Three things motivate me. These are inorder from least to greatest.

- I see something really good and it inspires me to try to do better.

- The 3D artist I work with motivates me when he shows me things that he has accomplished. I try to speed up so I don't become what's holding things back.

-The biggest thing is. My programming has been marked by people that think they are better than me, and people that judge me as slow, and a newbie to programming. People that are not even on my level automatically think they are better and that I know nothing about computers. I admit I don't fit the general programmer sterotype look. It's not an age thing. So when people put me down, it motivates me to show them up.

Domini

Edited by - Domini on 2/22/00 9:17:06 PM

I really never thought about how i modivate myself. I guess when one of my programming buddies was around, i wanted to impress him and see how much i could learn in a short time frame. I guess i never really started programming until september.

i ran across an interesting idea on how to achieve goals. here it is:
make a spreadsheet like thing with the days of the week across the top and the goal you want to achieve on the side. for every day you acomplish the goal, put a checkmark there. that way you can say i have been doing really good, or i need a swift kick in the pants. maybe seeing those checmarks will modivate you to do even better the next week.

i find it also really helps to finish up a project (or even get it to run) and then you can say "wow, i did a lot of work lately, and things are really taking off!" by the time you no it, you will be doing way more programming than you ever dreamed of.

- Moe -

now what about being modivated for school work...

You could try:

- listening to music while you program
- use reverse psychology on yourself ie. tell yourself "No, I am NOT going to program" (this may or may not work)

Finishing really simple stuff is also good. Also, whenever I read a programming book I read it away from the computer, then go back to the computer and test some of my knowledge. This works for me.




- Daniel
http://sw.mtx.net/daniel/

i just think about the outcome,it feels great to play a game that YOU made

I also find reading GameDev.Net helps. You read about what everybody else is doing and it sorta gets me to go do some coding as I don''t want to be left out

Set up small goal for yourself, even if your working on a large project. Something like this (simplified)

(Kind of Astroid clone (short of ideas at the moment ))
* Display a picture on the screen
* Put the sprites there and some simple movement
* Add the interface
* Add computer controlled spirites
* Get the AI to do someting
* and so on...

Should probably be more stuff there, but you''ll get the idea. The key is to see improvement all the time, as soon as something works you get motivation to continue. It''s very easy to quit when you get stuck with something. If you do, and you feel that your motivation is disappearing, the get a new goal and finish that one before returning to the one you got stucked in!

I wrote an article on this a few years back which you can read here:

http://www.lupinegames.com/articles/motivkey.htm

(We have a copy on gamedev, but it appears to be formated horribly)

I think its time for me to write a new version of this soon, as Ive learned a lot since this original article.

I create carrot-stick situations for myself basically. Renting movies, or planning to see movies, going out to places, getting away from the comp to do something AFTER I finish X amount of work.

It keeps you having short term goals. You have to break things down as small as possible to get them finished.

Also, in my to-do lists I always do all the easiest things first. That way I feel like Im making a lot of progress in the beginning (seems to work psychologically, even though its a linear progression of work. Since im finishing 5:1 (or more) easy to hard tasks it seems like things are flying by). Then when all the easy ones are done, there are a lot less tasks to do, so it doesnt seem like the load is too big. So its a win from both sides of the beginning and end.

Also a great piece of advice I read in some organizational quip calendar went something like:

"Always do the little things first, as they are the first to be forgotten when time is tight, but you will never ignore the big ones"

Seems pretty simple, but there is an astounding amount of truth in that. If you have to get to the airport by 9pm, you WILL get to the airport by 9pm. But if you have a ton of little errands like picking up dry cleaning, mailing letters, etc, you can easily put those off and eventually not do them. If you do them first, you will be forced to keep yourself organized so you dont screw up the big things.

I end up using this advice probably every day of my life consciously now, so its been a pretty important thing to understand. As a result I end up missing a lot less tasks because of it.

-Geoff

Yeah I know exactly what you mean..

So many times I''ve dropped stuff just because
I get unmotivated because of.. well several reasons I guess.
Something is not working, a lot of bugs, algorithms I can''t
really think up(well at least hard to think up),
The interface is not good, the FPS is crap, and so on.
Someone said something about "slow" steps, stuff you can handle then go on try to learn new stuff, and implement ''em

=)

Good Luck!

"Motivating is the art of turning work into play" - Anonymous

Good Luck!


- null_pointer


Edited by - null_pointer on 2/23/00 8:02:10 AM

I agree with geoff, the "I can do ____ when I get _____ done" works really well for me. The other thing that I find very motivating is having a good team to work with. For me, the thought that others are counting on me to do my part gives me an extra push when it comes to starting a difficult task... and my hardest time when it comes to getting motivated is pretty much always when I''m starting something (for instance, I''m currently getting up the motivation to do all the file handling stuff for the level editor UI I just finished.) Once I get started, things start to fall together, and watching that is motivating in and of itself.
I think it''s important to realize, though, that different people are motivated in different ways. For some people, a good workout gives them the energy to go get some serious coding done, for others, it makes them so tired they just want to sack out on the couch and watch TV. Do some experimentation to see what motivates you, personally... don''t think that because it works for someone else it will work for anyone.

-fel
~ I''m under the influence of a lot of cold medicine today, so I hope that made sense... ~