Pledge Manager

Now I’m back from my holiday it’s time to focus.

It’s a busy time.

The print and play rewards are due by the end of May.

Which is also the UK Games Expo.

And I need to begin ordering materials for the physical copies.

First up was the boxes.

The print run has been ordered and the files sent over.

I also need to finish off the pledge manager.

We’re adding planets!

It’s almost there.

Should go live in a day or two I hope.

One Hour

I have a full-time job.

And a young family.

Time is tight.

Since Christmas we've settled into a rhythm where I have an hour a day to work on Eurydice Games.

After work we eat.

Then I do my chores.

Then it's bedtime for the kids and I usually do Daughter the Second's.

Then I have an hour to myself while The Wife does Daughter the First's.

One hour a day. Every day.

Though I often do more after the kids are asleep.

It's amazing what you can achieve if you apply yourself consistently.

I've mostly been focussed on Xeno Wars for the last month.

Playtesting. Graphic design. Preparing for prototypes.

I've now got a lot of what I need.

As long as you're using the time wisely, a little everyday soon compounds.

Repetition

I’m trained as a Software Engineer. 

It was my day job until 2015 and then part of my day job 2019-2020.

It means I have the skills (though rusty!) to write computer programs. To automate tasks I spend months on.

There’s a saying that if you repeat a task you should automate it.

Every time we go to Kickstarter I spent months massaging data from one spreadsheet to another. 

Kickstarter backers and Gamefound orders together. Into the format Paul prefers for fulfilment.

Then from there into invoices.

I’m automating the invoice creation at the moment.

Should have done this years ago.

Would have saved a boat-load of time.

Time I could have spent on game design, graphic design or something else worthwhile.

I’m an idiot.

Help! Send Time!

I’m really struggling to find time for crafting at the moment. With the summer holidays started and the recent swathe of hot weather the girls have been going to bed pretty late. By the time we’ve got them asleep and I’ve cleaned and tidied up after a day of kids at home it’s often 9:30-10 before I’m free. That doesn’t sound that late, but our nights are still broken by The Toddler waking up and we need to be up early either for work or The Toddler getting up early, so I really need to go to bed at 10 or 10:30.

I can get the crafting done in three evenings a week if I spend 1.5 hours on it, but clearly, even in the best case scenario, there’s not an hour and a half between 9:30 and 10:30.

Last week, with a couple of late nights on the weekend I managed to finish the sixteen planned copies for the week and five of the eight copies that slipped from the week before. This week I’m travelling Monday and we’re camping with friends on Friday and Saturday. I also need a very early night on Sunday as I need to get up at 3am for my trip to the US :-(

Next week I’m away from 4am Monday until Friday lunchtime and I’ll be hideously jet-lagged on the following weekend. At least I'll have some time while I'm away (the jet-lag hours in the very early morning!) to do some more preparation for the second FlickFleet Kickstarter.

I think I can still finish the first Kickstarter rewards by the end of August, but it’s getting pretty tight...