Keep the Ideas Flowing!

Keep the Ideas Flowing!

This is, I think, one of the few pieces of advice that actually is easier done than said. One of the things I read on CardboardEdison (a resource I cannot recommend highly enough) was basically to have 100 ideas written down, several ideas in varying stages of development, and anywhere from 1-3 games in a prototype stage. As someone who has always managed multiple projects at once, but with varying success, I think I'm an excellent example of the need for "parking lot" things. What does that mean? Well, oftentimes, while I'm working on one task, my brain will remind me of another I have to or *should* address. In the past, I've thought, "Ah, it's just an e-mail. It'll take no time at all." And I'll put down whatever I was doing, write the e-mail, then come back to what I was doing. Or rather, I'd usually come back. But while working on that other e-mail, I'd start thinking of other things I needed to do, and the priority list in my head would start to shuffle, and I might go down a rabbit hole of things I needed to do or had been meaning to do. Even when I came back to whatever I was working on, my brain needed to shift gears, and so I was losing time. It's sort of like if you need to run your errands, but rather than being efficient in your travel, you first hit the place closest to home, then hit the place 3 miles in one direction, then double-back to hit the place 5 miles in a different direction, then make a sort of star as you travel inefficiently from place to place. Not a great example because I'm having difficulty articulating it, but hopefully, you get what I mean. Sure, you got everything done, but you also lost a ton of time in-between errands. That's what happens to my brain (and many other brains!) when we're constantly switching between tasks. The human brain is not designed to multitask: we split our focus. Very, very different. Multitasking implies that everything we're doing simultaneously is executed to the best of our ability. Splitting our focus means we've got 100% focus, and we're doling out some to this task, some to this task, and some to these other three tasks. Bodily functions such as breathing are autonomic so we don't die when we are concentrating on something. I mean, that should tell us something.

"But Chris. If we're not designed to multitask, what the hell are you talking about?"

Don't worry, I promise, I'm getting there.

"You lost the thread about a parking lot."

I did not, sirrah. I'm getting there.

A couple of years, I started implementing a practice called "parking lotting." When I'm working on a task, but think of something else I need or want to address, I just pick up a pen, write it down, then set it aside and keep working. It'll get addressed, but not right this instant, because it's not that important. So I can finish what I'm working on, but I also don't have to fear forgetting these other things I need to do. You know what else this helps me do? It helps me pick my moments. I put down this grant proposal not because there's something else I think I need to do, but because it's time for me to take a break and do something else. I might need food, I might be stuck and need to come back to my proposal with fresh eyes, or it may simply be that I set my timer for 90 minutes, those 90 minutes are up, and I had already decided I'd only spend 90 minutes on it today and then come back to it tomorrow when I've got another 60.

As the Executive Director of a theatre company, I don't always have the luxury of working on one thing to completion before starting something else. Oftentimes, I need to plan months and months in advance. In the past, we'll be halfway through our season of shows (having produced two with two or three left), and I'm already recruiting new guest directors for the following season 10 months in advance so we can select that season's play titles 8 months in advance of when the next season starts. In short, sticking with one task or project to the exclusion of others until the former is done is not always the best approach to take. Which brings me back to the notion at the top of this blog post: having 100 ideas, developing 5-7 of them, and having 1-3 in some sort of prototype stage.

"God, Chris, can you be any more pedantic?"

The answer is yes, believe it or not, but I promise that I'm trying real hard here to be more concise than I normally am when it comes to something about which I feel strongly. Anyway, shut up. It's my blog.

If we can't multitask, why would anyone suggest having so many balls up in the air at once? The answer (for me, anyway) is that I'm not suggesting you multitask with this many games; I'm suggesting that you be okay with shelving a game if you're not wanting to work on it at this moment, or if you have a different idea about which you're more excited. Obviously, it's different for you as a designer if you've been contracted to design something, or if you've got a Kickstarter, people have already supported you, and you've promised to get them the game on a deadline. Totally different at that point. I'm talking about what you do if you are where I am: nobody waiting for me to finish anything, except for myself. I'm up to 50+ game ideas in my little notebook. Some of those are 3-4 words, like a game title I thought might be cool, and some are 2-3 sentences, wherein the idea might be valuable, but I have no idea what I want to do with it just yet. Then I've got 3-5 games about which I've written anywhere from 3-15 pages that include rules, components, mechanics, etc. And I currently have 3 games for which I am developing prototypes, all three at various stages. One is done and requires organized play-testing. As it's just a simple card game, that was the easiest one to prototype, but I just haven't gone back to it because I've not had the energy, time, space, or capacity to run organized play-testing, and I don't want to waste anyone's time if I'm not fully committed to an efficient process. The second is a game about penguins that I haven't fully figured out yet, so the prototype is still in very early stages, as I create the components of which I'm sure, but some others are on hold as I nail down some rules to be more specific rather than the generalized guidelines they currently are (this one is really closer to development than to prototype, but technically, I have started creating components, so it's worth mentioning). The third and final one is the one about which I'm most excited, and it's a pick-up and delivery game. The rules for this prototype are set, and I'm in the process of creating the final batch of cards so I can begin an initial play-testing process.

So why bother with my other ideas? Because I have no idea what comes next. Maybe I hit a much bigger wall with that third game than I expect, and it's a wall I either cannot or don't want to ram my way through. It's been about a year and a half now since I decided to start developing my own board games, and in that time, I've written down quite a lot of ideas. No way I would've remembered them all had I not written them down. Seriously. I keep a pad and pen next to my bed so if I wake up in the middle of the night or have an idea just as I'm drifting off to sleep, I don't have to leave my bed to write it down, and I don't have to worry about forgetting it. I've been improving my bedtime hygiene, and so my phone is no longer by my bedside; it charges in another room or downstairs overnight. So I'd have to get up and disrupt my sleep instead of rolling over, scribbling whatever popped into my brain, then going back to sleep. One morning, I woke up and found I had scribbled the following: "You can paint her, but she won't stay there." I've got no idea where that came from. Maybe it was a dream, maybe just a random sentence. But I can tell you that I've begun writing a fiction centered on that one sentence, whose origin I still don't recall.

You write down all these ideas so you don't lose them. You never know when one idea will unexpectedly blend into another, creating the kind of fusion you sought, but wouldn't have found without random inspiration. You keep the ball rolling on a bunch of projects at once because you should be working on what you have the capacity and inspiration on which to work. I've got ideas for some small games and ideas for some really big games. But I'm a complete amateur when it comes to design, so some of those bigger game ideas are going to wait until I'm ready to approach them. Since I've recorded them somewhere, they're not going anywhere, right? So there's no rush. I was worried such an approach would feel overwhelming, but if anything, it's quite the opposite: because I'm not juggling these ideas and games. Instead, I pick one up, examine it and shape it for awhile, then I put it back on the shelf in its prescribed place, and pick up another one. One at a time, I work on these games, and I promise, this approach has really convinced me that I can do this and actually design my own games!