In short, you're going to see a lot more posting on here (daily). It'll also be a little bit more personal (very little bit) but will sill be 95% focused on development, with an additional twist. This was inspired by another self-taught developer, Wonmin (1min) Lee from his Reddit Post and how he challenged himself to work on his game called 4orner for 30 days.
The long version is; I'm going to use this blog as motivation. For the next 60 days, I will be posting daily. Posts will remain extremely heavily focused on my apps/games and what I learn from development, but I'll be tracking some other personal goals as well as a side note. I'll explain what I mean as I introduce you to....
THE INDIE DEV FITNESS CHALLENGE! (cue fireworks & confetti)
At the very basic level, I am challenging myself to work at least 1-hr every day on a game for 60 days. Pretty straightforward? Sort of. In addition to that goal though, I am also using the challenge as a motivator in other areas of my life and to be healthy.
HERE ARE MY HARD SET GOALS:
- 60 Minutes of game development a day. Can be either directly working on a project, or researching/learning new things about specific parts of the project, whatever I'm doing MUST MOVE IT FORWARD IN SPECIFIC WAYS (no fluff youtube videos about general game dev. themes for example; must be directly teaching me a step or concept in reaching my goal).
- Exercise every day. No, curling beer cans doesn't count. Elevated heart rate, lifting really heavy things, playing a sport, extended speed-walks with the dog, etc. Anything above and beyond normal everyday movement.
- Track calories every day! I won't bore you with the details, but I have a set # to hit every day. I'm currently at 225lbs, I want to hit 208.
Here's how it works; I will put up at least a brief development blog post at the end of each day. The majority of the post will be dedicated to what I did for my project(s) that day; just a plain ol' developer's blog. You know the drill, screenshots, goofy bugs, problems I hit. At the bottom of each post however, will be a small call-out showing some key fitness goals I have for myself. These stats will be my weight that day, what I did for exercise that day, and my calorie count for the day. Simple enough! By the end of my 60 days I am hoping to not only have at least one finished game, but I will also be visibly in better shape than when I started.
(Back-story time, skip the next two paragraphs if you don't care!) I was very active and fairly in-shape during college, but after graduating and landing an office-job, I gained about 20-30 pounds in the first couple years! Nothing much changed from my dietary habits (which were bad), and I play video games just as much as before; but now instead of walking everywhere and playing some sports in between those game sessions, I pretty much just sit. Sit while I drive to work, sit at my desk at work, then sit in the car on my way home home to sit in front of my computer or on the couch.
Fortunately I'm tall and carry the weight fairly well, but I definitely feel slower and chubbier than I used to. However as I come up on my 30's in the next couple of years, I owe it to my wife, future kid(s)?, family, and myself to be around as long as possible. Also I'd like to feel comfortable without a shirt on. I've already been working to get my diet in to shape, and have been going to the gym very inconsistently since January this year. So with a few lbs down already (since Dec) I'm off to at least a start; I'm just very inconsistent about it. This program will get me to where I want to be!
Really this is just serving as a public way to force me in to holding myself accountable. But hopefully it works! I encourage anyone else out there to do something similar. Whether it's programming/game development, reading, writing, or whatever you're in to; use it as a force for good in your life!
With that said, I'm going jogging with my dog, Keegan. I'll be doing my first end of day post later tonight right before bed but in the mean-time, here's Keegan's big dumb head in front of my local brewery, 3 Daughters:
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