's what we do So

34:50

if you can eliminate that third that third way and

34:53

only have the two options of boredom or productivity Your

34:56

brain will pick productivity. So different different

34:58

thing you can think about to be intentional Okay

35:02

So that was habit fields. We'll come back to habit

35:04

fields Off and on it's kind

35:06

of like the bigger thing that we're talking

35:08

about in this presentation But then some of these other things kind of supplement

35:10

that And will kind of help you

35:12

get the most out of the that

35:15

understanding and being able to change your brain around So

35:17

switching gears though a little bit. Let's talk about time and

35:19

energy the number one

35:22

thing Or I guess number one problem

35:25

game designers tell me that they have And

35:27

i've gotten hundreds and hundreds of these messages

35:30

over the years is I don't have time When

35:32

I ask them what's your biggest challenge? What's your biggest?

35:34

You know, the main thing you're struggling with right now game is

35:37

not related They say I don't

35:39

have time Everybody's busy.

35:42

Everybody has a lot going on Because the way

35:44

work has changed over the last, you

35:46

know decade 10 15 20 years Um,

35:49

you know, we take a lot of work home with us So

35:51

a lot of people they don't just clock out of the office

35:53

at five and go home and live their best life No,

35:55

they take stuff home and you're doing stuff over the weekend and

35:58

you know kids are running around we we are over scheduled

36:01

as people in general, especially if you have kids

36:03

and responsibilities and things like that. And

36:05

so we all feel strapped for

36:07

time. But then you

36:10

also add in all

36:12

these opportunities, these different apps

36:15

and different things like that, that are taking away our

36:17

time to the point

36:19

where the average person waits four to six hours

36:22

a day. Now this is self reported. Right? This is a study

36:24

I read a while back, and this was self reported

36:26

time wasted. Okay, so the actual number

36:29

of is probably a decent amount higher.

36:31

And when people said wasted, this

36:33

was time they spent, you know, watching Netflix or

36:35

Disney Plus or something like that, time they just spent scrolling

36:38

around social media or wandering around, you know, YouTube

36:40

rabbit trails, things like that. But time that

36:43

was not spent towards anything useful

36:45

or helpful or productive, it was gonna make their lives better in any

36:47

meaningful way. That's what they considered wasted. The

36:50

average was four to six hours a day.

36:53

That is a

36:55

tremendous amount of time over the course of a

36:57

year. Right? It's like a full

36:59

time job almost over the course of an entire

37:02

year, if you think about, you know, six hours a day, seven

37:04

days a week. So,

37:07

unfortunately, a lot of these things that we use

37:09

daily are working against us, right?

37:11

Social media companies have spent a tremendous

37:13

amount of money, billions of dollars at this point, to

37:16

get around our psychology so that we spend

37:18

more time on their apps, right?

37:21

Because the more time we spend there, the more money they make because they

37:23

make money through advertising. Okay?

37:25

We are the product being sold. And

37:28

because we're the product being sold, they want to maximize

37:30

our value, our attention, our

37:32

eyeballs. And so they do all sorts

37:34

of things to keep us there longer. Like I remember

37:36

back in the day when Facebook had

37:38

pages, so you could scroll to the bottom of

37:41

the news feed and you would have to click next to go

37:43

to the next page of the newsfeed. And

37:45

what that would do is it would create a basically

37:48

a stop and the habit field would pause

37:51

and you would have to take an action to now

37:53

continue scrolling. And

37:55

so what Facebook found was that a lot of people when

37:57

they would get to the bottom,

37:59

they would go, Okay,

37:59

And your brain would feel like it had completed a loop

38:03

basically that the story had you know ended

38:05

effectively and that people would click out Of the app

38:07

they'd go do something else So Facebook and

38:09

all their wisdom eliminated the pages and made

38:12

it an endless scroll now Your

38:14

brain never feels like it finishes

38:17

right our brains want to close out

38:19

loops if a story You know if someone

38:21

starts to tell a story or if you start to hear something

38:24

our brains desperately need to finish it That's

38:26

why if you ever walk in a room and you go And

38:30

you pause someone guaranteed

38:32

is gonna go don't they have to finish it

38:34

like your brain will have an aneurysm if you don't like It's

38:36

just weird how our brains work and so

38:39

understanding these companies are working against

38:41

our psychology and The

38:44

more we can identify that and be intentional

38:46

about that the more we can stop wasting

38:48

four to six hours a day bigger picture

38:50

When someone says I don't have time It's

38:53

probably not true Right because one

38:55

thing I found is that I always seem to have

38:57

just enough time for the things I make time

39:00

for When

39:02

something is a priority I Have

39:04

a tendency to put whatever amount of time is necessary

39:07

towards it when something's not a priority I

39:09

don't and so I've gotten to the point where I even

39:11

I reframed What

39:14

I say about it instead of saying I don't have time

39:17

I will say it's not a priority and

39:19

that just hits different It just feels different

39:22

and if it's something important and I say it's

39:24

not a priority It makes me kind of step

39:26

back and go wait a minute I need to rethink

39:28

some things because this is important. It should be

39:30

a priority. I Need to

39:32

figure this out versus saying I don't have time. I don't

39:35

have time is like blaming the universe It's like blaming,

39:37

you know some outside third-party source. Oh,

39:40

you know, what are you gonna do? Life is what it is I don't

39:42

know have the time when that's not the case. I

39:45

Am in charge of my life. I am in control

39:47

of my own destiny And so it's

39:50

not some third-party outside universal force.

39:52

It's me. I am the reason and

39:54

when I say that's not a priority Now

39:58

it's on me and I need to shoulder the full weight And

40:01

so if it is something important, you know, if especially like

40:03

what things that really matter We're talking about game design which matters

40:05

to a certain degree But doesn't matter nearly as much as like your

40:07

family or your health or things like that And

40:10

so, you know if I ever find myself

40:12

thinking I want to spend more time with my kids I

40:14

just don't have time and I take a step back and

40:16

go, you know, my kids just aren't a priority like

40:18

oh, oh That hurts that

40:21

feels different Right my marriage,

40:23

you know, I still have time. We don't have time for date night. Mmm Date

40:26

night's not a priority. Oh, maybe I need to

40:28

rethink that I need to exercise I need to

40:30

eat better I just don't have time to go

40:32

to the grocery store and buy a nice, you know better food I don't have

40:34

time to go to the gym

40:36

versus

40:37

My health is not a priority. Oh It

40:41

feels different You know, I

40:43

want to get a game to market I want to get a game on people's

40:45

tables if it's a dream of mine to run a

40:47

you know Crap crowdfunding campaign

40:49

and and get this game out into the world.

40:51

I still have time Versus this

40:54

game is just not a priority It's

40:56

different. So that's something that's

40:58

been helping me as well. It's just kind of changing the framing

41:01

of time Nothing

41:03

has been helping that I started doing this years ago is

41:06

creating what's called the perfect week

41:09

so if you find yourself constantly busy

41:12

feeling busy at least one thing you

41:15

can do is Create

41:17

a calendar right? You can use this, you know, Google Calendar

41:19

or I like to write stuff down again

41:22

The less time I can spend in digital

41:24

space the better because less opportunities to get saturated

41:27

But it's to create a what's called a perfect week.

41:29

Now, there's never a week that's actually perfect But

41:32

it's at least an ideal it's like okay

41:34

in a perfect world

41:36

Where

41:36

everything goes right everything it happens

41:39

on time kids don't get sick The

41:41

boss doesn't call me in for an extra day work like whatever

41:43

in a perfect week On these

41:45

days at these times. This

41:48

is what happens, right? Now certain things you

41:50

just can't get around, you know, if you have to take your kids to

41:52

school at 7 30 a.m Well, that's that's

41:54

got to go on the counter If you

41:56

have to be at work from 8 30 to 4 30. Okay,

41:58

that just goes right there on the calendar,

42:00

nothing you can do about it. But then you start figuring out,

42:03

outside of your half-tos, outside of your

42:05

responsibilities, you can't get around. Now

42:07

you have all these these chunks of time, you

42:10

know, a Tuesday night from 8pm

42:13

to 10pm. Oh, okay, well that's available. How

42:16

can I use that time productively? Because if you're

42:18

not intentional about it, again, you will default

42:20

to a lowest common denominator and you'll find yourself just

42:22

scrolling social media for two hours, or watching Netflix for

42:24

two hours, or whatever

42:26

for two hours, and then you'll go back and say, oh,

42:28

I didn't have time. No, you did. You just weren't intentional

42:30

about the time. So how do we switch that around?

42:33

And so, all right, Tuesday night, 8pm to 10pm, I

42:35

could do some game design right there. I could prototype

42:38

a game, I could play test, I could, you know, come with new ideas

42:40

and research things for my

42:43

theme and, okay, so Tuesdays,

42:45

8pm to 10pm, this is what I do, I

42:47

do game design. And now you

42:49

turn that into a responsibility, into

42:52

a half-two, and you die on the hill, right?

42:55

That you're not going to do anything else

42:57

that if someone calls you up, hey, you want to come over to, nope,

42:59

sorry, I

43:00

got to work tonight. What are

43:01

you, it's non-negotiable.

43:03

Today's Tuesday, 8pm to 10pm, this is what

43:06

I do, right? And you make

43:08

that a priority. And all of a

43:10

sudden, you start getting some of those hours back,

43:13

because you're being intentional. I

43:15

said the word intentional probably 100 times this point. So

43:17

hopefully, you're understanding like that's, that's

43:19

the thing is don't let the universe happen

43:21

to you, happen to the universe instead.

43:24

So the perfect week has really helped me as far as

43:26

figuring out things. The

43:28

key is to be super specific. 8pm

43:32

to 10pm, I work on game design at 1001.

43:34

Go do something else. Right?

43:37

So you know, sometimes it bleeds over and you're really inspired,

43:39

you get the juice flowing. But in general, you

43:41

start on you start on time, you end on time, and

43:44

you train your brain in

43:46

those chunks to say this is what we do. And

43:48

I'll talk about why as far as the constraint

43:50

of time in just a minute, but it's super powerful as

43:52

well. This is one of my favorite

43:54

quotes from a guy named James Clear. It's this

43:57

concept of Rome wasn't built in a day, but they

43:59

were laying

43:59

bricks every hour.

44:02

In other words, it's not about these massive

44:05

jumps. It's about the slow,

44:09

sometimes feels like a grind, but the slow progression

44:12

of things, right? You might think, what

44:14

am I really going to get done on Tuesdays

44:17

from 8pm to 10pm? Because maybe that's the

44:19

only time you're scheduled, right? One day a week for two hours.

44:21

That's all you got. Yeah,

44:23

it's two hours.

44:24

That is, you know, one is greater than zero. It's something

44:27

I tell my wife, tell myself all the time. You know,

44:29

it's like, oh, we only got 10 minutes. One is greater than

44:31

zero. I'll take 10 minutes over zero minutes, right?

44:34

To do whatever this thing is. And

44:36

so just kind of keep that in mind. Lay

44:38

in bricks every hour. All

44:41

right, let's switch gears. We

44:44

talk a lot about time management. It is

44:46

important, but in my

44:48

opinion, energy management is

44:51

way more important than time management.

44:54

Energy is greater than time. If

44:56

you're like me, if you don't

44:58

get enough sleep, if you don't feel good, if

45:02

your brain is kind of foggy, because maybe you haven't been taking

45:04

care of yourself, you have low

45:06

energy. It doesn't matter how

45:08

much time you have. It's not going to be

45:10

helpful or useful or productive. All

45:13

right, if you're exhausted, an

45:15

exhausted 100 hours of opportunity

45:19

won't get nearly as much done as an energetic

45:21

one hour. It just

45:24

is what it is. So the better you maintain your

45:26

energy levels, the better sleep

45:28

you get, the better your food

45:30

and your diet and the things that you're putting into your body, your

45:32

nutrition, the better

45:34

your exercise, the

45:36

more you'll get done. It gets said

45:39

all the time, all the, you know, health

45:41

and fitness gurus online and talk about these things.

45:43

But they talk about all the time because it's true. If

45:46

you struggle with time management, don't

45:49

worry about the time, worry about the

45:51

energy management, because that will pay greater

45:54

dividends than anything else.

45:57

Because even if you only have a short amount of time, but you're

46:00

You feel good, your brain's in a good spot creatively,

46:03

you can get some really cool things done

46:06

versus, you know, it's 2am, it's

46:09

been a long week, I've got some time to do some

46:11

games now, everybody's in bed, whatever, but you're

46:13

exhausted, you're better off just going

46:15

to sleep at that point. The

46:19

equation that I use is energy

46:21

plus constraint, time constraint

46:24

equals productivity. So

46:27

if you only have an hour, but you feel really good,

46:30

you'll be productive. You can use time

46:33

constraint, like I said earlier, if you've got, you know, 8 to

46:36

10pm block of time. If

46:38

you make that all you have, then

46:41

you'll get stuff done. Because

46:44

we're like goldfish, our brains will

46:48

grow or shrink based

46:50

on the amount of time we have to get something done.

46:54

I've been thinking about this presentation for two

46:56

weeks and I finished

46:58

it this morning, right? Because

47:01

all of a sudden that time constraint was

47:03

real and I had to get it done this

47:06

morning because I knew I was going to present it this afternoon. Had

47:09

I presented it last week, you know, when it would have gotten done

47:11

last week, because that would have been the time constraint involved.

47:15

And so you can use these time constraints

47:17

to your advantage. You know, if you say I've only got an hour,

47:19

that's a good thing. I've only got an hour

47:21

to work on this prototype. That is a good thing because

47:24

you will get more done in that hour than

47:26

you will typically if you had five hours,

47:28

right? Because a lot of times we waste

47:31

four of them, you know, and so you

47:33

end up only getting the work done in that last minute anyway.

47:36

If any of y'all have ever been getting

47:38

ready for a convention or some kind of prototyping,

47:41

play testing event or something like that, when

47:43

do you finish all the stuff you need to get done? The

47:45

night before, the morning of, before you're

47:48

getting on the plane, before you're getting in your car, you know,

47:50

right before the pitch meeting. We

47:52

will work right up until this constraint. So

47:55

use that to your advantage. Adjust that, right? Create

47:57

deadlines for yourself. You

47:59

know, Set up playtest nights and different things like that where

48:01

you have to get things done in a certain amount of

48:04

time That'll help you work fewer hours

48:07

And get more done, you know recently i've

48:09

been trying to only work Six

48:12

to eight hours a day whereas before I was working 10 12

48:14

14 hours sometimes Had

48:16

a lot going on. But what I realized is

48:18

like in those giant chunks of time I

48:21

was actually wasting a decent

48:23

amount of it Right part of that was

48:26

just kind of getting lost and you know Feeling

48:28

overwhelmed and then finding myself just scrolling social media

48:30

or something like that. And so I wasn't actually using

48:33

the 12 I was only

48:35

really using six And

48:37

the other six, you know be wasted here wasted

48:40

there. Oh, I feel like let's call this call So

48:42

I hadn't talked to a friend of mine in a while. Let's call him up and see how he's

48:44

doing During work time, you

48:46

know, it's like well, what if I just shifted

48:49

some things around and I was more Adamant

48:52

more intentional about these are the six

48:54

hours I have to work. That's all

48:56

i'm gonna do So let's get stuff done

48:58

and then six hours and one minute hits

49:01

now. I can call my friend now I can fiddle

49:04

around on social media or search youtube or whatever,

49:06

but let's limit let's constrain the time Let's

49:09

manage my energy. Let's constrain the time. Let's

49:12

get more done Switch

49:17

gears make concept And

49:19

this all kind of works together as far as your time energy

49:22

and your habit feels Productive

49:24

procrastination. I know procrastination gets

49:26

an ugly rap, you know, we talk about it negatively

49:29

almost all the time But you can actually use

49:31

it to your advantage if you do it Well,

49:34

uh, the main thing to realize is it's not

49:36

just you you're not the only one struggling with these things You're

49:38

not the only one that gets stuck or burnout or feels overwhelmed

49:41

There are times for all of us as creative people Especially

49:44

as you get into like the business side of things and you

49:46

got a lot more going on You got to answer customer service emails.

49:48

You got to figure out the manufacturing and art direction

49:50

and project management There's a million things going on

49:53

And it's overwhelming and when you feel

49:55

overwhelmed Your brain

49:57

has a tendency to default to the

50:00

that lowest common denominator. So whatever the things

50:02

are that you do all the time, when

50:04

you're overwhelmed, your brain will go, Nope, and it

50:06

will check out and you'll go do something else. And so

50:09

just know that right. You're, you're not alone in this in

50:12

those moments. It is clearly

50:15

and obviously better to focus

50:17

in, right? If you want to procrastinate,

50:19

if you're working on a game, you've run into an issue, you've

50:21

got to solve, you know, something about the game is broken. You

50:24

can't really quite figure it out. It's

50:26

better to focus, to push

50:28

away distractions, put some time in,

50:31

put the energy in and figure out how

50:33

to overcome that obstacle.

50:35

However, however,

50:38

you can intentionally procrastinate

50:41

and still be productive to go,

50:43

I need to work on this, but I'm

50:46

going to go do something else. Instead. The

50:49

question is, what are those other things you're going to do? Right?

50:51

So let's talk about some of those. Uh,

50:53

one thing I like to do, I like to have a lot of projects going

50:55

at the same time. This is not good for

50:58

your mental health. Uh, it's overwhelming.

51:01

Uh, you have to really train

51:03

your brain to, to be okay with

51:05

having a lot going on and having to constantly basically

51:08

code switch where you might be sending

51:10

an email about this project

51:12

over here. And then you turn around and the very next email

51:14

is about something completely different. Right. So

51:16

you're talking about art direction here and you're talking about manufacturing

51:19

there, and you're talking about shipping over here. And then you've got a customer

51:21

service thing over there. And then you, you

51:23

have to be, you have to just train your brain to be

51:26

comfortable with the switching cause that switching alone

51:28

can be overwhelming. But when you have multiple projects

51:30

going on, if you feel like

51:32

procrastinating, you can do that and still

51:35

be productive. As long as you're pushing another project

51:37

forward, right? As long as you're making progress somewhere

51:40

else and it's slower, you

51:42

know, it's a lot faster, uh, to

51:45

focus on one thing and get it done and then

51:47

move on to the next thing, but it is what

51:49

is our brains all work differently. I found for me, I

51:51

like having multiple things going on at the same time. Another

51:54

way to procrastinate productively is

51:57

to exercise. Go for a DAGUM

51:59

walk. If you find yourself feeling

52:01

like I just don't feel like working on this right now

52:03

Fine

52:04

get up go touch some grass

52:07

Right go around your house get on the sidewalk

52:09

walk walk for a mile and come back walking

52:12

alone stimulates creativity

52:16

Right science has shown that just

52:18

the act of getting out and moving around getting

52:20

the blood flow and getting the muscles moving Also

52:23

stimulates the brain And so you

52:25

can use a walk not only to

52:27

feel better Physically, but also to

52:29

get better mentally to have some ideas creatively.

52:32

So go for some exercise You

52:35

know drop down the floor and do some push-ups do some

52:37

sit-ups do anything to move around because

52:40

even though you're not progressing whatever creative

52:42

project you're working on You're managing

52:45

your energy. You're helping your body

52:47

which in the big picture the long term will help you do

52:49

more creatively Or

52:51

just take a nap again. Sleep is vital

52:54

in the creative process. And so it is

52:57

very rarely Uh

52:59

anti-productive to just take a nap take a 10 minute

53:02

nap 20 minute 30 minute nap. Don't go too far, but

53:04

just go to sleep Because sleep

53:06

is so much better than doom scrolling

53:09

social media Right taking a nap is so

53:11

much better than a million other things that

53:13

are guaranteed to not get you closer To

53:15

what you're trying to accomplish a nap actually might help you

53:18

be productive and progress But

53:21

better yet If you're going to procrastinate

53:24

and you're going to avoid whatever you're working on

53:28

Try to do nothing instead Roll

53:30

your chair back away from your desk Prop

53:33

your feet up put your hands behind your head and

53:35

ponder life's great mysteries But

53:38

don't do anything else Because

53:40

like I said earlier when your brain Has

53:43

the option between boredom

53:46

and something else It will

53:48

choose something else. And so if you can

53:50

put yourself into a A

53:52

position where the only two

53:54

options are be bored or

53:57

be productive After

53:59

a few moments of bored You will choose productive

54:02

Right. Don't don't let yourself get in that third road of

54:04

scrolling your phone

54:06

You know screwing around

54:08

Don't do options be bored be productive

54:11

It won't take but a few minutes and your brains like I gotta get out

54:13

of here I gotta do something else, right? I don't want to be alone with

54:15

my thoughts I gotta go do something that moves

54:17

something forth. So if you find yourself

54:19

wanting to or needing to procrastinate Don't

54:22

do anything. This is a concept actually learned years

54:24

ago from the author Neil Gaiman and It

54:28

like every other writer in the world Yeah,

54:31

he doesn't like to write he likes to have written, right?

54:33

Which is a very different thing That's like sometimes the game designers

54:36

the I have designed a game just

54:38

feels better than I'm in the the thick of

54:41

it You really I'm you know trying to

54:43

tweak should this be a two or five, you

54:45

know, I'm on my 47th play test

54:47

like sometimes that can feel kind of rough. But

54:50

if you can put yourself in the situation of Like

54:53

like new what he talks about is when

54:55

he's writing His

54:57

only two options are to write or

55:00

to do nothing. He can do nothing That is

55:02

a perfectly acceptable way to spend the

55:04

writing time nothing But 99.9%

55:08

of the time he'd rather be writing

55:10

because doing nothing kind of sucks So another

55:13

way you can kind of hack your brain. All right to

55:16

summarize interview You

55:19

can construct habit fields again

55:21

construct that is an active action verb,

55:24

right that you are in charge of this Right.

55:26

Don't let these habit fields be dictated to

55:28

you by Multi-billion dollar

55:30

companies that don't have your best interest in mind that

55:32

are really just trying to hack your brain negatively Don't

55:35

let the universe just happen to you really be intentional

55:38

about creating and constructing the habit

55:40

fields in your life

55:42

right

55:44

If you need to go out and buy a another desk

55:46

and you only use that desk for game design

55:48

So when you're when your body sits down at

55:51

that desk your brain goes Oh, we're about to

55:53

design a game because that's all you do there. You

55:55

will get more done You will get way

55:57

more done in 30 minutes at that desk Then

56:00

you probably would at your normal office desk

56:02

for three hours, right? Because you're not fighting

56:05

your brain with these fuzzy fields Is a

56:07

firm field? Uh, even Maybe

56:10

you don't have much space. Okay, what about same

56:13

desk same table? Whatever but you

56:15

sit on the other side So when you get

56:17

up, you know, i've got this desk right here if

56:19

I wanted to I could Either

56:21

move this chair or put another chair on the other side of the table

56:24

right here this other desk To the point

56:26

where when I get up and I move around

56:28

to the other side of this desk That's

56:31

when I do game design. That's all I do But

56:33

i'm in that spot right there with that, you know when i'm looking out

56:35

and seeing everything in my perspective has changed Whatever

56:37

my brain goes. Oh, we're on this side of the table

56:40

now. That's where game design happens And

56:42

so i've constructed a habit field and i'm firm

56:44

about it I don't sit on that side of the table

56:47

and scroll my phone or call my friend

56:49

or you know, mess with my kids Nothing

56:51

else. That's all I do. Right and so separating

56:54

out Consumption and creativity

56:57

and making those things very firm in your life All

57:00

right. Next thing is Managing

57:02

your time, but more importantly managing

57:05

your energy Right really understanding

57:08

your health what's going on inside your body Realizing

57:11

that the productivity equation is energy plus

57:13

time constraint equals productivity

57:17

Then the third thing is you can procrastinate Productively

57:20

when you're overwhelmed or stuck Right

57:22

switch to something productive that kind of progresses something

57:25

else or better yet Do nothing at

57:27

all because your brain will want to go

57:29

back to doing anything Right versus

57:32

nothing All right,

57:34

so kind of concluding things like i've said over and over again Be

57:37

intentional with your time the intentional way you're kind of Moving

57:40

through life Find out what

57:42

works for you You might do these things and they don't quite

57:44

have as much of an impact as they do for other

57:47

people. That's fine We're all different. I would

57:49

encourage you to give it some time. Don't just do

57:51

it for a few days I'm like, oh it doesn't work like no takes

57:53

time to rewire your brain to create new behaviors

57:55

and new habits So, you know give it some time for

57:57

you. Try something else And keep going Right

58:00

Rome wasn't building a day. They were laying bricks every

58:02

hour So what is it like to keep laying bricks in

58:05

your own life? Alright, so

58:07

I hope you really enjoyed that episode

58:09

Hope you got a lot of value and learn some things

58:11

about habit fields about how to

58:13

manage your time and energy and

58:15

just how to design games more Productively

58:18

more efficiently and more intentionally

58:20

and like I said in the intro This is a presentation

58:23

that I gave as part of more game design

58:26

pro And so while listening to this if you

58:28

were thinking man, I want to hear more stuff like this

58:30

Well board game design pro is the place to

58:32

find it and I'm gonna be doing a lot of

58:34

these game design productivity hacks Presentations

58:37

in the future and so I would love it if

58:39

you were there in attendance or if not

58:41

in attendance You could catch the recordings

58:43

after the fact and honestly speaking personally

58:46

I like recording cuz then I can listen to them on

58:48

2x speed and get things done even faster

58:51

more efficiently But anyway, thanks

58:53

for listening and make sure you go to board game design

58:55

lab Com slash pro

58:57

to learn more about board game design pro

59:00

Have a great day and good luck with everything you got going

59:02

on right now