Quite simply, you need to have an open mind and be willing to enjoy things you don't think you will. Teachers can make that easy or hard, but trust me, from the perspective of creating games, biology and lit and possibly more of your hated subjects offer knowledge that will spur the growth of your mind.

At the least, no one will be making fun of you and your blunders when you develop a well programmed master piece of a game around an idiot Sci-Fi story line because you have no basic understanding of genetics, nanotech, physics, material science, biology, etc. Look at all of these subjects as research for good competent game design.

Thanks for all the wisdom guys, first of all, there were some really good ideas in there. In fact, I think I will design a game about one of boring courses next school year, just to see how it works. I don't know how long it will last, but I feel inspired all of a sudden.

One thing I didn't really mention before though is that I really want to do good, if only to get out of high school and onto college, and eventually into the game industry. Sometimes when I'm cutting class, I will be telling myself that I am doing the wrong thing, and that I need to go to class, but I just can't do it. I just sit there, working on what I want to do, instead of doing what I should do. It kills me that I can't make the choice to do what I should do instead of what I want to do, but I just can't. I'm sometimes sitting there with my head in my hands almost crying or something, because I can see that I'm screwing myself over, but I just can't move.

In a way, game design has sort of become my way of proving to the world and myself that I will succeed, and I will do good in life. When my parents are angry at me for bad grades, or talking with me about what I'm doing to myself, when I leave I will frequently work on game design for the rest of the day, because I see it as the only way that I can do something that matters if you know what I mean...? I hope you can sort of get it, it's a bit difficult to explain...

I didn't think I'd get this many replies, or that they would be so enlightening. I guess I just really didn't understand that my whole problem was so common. I'll probably post something in 20 years about how it all went, or if all goes as planned you will be playing my games before then... Thanks again for all the replies though, I think I came to the right place.

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Original post by Spire Games It kills me that I can't make the choice to do what I should do instead of what I want to do, but I just can't.

What you should do is... what you want to do. But not when you have to be doing something else. There's always time to do the fun stuff in addition to the necessary stuff.

I have some practical advise for you that I wish I had learned back when I had homework I hated doing.

I think the first and most important thing you could learn right now is self discipline. Once you accept what your current situation is (which is that you are in school and need to graduate with reasonable grades) then you need to learn good time management skills. It seems right now you are just doing what you want, when you want, with little regard to long term goals. If you can manage your time well, you can get what is important done quickly and hardly dent your programming time, and on top of that, you will be more efficient at completing the programing tasks you set out for yourself.

There is lots of reading you can do tonight to help you out. Print out what you dont want to read and take it to school with you, read it when you would be writing code.

Here is an excerpt:

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Origianlly written by Steve Pavlina A side effect of this last method is that I’ll often end up working much longer than I originally intended. If I commit to working on a tedious task for just 30 minutes, it’s easy to get started because I’ve given myself permission to stop after only 30 minutes. But once I’ve overcome that inertia and am now focused on the task, 90 minutes may pass before I even feel the desire to stop. Timeboxing’s ability to circumvent perfectionism and avoid procrastination makes it a useful time management technique.

Timeboxing

An alternative to time boxing is the 50-30-20 rule. The basic idea is you count up your total work time available and divide it by those percents. 50% goes to super long term tasks, 30% to mid term, and 20% to very short term. Read up on it here and use it to help you get school work done while providing plenty time to get to those long term goals.
The 50-30-20

Some other articles you will find useful:
Graduating College in 3 Semesters
10 Tips for College Students
Self-discipline: Acceptance

Check the related article links at the bottom of each article too, the whole site is great stuff.

I'm curious as to what you consider working on game design. Are you planning out combat systems that maintain a balance between fun and challenge? Or are you dreaming up clever scenes and interesting plot devices?

I find a lot of people who talk about game design don't understand the actual work of it. Just wondering.

I just wanted to say that this is definitely not a problem unique to just you, and the solutions like what JasRonq posted are absolutely correct.

I think it's related to what is called "delayed gratification". When you're doing only what you want or are currently "inspired" to do, you're doing it because of the pleasure you get from it at the time. But you will no doubt encounter boring parts even in projects you enjoy working on, and you might find yourself losing interest for long stretches of time if you don't keep in mind your longer term goals.

This will get you nowhere in life. History shows that people who practice this "delayed gratification" the most not only are more successful in life, but enjoy life more overall.

When you build the discipline to set goals and work towards those even when it gets tough, you'll find yourself enjoying life in general so much more, and you'll get a wonderful feeling of control over your "destiny" that will make you wonder why you didn't "wake up" to the big picture earlier.

If you're interested in learning more about the philosophy of achieving life goals and being successful in general, I would recommend this for a start anyway:

The Art of Exceptional Living, by Jim Rohn

Also, don't let anyone tell you "self help" info is lame. Knowledge is power, and one of the most powerful things you learn is how to be more effective towards your goals. Just make sure you learn from the right people (for example I wouldn't take money making advise from anyone but a millionaire), and make sure it has more substance than just "inspiring stories".

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn:

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."
"To have more than you've got, become more than you are."
"It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go."

I have to agree with most of the posts above.

I'm currently at university, and in my last year. As a mature student (almost 25 now, damn i'm getting old!), and even studying a subject i'm interested in - A game development degree - I still find some module which I don't want to do. Maths, physics... I'm actually very good at, but I don't really enjoy them. Strange for a programmer... probably... but I have to force myself to study these things. I don't enjoy them, but I know they are vital for my degree pathway, so I do it.

Other modules, the less technical ones, I really don't like. The ones which focus on writing reports, presentation skills, and stuff like that... just don't interest me at all.

But you've got to do them, and give it your best shot.

Employers want to see that you can do what your interested in, but also that you can do what your not interested in, something which may be quite boring, and give it the same commitment.

Your future job can be a very important part of your life, as it for me right now, but to succeed you need to keep balance, it means that you need to spend your time on other things as well, things that you don't like.
The earlier you will be able to accept challenges that you don't want, the better it will be for you. Your "wants" should be a flexible tool of your "needs" based on long term plan. I know how hard it can be to spend your time on things that you don't like or even hate, but if you convince yourself to like them it will be much easier. This is applied to the life in whole, not only to your study, not only to your job or your social environment.

You won't have fruitfull life if you are not keeping balance. This is a model that I use myself - if I take a different parts of my life, such as wealth, health, social, realtionship, family, job and etc. and just give each of them a value of 0..10, depending on how good I'm dealing with them. Then you multiply all values to get a final result. The point here is if one of the parts get a very low value 0 or 1 your final result will be very small. As example, if you don't care about your health or wealth at some point they will kick you so hard that you will loose everything else.

The same can be applyed to studies as well, push things that you like to 10+ but don't ignore other things. Important/unimportant, like/dislike need to be your temporary meaning for things, be prepared to change it, when other parts of your life will need more attention.

Your technical skills are not the only skills you need to develop to be successful in your future career. For example, communications skills are equally important. Nobody will listen to you if you cannot communicate well even if you're better at making robots than anyone else. Going to your literature and french class may help for that.

Also, don't try to learn everything in one month, you have plenty of time ahead of you. You won't succeed anyway, nobody knows everything. Team work is very important at work. But it's good tho to develop your technical skills. You’ll be one step ahead of others when it's time to find your first job or tour first internship. But don't focus only on that.

Also, you cannot be absolutely sure that you'll work for a game company for your whole career. There are a lot different paths you can take. You cannot know them all when being in high school.

First example, you may end up making a 3d renderer for a medical application at one point in your life. Then maybe you'll regret to have not attended your biology class. Life is long, keep your doors open. Employers generally don't want to hire narrow thinking people.

Don't knock the PE class. If your body isn't healthy your brain will suffer