I took a rare moment to assess everything going on now or soon, and ended up feeling very tired: day job, PAX next week, Quest for Semi-Glory three times a week, process stream videos, Quest for Semi-Co-op once a month, house maintenance, yardwork, regular cooking, Insert Credit(s) once a month, game design backlog...
Ask me, at any given time, how I manage to stay on top of all that, and I'll give you a blank stare. The painful truth is, I am not great at getting stuff done on a schedule - or, more accurately, on a _first_ schedule. In fact, anything in the above list that doesn't have a hard-and-fast due date likely will get pushed off at least once or twice. "That's horrible for productivity!", you may say. And, you may be right - however, I've found being able to push stuff off a bit much better for my sanity.
So, aside from day job M-F days, Quest for Semi-Glory M/W/F evenings, Insert Credit(s) one F evening a month, Co-op one Sat evening a month, that leaves...Tuesday and Thursday each week that is "open" for everything else, plus some weekends (though let's be honest, they are mostly unwinding time). Not many solid chunks of time to actually do serious things, like game dev, design, work on personal websites, and any other things that crop up in the meantime.
Still, I've found a scheduling process that works fairly well, and though I don't expect it to work for everyone, maybe give it a shot if you need something new. So, M/W/F are almost always out, but I tend to assign due dates for small things on Tues and Thurs, and large-ish things for the next available Sat/Sun. And, when things inevitably don't go to schedule, push to the next available day. As a good example, I originally set a date on this post a week ago. My, how other things have a tendency to get in the way!
But the more important takeaway is to not be too harsh on yourself when schedules slip - it will happen, more often than you would like (that is, all the time), but be flexible and roll with it. Set hard dates only when, without a shadow of a doubt, you can actually make them; everything else can float.
So, if you'll excuse me (but even if you won't), I'm done here, and off to paint in my calendar.
