Got some network bugs to fix. The way I work now is code in a limited time until I encounter a block. Then I stop and do something else and think about the block in spare time. I usually forced to overcome situations like these which resulted in not so clean code, tiredness and frustration. Now I stop and let it live its own life. My brain takes care of overcoming it. Most of the time it just takes one night of rest and the solution appears. This is very good, why didn’t I do this before? Because it takes massive self-discipline to stop doing something. I want to finish this game as soon as possible that’s why I used to force myself. So you gotta trust yourself, trust your power for overcoming obstacles and that will let you relax and go through challenges effortlessly.
Blocks
Written by MM. Posted at 6:12 am on August 20th, 2009
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I did this the other day. Had an IRC bot that wasn’t functioning very well, crashing constantly, and one morning, I simply woke up and an idea occurred to me, an idea that I’ve now gone ahead and programmed, and it works flawlessly. 😀
Sage advice.
This reminds me of a great dialog from Darren Aronofsky’s movie, “Pi”.
TRANSCRIPT:
You remember Archimedes of Syracuse? Eh?
The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he has received is actually solid gold.
Unsolved problem at the time.
It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks.
Insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end.
Finally, his equally exhausted wife,
forced to share a bed with this genius,
convinces him to take a bath, to relax.
While he’s entering the tub, he notices the bath water rise.
Displacement – a way to determine volume,
and thus a way to determine density.
Weight over volume. And thus Archimedes solves the problem.
He screams “Eureka!” and he is so overwhelmed,
he runs naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.
Now, what is the moral of the story?
That a breakthrough will come.
Wrong! The point of the story is the wife.
Listen to your wife, she’ll give you perspective.
Meaning, you need a break.
You must take a bath or you’ll get nowhere.
There will be no order, only chaos.
Go home, Max, and you take a bath.
its like when you finish an important test, go back to home, and, when you are taking a shower, you remember or find a solution to solve an dificult problem that you wasnt able to do during the test.
success
your work astounds us, michal.
namuol, that is a fantastic movie.
hope to see the test release soon!
MM, you will be surprised – try this next time you have a block
Take a shower.
While showering, think about the problem. It becomes clearer. This is not a joke.
@Andrew. You know why that is? Have you ever had the same experience when driving a car?
When you do physical activities that require your general attention and moderate level of alertness – your left side of the brain is put to work. Your right side becomes more free. You can then concentrate better, creativity is unhampered and you can come up with solutions that require an alternate method of problem-solving.
When you’re left side of the brain is not put to work, it muzzles the right side. When we grow up and learn what is real, not real, possible, impossible – that gets categorized and programmed in the left side. So, say you want to design an alien spaceport scene in either a game or concept art or just in your head. As you are thinking about it, whether you are aware or not, you left-side of the brain is like some snooty technical design supervisor. “Why isn’t that landing pad long enough? Where are the power generators? How can that ship fly, it doesn’t seem to have any visible engines? What are you stupid? FIX THAT!!!”
If you put Mr. Snooty Left Brain Technical Supervisor to work on something else, your right brain has free reign to do whatever it wants. Funny thing is, as I said about alternate problem-solving methods. Freeing the right brain helps there as well, as in you may not get a solution to something technical, but you may discover a different way of looking at it, (which is now me just basically repeating myself). Anyway try it out. You’ll come up with a totally wacky alien space port or you’ll find you can compose music a lot more easier.
Interesting Snow
That’s what I do, when I feel tired and not in a creative mood, I don’t work at all into something until I recharged. My brain take care for everything until the next time I’ll get to work and new ideas/solutions arises in the relaxing phase.