For as far back as I can remember, I've been extremely self-motivated. I've never needed parents, teachers or a boss to get moving. I'm actually a pretty hardcore PRE-crastinator (learn more about how that may affect your creative process here). So, the last thing that I thought was going to be a problem when I left 343 Industries and went indie was time management.

But I was wrong. Not necessarily because I didn't have the drive, but because I didn't have the tools to evaluate it. When I realized I had no idea how well I was utilizing my time, I googled around the internet to search for a tool that might help and eventually landed on Toggl. It's pretty simple. Basically, it's a glorified stopwatch, which is perfect. You can read more about it on their website, but I just wanted to introduce it here briefly since I'll be using data from my Toggl account as the focus for this blog post. I can't recommend it enough if you want an honest account of the time you're putting into your project. That presupposes you're actually being honest about the time your tracking, but you've really only got yourself to lie to...so hopefully you're not?

Finally, before I jump in...why am I even writing this blog post? I don't know. I feel like it's kind of interesting data. I would love to know how other folks are breaking down their time as a comparison. Consider this your invitation to share!

Total Work Hours

I'm nowhere near ready to announce my game, but I will say that I'm working in UE4, the game is fully 3D (ie. not a sidescroller, top down or 2.5D), I'm pivoting off my genre experience and my mantra is "AAA quality with an independent spirit, scope & budget." Since leaving 343 Industries, I've spent a majority of my time working on "The Game", but not all of my time.