Last week I set myself the challenge of waking up an hour earlier , going from 5:30 to 4:30. Lets just say it didn’t happen. I kind of knew it would be too much to change in a week, but once I get an Idea in my head I feel like I need to try it – I guess just to satisfy my ego.

Day 1 went as bad as you can get. The night before I just couldn’t sleep. I think it was a combination of excitement for the challenge and anxiety about missing my alarm. Usually I am sound asleep by 11pm, that night I was awake until 3am. Despite this my body clock still woke me up at the usual time of 5:30am. Great 2.5hrs sleep.

Its safe to say that it was not a very productive day. I could hardly focus, I was very snacky and, in a pretty bad mood. However, I tried to look on the positive side. At least I would be dog tired by the time 9pm rolled around and shouldn’t have any problem falling asleep that night …. right?

Wrong! The same thing happened again! It was so messed up, things were going horribly wrong, but why?

The Devil is in the Detail

Despite already being an early riser I soon realised I lacked some of the smaller important habits to succeed at this challenge. Habits like: setting an alarm, waking up to an alarm, winding down at night, going to sleep earlier. So I wasn’t just trying to wake up earlier. I was ACTUALLY trying to implement several new habits at once – whilst also having disrupted sleep. A recipe for disaster.

Additionally, I didn’t allow for life to get in the way. During the later part of the week my daughter got sick. She had a cold and this meant she was up ALOT. Then my wife got it, and then me. Getting up at any reasonable time was now just a challenge.

What I learned

I guess you can’t rush things like changing your sleep routine. And If you do, its unlikely to be sustainable, unless you’re in a environment that won’t let you stop – ie. you’re in the armed forces or you have children.

During the challenge, someone asked my why I needed to wake up even earlier than 5:30. I told them becuase I need more time to work, without my daughter or wife interrupting me. But the question made me realise I was thinking in one dimension – Time.

I had put on the metaphorical blinkers, instead of thinking of creative solutions to getting more work done. This seems to be the default thought process for most humans: more time equals more work. Instead, maybe I should be asking, how can I get the more work done in the same time? Or even better, what about the same work done in less time?

Either, way all this change needs to be built on a solid foundation of the smaller habits. Those unglamorous actions that feel almost pointless, like setting an alarm or winding down every nigh. Its these that prop up the those bigger, more ambitious behaviours we wish to change. But if we are in rush , we will try to cut corners and ignores those details, only later to find out that our poor foundations led to the whole habit collapsing. Sometimes even leading to a situation that is worse than where we started!.

Don’t be in a rush. Slow change is sustainable change. Don’t go for the glamorous big win, instead focus on the smaller details. Finally, life will get in way. Think about what you can achieve on your worst day and let that be your baseline.

The first full week is over and it was tough, but not for the reason I expected…

This Weeks Wins: Second Video, Re-creating Brackey’s Tutorials, and another Blog Post.

So first things first, how did I fair with my weekly Challenge:

Last Weeks Challenge :

Complete 5 Brackey’s Tutorials In 7 days. – from ‘How to Make a Video Game Playlist’ (+100xp for each Tutorial)

I actually did 8 tutorials! This takes my total tutorials completed to 9. However, this is kind of frustrating because the whole playlist I was working on – entitled ‘Make A Game’ is 10 videos long. It would have been nice to complete the series but all in all it’s a good start. Although, it was probably too easy to reward 100XP per tutorial, so I will adjust the amount earned. I think 10 XP for each tutorial with a bonus of 50XP for completing the challenge. 80 + 50 = 130XP Total. (I will have to work out how this corresponds to leveling up).

What I Learned

It’s ok doing tutorials but that is only one part of the learning process. I can’t say I’ve actually learned anything until I’ve tested myself. So today (Sunday) I tried to recreate the game. I would say I managed to recreate 70% of it without referring to my notes – the bit I was weakest at was creating the UI. Probably because this was only covered in a single video. Whereas, there was a lot of cross-over between the other tutorials: creating scripts, linking variables, coding loops, and boolean flags.

The game was like an endless runner-style, with a cube moving along the ground and the player dodging left and right to avoid obstacles. It introduced me to Unity’s physics engine and collision detection using Rigidbody components. I was really impressed with Unity’s animation capabilities. Using keyframes to animate will feel familiar to anyone who has done some basic animation in something like FCPX or Premiere Pro.

YouTube Channel

I uploaded another video to the channel, sharing my plan for this year. This was by far the toughest task of the week. To be honest, I hadn’t fully finalized my plan before filming. This became apparent when I watched the footage back… it just didn’t make sense. I even forgot to mention what the main goal of the channel/ project was! So I ended up having to reshoot it on Friday. That meant I was editing well into Saturday and it was a stretch to get it published on time.

I probably spent more time working on the YouTube side of things than I did studying game development. I will have to do better next week I will never hit my target.

That’s it for Now! I’m Off To Watch England Beat Italy in the Euros

Sorry, this is so brief but the European Football championship Final is about to begin so I’m off the cheer England on!

Current Focus: Learning Unity Basics

This Weeks Challenge (W/c 12th)

• Complete The Final Brackey’s Tutorial (10XP)
• Recreate 100% without Notes and add something New (100XP)
• 8 More Tutorials – On Building a 2D game ( 10XP + Bonus 50XP)

So for a while now I have been consumed by a single idea:

“If I could actually stick to one thing for 365 days, could I achieve the success I hoped for?”

Instead of getting distracted. Instead of giving up. Instead of deciding that I actually ‘want‘ to do something completely different – I stuck to it, I was consistent and at the end, maybe, just maybe, I got somewhere close to that dream that inspired me.

Imagine that! Me, the serial quitter, the person with a new idea/dream every week. Imagine that I was actually able to see something through until the end.

Well, if this at all resonates with you? Maybe this project might just be something you’d be interested in?

Who Am I?

My name is Darrell, I’m 33 and live in the UK with my wife and 19-month old daughter. At the beginning of this year, I quit my job as an insect scientist with no plan, so I figure out what I want to do with my life? 6-months later and with our life savings severely diminished, I am still working on that… but I’ve learned a lot along the way.

For the longest time have been obsessed with productivity and accelerated learning. Devouring books, articles, and videos concerning the subjects. But importantly, and probably because of my background in science, I believe that application and experimentation is the only way to test whether or not those ideas work.

This is why I am taking on this project. I want to know if I can leverage all the tips, tricks hacks, systems, mindsets, and principles I have learned, to see if they can actually help fulfill a dream I have had since I was a boy. To make my own video games.

I have no idea if I will pull it off….

There are going to be ups and downs, failures and successes but most importantly there are going to be a lot of lessons learned. Lessons that I hope others can learn from.

Feel free to follow along on my blog, or over on my Youtube channel where I will be updating you on my progress every week.

So here goes…

This is Game Dev in 1 year!
{starting July 1st 2021}

Introduction.

Almost anyone interested in productivity has probably heard of Atomic Habits by James Clear and Getting things done by David Allan.

And rightly so! These books are amazing and if this post was about two of my favourite popular productivity books, they would be top of my list.

The problem is that there are some ‘*lesser known’ productivity books out there that perhaps get overlooked. These books don’t get the love and attention they deserve but offer some really solid advice.

So in this post, I am going to share 3 of my favourite but lesser-known* productivity books and how they have really helped me.

*based on my opinion and their number of Goodreads & amazon reviews when compared to the popular productivity books. E.g. Atomic Habits, Getting Things Done, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

“By the way....If you’d rather watch a video than read this post then head HERE “

“If you decided you can’t be bothered to do either right now, don’t worry! Bookmark it and go and play the first level of my 2D platformer ‘Desert Man’ which I made in one week“

Book 1: Mini Habits By Stephen Guise.

This book is for anyone who struggles to get started, and at fewer than 100 pages its a very lightweight read.

The main premise is that motivation is an unreliable strategy for building consistent habits and instead we should be using willpower.

I know, some of you might be thinking that you struggle with willpower as much as you struggle with motivation.

Well, the author’s answer is to reduce the amount of willpower you need for any given habit, by turning it into a ‘Stupid Small’ version. AKA a ” Mini Habit.

Some examples are: Doing 1 push up rather than a full workout or writing 50 words instead of trying to write a whole blog post, chapter etc.

But aren’t these a bit pointless? Well, that’s kind of the point. These actions are stupid small and so feel pointless. This means your brain doesn’t create lots of excuses not to do them. It can’t convince you that you don’t have enough: time, energy or willpower because the actions are so small. If you don’t buy it. Then stop what your doing and do 1 push-up now. … seriously.

The important catch is that once you get down to do one push up or sit at your desk to write 50-words, you actually find that you don’t mind doing a bit more. In fact, once we have started something it’s often easier to keep doing the same thing.

The funny thing is, these mini-habits are really just the first few actions in those bigger perhaps more ‘meaningful’ habits. One push-up is the beginner of a workout routine, and sitting down to write 50-words is the beginning of writing 1000.

But now you have almost tricked your brain into getting started.

The book is packed full of the science of motivation and willpower as well as lots of useful ‘Mini-Habits to get you going.

Book 2: Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner

Ok so I’m cheating with this one, technically this isn’t a productivity book. But rather a book on how to learn languages.  However, it is full of lots of productivity advice and is a great example of how to apply them to a given subject. 

Language enthusiast and polyglots will be familiar with a lot of these techniques. 

This book first introduced me to one of my favourite productivity tools for learning – Anki. Anki is freely downloadable Spaced Repetition Software It allows you to create flashcards, that intelligently turn up in your deck based on how often you get them right or wrong. 

It’s an awesome tool for subjects that are heavy on memorisation and is a firm favourite of language, medicine and law students

This book also opening my mind up to the fact that they were alternatives and maybe even better ways to learn traditional subjects, like languages.

For years, I had tried to learn languages through evening courses, podcasts and apps but nothing stuck. 

Back in 2017 in preparation for a trip to Japan, It helped me learn passable Japanese in just three months  and I had fun

Sadly, today I forgotten a lot of it because I just don’t use it.

But when the opportunity to travel to japan comes around again, I can simply find my old flashcard deck and start learning.

I think this a great read and has a lot to offer, even if you not interested in learning a language. 

Book 3: Ultralearning By Scott. H. Young

This book is for anyone wants to take on those  ambitious self-directed learning projects. 

It breaks down how you should research, practise and adjust your approach in order to learn any subject effectively. 

The author based a lot of this book on his own experience  where he learned and passed the  4 year MIT Computer science course in only 1-year. 

But it also includes case studies of other Ultralearners including polyglot , a solo video game creator and competitive public speaker. 

The book is even just worth it for the amazing Foreword By James Clear, author of Atomic habits. James manages to pack in a ridiculous amount of wisdom. In just a few pages – honestly, that dude is crazy good at writing.

Summary

So those were my three favourite ‘lesser-known’ productivity books. 

Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these and you also liked them.  or if you have any suggestions of productivity books that perhaps don’t get the attention they deserve. 

Also, if you liked this then you might like my other productivity posts!
Or, you can always head over to my YouTube channel.

Thanks, D. 

I was inspired to write this post because of a story I read in Ali Abdaal’s newsletter that really resonated with me. 

Recently I have really struggling to post on this blog and upload to my Youtube channel. I have several half-written posts, pages of research and video footage just waiting to be edited. But I can’t seem to get it over the finish line. 

When I think about why this is the case,  I keep coming up with the same kinds of answers. “I need to do better research; I need to make a better workflow; I need to focus on improving my writing; I need to script my videos.. etc etc. 

Whilst these seem like legitimate reasons – indeed I don’t doubt they could improve my content – they are really just excuses. The things I tell myself so I can avoid the judgement of others.  

It’s like I actively make it harder than it needs to be so I have an excuse not to do it! 

In Ali’s newsletter, he calls this Heavy Lift Syndrome. It’s when you treat something as a much heavier lift than it needs to be – like treating lifting 20kg like its 100kg. He suggests the reason is that we have made it into a “Big Deal”.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

 -Confucius.

This is definitely the case for me. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, by creating rules around my videos and blogs posts. Rules like – It has to provide value, it has to be well researched and written. And that classic – it has to be good.

In fact, I think it’s a good rule of thumb that if you are creating strict rules around the stuff you want to do, then perhaps you are making it into a ‘Big deal’ and you may fall foul of ‘Heavy Lift syndrome’. 

Ali’s suggests using a Tim Ferris’ Trick and ask ourselves :

“what would this look like if it were easy?” 

I would also follow up by asking: 

“how would I feel if this was done?“

I find linking these two questions to be very powerful. As I come to write to the final part of this post, it is that ‘feeling’ that is keeping me going to the finish line

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So what have you been making something harder than it needs to be?

Thanks for reading 🙂

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If you liked this you might also like this: Start New Habits By Simply Showing Up In 2021

On the 15th of March, I set myself a 2week challenge focusing on publishing YouTube videos and doing the Keto diet. I failed!

To be honest, I am not surprised I failed. Even as I read back the original post, I found the whole thing unnecessarily complex. But I was surprised that a side effect was that I lost the habit of writing these posts – something I had been doing regularly.

Perhaps it was the shame. I’m not really sure. But if I learned anything from my challenge, it’s that its better to keep things simple.

I have this hunch that whilst this challenge and my previous ones can help you get started, or past a plateau or simply just spice things up, they are not a substitute for building better more sustainable habits. We all want to transform ourselves in a week and reap the benefits for a lifetime. But this is rarely if ever the case. Instead, we should strive for coupling short bursts of intense effort with a slower more sustainable approach.

Progress requires patience, persistence and getting back up after you fail.

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This post is short and not very sweet. It’s just something I had to get off my chest so I could move forward.

Recently this blog has become somewhat of an accountability partner fo me . The challenges I set myself on here helps me focus and writing about them publically gives me some form of accountabiliy. So with that being said, I am starting a new challenge.

This time I wanted to mix up the format. Over the last 2 weeks of March I am going to challenge myself to focus on not one, but two areas. Creativity & Health.

For Creativity I will once again focus on making Youtube videos.

For Health I will focus on trying to lose weight.

Additionally, In each week I am going to take a ‘Quality vs Quantity’ approach when it comes to making more Youtube videos. During the first week, I will be focusing on quality, aiming to upload 1 high-quality video by the end of the week. For the second week, I am going for quantity to try to upload 2 videos by the end of the week.

I want to see If I can learn 3 things from this challenge.

1. Is it possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle whilst also increasing your output?
2. Will either goal suffer by increasing the number of videos made.
3. Finally, how far can push public accountability by blogging about it?

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THE RULES:

Week 1 – Quality.

Creativity: Youtube:

1. To Have 1 Video Published by 2 pm, Friday 19th March
2. The Quality Will be assessed on:
   • Production Value – 4k Footage, Colour Grading, Audio, Effects, Camera Angles/ B-Roll.
   • Audience Value – Clarity, Brevity and Usefulness of Message.
   • Thumbnail: Image and Title

Health: Weight Loss.

1. To Start a Keto Diet
2. To Hit at least 3/7 days in ketosis

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Week 2 – Quantity.

Creativity: Youtube:

1. To publish 2 Videos ( Weds 1pm & Friday 5pm)
2. Each Video must be complete and include:
   • B-Roll/ Camera Angle, Colour grading, music and sound effects
   • Thumbnail

Health: Weight Loss

1. To hit at least 3/7 days in ketosis.

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One Final Thing

As an interesting aside, I am going to set myself 1 extra thing to achieve each week, but I am not going to declare it until the end of the challenge. I want to see if announcing it on this blog makes any difference to whether or not I follow through with it.

For the longest time, I had struggled to keep consistent with my blog. I would upload a few articles here and there but nothing consistent. Even I after I committed to writing an article every week, the habit of writing just didn’t come naturally to me. It was always something I had to force myself to do.

If you can relate, then read on to find out how I developed the habit of writing every day.

The 7 Blog Posts In 7 Days Challenge.

Recently, I completed a 7 blog post in 7 days challenge. I set myself the challenge to practise turning my ideas into articles. I didn’t focus on quality and I didn’t worry about the aesthetic. I just focused on reps.

Focusing solely on reps allowed me to develop the meta-skills of writing every day. These are the smaller components of habit building such as:

• Carving out time to write.
• Getting the tools to write
• Overcoming perfectionism
• Using tips and tricks that work for me.
• Building consistency.

All of these things allowed me to upload a post every day and help me build the habit of writing.

But there was an interesting side effect.

The Writing Itch

The day after the challenge I was happy not to have the pressure of writing a post. It was nice to take some time off. I enjoyed time with my family and relaxed with some of my favourite Netflix shows. ( I am loving ‘The Legend Of Korra’ Right now).

But that night something didn’t feel right.

The next day I decided to focus my attention and energy on a new project. I decided to start a new challenge and try the keto diet. However, as I was planning I noticed the urge to write a blog post about it.

This would have been fine if I hadn’t decided to reduce my post frequency to every 2-weeks. The idea was to write higher quality posts, with better research and more value to the reader. So I dismissed the urge.

But again something was off.

I think you can see where this is going.

After writing a post for 7 days straight I had not only established the habit. I also now had the itch to write. Now It feels weird not to write something towards my blog every day. In fact, that is why I am writing this very post.

The Habit Loop

Readers of the power habit by Charles Duhigg will be familiar with the habit loop: Cue, Craving, Response, Reward. I am not going to explain it fully here, but here is an article on James clears blog if you are interested.

In short, habitual behaviours are triggered by a cue, which leads to a craving. Our response to this then leads to a predicted reward.

So for me, the craving was the itch to write a blog post everyday, thanks to the habit I had been building.

Conclusion

The quickest way to establish the habit of writing every day is by putting in the reps. This will lead to a craving for that habit to be repeated and make it easier to perform in the future.

Blog #5 of My 7 Blog posts in 7 days Challenge

Yesterday I failed to upload the 5th Blog post of my 7 blogs in 7 days challenge. I could give you the excuses but I’m not going to. The truth is, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I don’t miss a second day.

How many times has this happened to you? You mess up after a good streak and think ” I’ve ruined this now, I might as well give up. I am not good enough” We allow one mistake to completely derail our progress. It’s silly. We’re only human after all and no one is perfect.

But the reality is that one mistake is not what ruins our progress. Its the repeated mistakes ups that occur after this, often encouraged by this flawed thinking.

To prevent himself from making this mistake, popular YouTuber Matt D’Avella follows something he calls the 2 Day rule. He allows himself to take a day off going to the gym if he doesn’t feel up to it, but he doesn’t allow himself to miss twice in a row.

Why Do We Fall Master Bruce?

If you’ve seen Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy you will be familiar with Bruce Waynes father’s advice, later repeated by Alfred.

Why do we fall Master Bruce, so we can learn to pick ourselves up.

The crucial word in this is quote is “learn”. We learn to pick ourselves after we have failed. We get back on the horse; We try again. Because if not, we are reinforcing the behaviour of giving up. I like how James Clear puts it.

“Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.”

James Clear Atomic Habits.

Conclusion

So next time you mess up. Forgive yourself. You are only human. But look at it as an opportunity to practice the habit of never missing twice. It’s probably one of the most important habits you can cultivate.