Consistency or Subtraction
Trying to balance focus, grit, and momentum without letting go of everything else
Choosing what to remove or what to prioritize is a daily challenge for me. Like things we should be doing, and things we want and need to be doing. For me… a lot of those things all really feel like a need to do because they add to the overall goal.
The beginning of the new year brings many changes and reflections. We tend to adding things, track new habits, integrate new routines. But I’ve been thinking about the book Grit and the idea of taking things away instead. I’ve talked about deleting side projects before, but this is more about the short list… after you’ve curated your priorities and aligned them to your project and goals. Here’s a timestamp about goal setting and time in an older interview from Angela Duckworth
So, How exactly do we remove more from the list without feeling guilty like we’re abandoning it completely?
I know in the back of my mind it’s not abandoning it, it’s a matter of order of operations. But the dilemma I fall into is how to manage all the projects that seem to all be a priority, and that all contribute to that primary goal. So, looking at my list through that lens…
My Short List:
Indie Game Dev - That’s the primary goal.
Practice Flip Substack - Here, where I talk about the game for accountability and some other random thoughts on development, practice, and art.
Practice Flip YouTube - Mostly real time practice sketches for now, but eventually the home for dev logs and behind the scenes.
Social - Platforms like Bluesky and TikTok (not on yet… cause I’m scared of it). They seem necessary these days for discovery and finding people who are interested in what you do.
You could say a lot of these aren’t the main priority and it’s ok to remove them... for now. “not deleted, just not right now” is something I believe in and use a lot to help prioritize. I could probably stop dedicating time to some of these and it’ll be... OK.
But one thing I return to is that a lot of these take time to cook. It needs some time to simmer out on the internet because it’s a slow burn to build interest. It’s a slow burn for finding the right people interested in your stuff. Unless your post goes viral, most of us are riding that slow, long linear curve for quite some time before the exponential curve takes off.
The Math in My Mind
If I go the full focus route, the logic is easy. I spend every second on the game, and I reach the finish line way sooner. When I finally look up and get ready to shout the game to the world… there’s nobody there. You risk an unsuccessful launch or adding years to the tail because now we have time to focus on community building.
On the other hand, doing it all at the same time you risk burnout, stress, and not giving enough attention to the things that matter most. It’s that multitasking thing where you do all the things… you split your focus, and then you end up not doing anything all that great.
All this to say, it sure does feel like I should focus on all these things, but also feel like I can’t dedicate enough time to it to make it valuable. Setting it aside feels like you’ve failed, given up on the work you’ve put in and the promises you’ve made to keep up with it for the long term. Like posting here on Substack every week. Or posting a video on YT consistently. I need to feed that algo consistency so it doesn’t get mad at me when its AI takes over the world.
Onward!
So far I’m keeping up OK. But I do see it possibly being a problem later. My case is not unique, I’m sure many of you are doing the same thing and finding time where you can to make this all work out in the end. Things might change, things might not. I still haven’t figured it out yet, and this is just my way of working through it. For now… keeping on, keeping on. Current progress and peek on the game for next week’s post… interior/exterior transitions
hmm… maybe I’m just overthinking this whole process… ooooor… if only there was a way to not sleep…j/k
This is one of those things that really bloody gets on my nerves about our current state of creative content and creative work.
It is absolutely abhorrent to me that this is the way we "must" move as creatives no matter what field you’re talking about.
Often times I feel like, the proper way of doing this is actually not too feed into the algorithms not to play the algorithm game, not to do any of those things. But instead choose the thing that works for you. Choose what makes you go "OK I know what my shortlist is I know what my priorities are.
I know I need to market a little bit, but I’m not gonna be on TikTok every day.
I’m not gonna post a video every day.
I’m going to post when I post and when I post. The people who will love me, the people who will love my work, will be there"
The reason why I always come back to this is because I continuously think about one creator who I just periodically check on he hasn’t made a video in almost 5 years.
I’m still waiting with bated breath for him to release something and it’s because I just love what he does. Like there is no other reason than that. I want to see him succeed. I want to see his work ,so because of that, I wait and do so happily.
Like there wasn't always a time where there was weekly content, guys.
Sometimes we had to wait, you know three months for the new season to come out, sometimes we had to wait for the Christmas special, sometimes we had to wait for the creators to go off and create before they gave us what they had.
That is where I want to be at and where I want to Align my personal works so I encourage you as I encourage everyone else to find what works for you and I fully understand this sentiment I really truly do and at the same time I think it is sometimes unnecessary to go. Oh well what's the easy path, the most productive path, the thing that gets you the most traction. Forget all that. What is your path?
Screaming into the void vs having a proper signpost are not the same thing.
This one hit me hard! I run the substack, discord, and youtube as my main areas. Then I rotate in bluesky/threads, tiktok, instagram here and there. Its tough to juggle everything so I make sure the main 3 are the focus and feel out the others.
My plan this year is to make everything as streamlined as possible so its less work and more play with each. I would say when you are ready for tiktok make sure you can post a video almost EVERY day cause thats the way you can thrive there. I did it for a year and it did well but then I burned out and stopped. (followed you on bluesky too) Great post!