I hope your Tuesday is going well! Or whenever you read this. You know what? I just hope your life is going well regardless of the day. Time is a construct anyway.
Okay, bear with me. This is a little niche, but here’s an inspiring docuseries about the little video game company Doublefine and their trials and tribulations with making the 2005 game Psychonauts. I’ve never even played that game, but I absolutely LOVE founder Tim Schafer’s point-and-click adventure Day of the Tentacle he made with LucasArts in the 90s. (In fact, I sometimes dream of making my own videogame in a similar style.)
Full disclosure, I’ve only watched the first episode, but it is really inspiring for any creative person. It shows how Tim overcame the challenges of forming his own business, finding his team, coming up with a concept, trying to preserve it through years of struggle and disappointment, and ultimately not even being that successful (at least at first).
It reminds me of many struggles I went through as a YouTube creator and my band went through as a collaborative team. I don’t know. I just like it and I think there are lessons in there, okay?! Lessons like…
Forget the big picture, do a little bit at a time
One possible lesson could be that to make such a huge thing as a video game you need to focus on each tiny little bit (different levels, characters, small functions like climbing). You can’t be big picture all the time. In fact, you probably shouldn’t think big picture all the time because, in my experience, you’ll go bonkers and quit or never start.
This is similar to the “Done in a Day” issue I posted a few months ago in which I talked about my goal to just add 2 minutes a day to the timeline of the documentary I’m currently editing.
But now I’m basically done with a rough cut! I’m at 1 hour and 20 minutes and now I’ve hit a bit of a motivation block because I’m no longer in building mode. I’m in “making good” mode. (I almost said “perfecting” mode but I have to avoid words like perfect if I want to get anywhere.)
So I have to remind myself of my own lessons. And when I’m in “making good” mode it’s REALLY hard to not just focus on the big picture and get all perfectionist about everything. This puts me in an impossible place mentally. I can’t just throw the perfect switch and make everything good. But that’s what my brain wants to do. So I do nothing!
So I tell myself 2 things, “Done is better than perfect” and “A little bit at a time”.
ANY big project is always done a little bit at a time. Big takeaways from big projects like movies or books or keynote speeches, whatever, are always made up of little things.
Same thing with personal goals. If you want to lose weight or gain muscle or be a better friend or learn a language or just have a clean house, whatever, it’s about the tiny decisions and actions that build toward the goal.
This great TEDx talk is all about that.
I think it would behoove all of us to try to forget the big picture sometimes (or most times). You CAN plan the big picture, but often the big picture just happens as you do a little bit at a time.
Craig
Stuff I’m Doing
Still reading the first in a sci-fi series, Children of Time. It’s friggin good and I think I’m on pace to be reading at least a book a month this year, which is high for me. It’s due to quitting my smartphone.
WheezyNews videos and podcasts. Here’s last week’s video about the importance of setting limits to overcome procrastination.
Still editing the Japanese Packer Fan documentary. I’m at an hour and 20 minutes and trying to make it better!
Forget About the Big Picture if You Want to Get Stuff Done
"You CAN plan the big picture, but often the big picture just happens as you do a little bit at a time." - this hits me right at the perfect time... thank you!
That docuseries reminded me of a documentary called Indie Game: The Movie that some old friends of mine made back in 2012. I actually forgot about it for a while and haven't talked to James and Lisanne in years but what a whirlwind it was for them.
I highly recommend checking it out. It's a beautiful story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IN3nALwgC0