Momentum Matters More

Time and time again I have the same dilemma. I wake up in the morning, with a list of things to do for my main project, and I’m not really feeling it. I don’t want to work on that main project. Low energy, low inspiration, low motivation.

Or, more often, I am more motivated to do something else. Could be a new idea or project, but could just as well be something random like “I haven’t played table tennis in a while, let’s do that again!”

And every time I have to solve the same problem.

• I should just continue with the main project. Otherwise it might never get finished, otherwise I might miss an upcoming deadline.
• But with this complete lack of motivation and energy, progress will be hard and slow. I could do much more today if I did something else.

After all these years, after facing this decision numerous times, I’ve basically collected the data and can say from experience: pick the second option.

The Dilemma

Every time I picked the first one, I basically wasted the entire day. With all the discipline and good habits in the world, you just won’t get much done—or it won’t be good, inspired work—if you’re so against doing the thing. I’d basically force myself to work on that (main) project all day, get only 30 minutes of actual work done, and go to bed dissatisfied and frustrated.

This makes it even harder to work on that project again the next day. Because now there’s resentment and negative feelings building up about it. Now you’ve hit this wall, your momentum completely killed, and now you have to push past that blockade to work on the main project again. And with each day that you “force” yourself like this, momentum is killed further and it just gets harder.

Every time I picked that first option, it was terrible for my mental/physical health, but also terrible for the actual project (and my productivity in general).

Every time I picked the second option,

• I was able to get a lot of good work done that day. Because I switched to something I was more excited about at that moment. (Some games of mine had their entire prototype made in that single day, some books suddenly had their first six chapters in one day.)
• This made me feel good and productive and energetic, which carried over into the next few days.
• At some point, usually after 3(+) days, I could return to the main project again. Using the momentum from detour I made, I could get over the hump and continue.

And so I write this article to say: momentum matters more. The most important resource we have is the ability to do work. The motivation to do it. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how rich, or how disciplined, if your body/brain simply refuses to do the work … that’s where it ends.

It’s so precious that I think you should always guard it by keeping up momentum. Even if it means switching focus once in a while. Even if it means starting five side projects that will never get finished.

Because here’s the thing. I have loads of little side projects, tiny ideas I was excited about for only a day or two, which I know will never be finished or continued. I knew they would not turn into a commercial release before I even started on them. But they helped me maintain momentum. That was their purpose. They helped me stay productive on a day when nothing else could make me do work. They helped me reset my mind and energy to go back to the main project the next day. And that’s very valuable. It’s fine that the projects themselves are only 5% done and will likely never be touched again.

Momentum matters more.

I am reminded of this successful developer who had a simple rule for himself: never work on the game when he really doesn’t want to. He gave the same reasons that I’m giving now: it just leads to bad work, slow work, bad health, and resentment towards your own game. All of which doesn’t really add to the “fun factor” of a project, does it? His game eventually became a smash hit, but he “dropped” the project like three times to go work on something else for a week or a month. He prioritized momentum and playfulness when making games, and it paid off with a great game.

Now you probably have a few questions.

What About Deadlines?

Question 1: What if I don’t have the time for detours (due to e.g. deadlines)?

Yes, this is the main thing that made me pause and reflect on the decision every time as well. What if it takes months before I return to that main project? What if I completely forget about it and it’s never finished? What if I told Steam my game would release next week and I really need to put in more work now!?

I think there are two things at play here.

• If you have such a strict deadline or reason to be pressed for time … then that is your motivation. Once we have no other choice, once we have to do stuff and get it done, we’re pretty good at prioritizing that. Additionally, maybe thousands of people are awaiting the game’s release, which is very strong motivation too. The final few weeks until an important milestone/deadline/release are your momentum.
• In most cases, this ends up being a non-issue in practice. As I said at the beginning, forcing yourself to work on it now (when you don’t want to/don’t feel the energy), means very slow work and very bad work that has to be redone later. The time “lost” here is easily gained later on.

Instead, I like to flip it around: instead of moving the deadline or grinding out the work, can we change the AMOUNT of work?

If you have to deliver something at a certain date, then that’s that. Keep the deadline. Don’t even think about moving it (if you can), as it will just give you an easy way out that you’ll keep taking.

But you can change what you deliver. A deadline never states explicitly, 100%, without a shadow of a doubt, what has to be done ;) Over time, I’ve seen most developers stumble into the same structure of “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves”. Of “to-dos” and “optional to-dos”.

If you feel the energy and motivation as a deadline comes up, great! Work tirelessly for days to put in all the “nice-to-haves” as well.

You don’t feel it? You’d rather do something else? Have a backup plan where you drop all the optional features and ideas and deliver something you can do.

An Example

For example, my first Steam game was a very casual incremental-like game about playing a football match. (Or, more simply, clicking to shoot balls into goals.) Since day one I had this idea of adding a crowd. Of adding stands to the game, with random people sitting there and holding funny signs, of maybe interacting with the crowd in funny ways to score goals.

I thought that would be great, and I still do, but I never made that. I had set the game to release during the football world cup (hence why I chose the game idea!). It would start in 3 weeks. And I was done with this game. My mind was thinking about other games to make for weeks now, way more motivated for that. So the moment I’d finished the crucial to-dos for my game, I dropped all “nice-to-have” ideas (such as a crowd), I dropped tasks like adding GIFs to the Steam page, and I switched gears to maintain momentum instead.

Yes, it pains me a little to not add all the fun ideas to a game. To release it in a slightly simpler state. But it was still the right choice. Maintaining momentum allowed me to go work on something else for a week, doing a lot of good work on new games or other projects. And because of that momentum, I did actually have the energy to return in the last week before launch and improve the Steam page anyway (with GIFs and all).

Prioritizing momentum means prioritizing both your own health but also your actual, practical productivity. The fact you’re not working on “what you should be working on” for a few days, doesn’t matter, and usually helps you return with renewed vigor to what you “should be working on”.

How To Still Finish Things?

Question 2: How can I ensure I return at some point? That I still finish things and don’t leave a trail of unfinished projects/ideas/hobbies?

This is the question I get the most when I try to explain how I work to others. Or whenever I tried to explain to my parents why I was working on some random new thing instead of the “thing that was supposed to make money, right?” :p

But hopefully you can see now that this stems from a misconception. The false idea that doing a variety of things on a daily basis somehow means you can never return to some older project (or idea/habit/hobby). And the false idea that humans are robots that can perfectly control their motivation, and interest, and brains, and labor.

The best way to ensure you finish things is to maintain momentum. That’s what I’m saying!

Most of my “trail of unfinished ideas” consists of projects from before I had this realization. When I also mistakenly believed that I just had to be “more disciplined” and “keep working on this one thing until it’s done”. That is how you kill momentum and motivation faster than anything else. So that’s actually why things are unfinished and why creative people leave such a trail.

You have to trust it, I guess. Trust your feeling, your instinct, your creative resources. If you maintain momentum, if you keep running at a nice speed, then you will at some point come full circle and finish (older) projects. If you don’t maintain momentum, then you’ll get stuck in every new project you start, and then you will never finish anything.

If it really does not happen then there is usually a good reason for it. The idea was lacking. There are big blocking issues with the project that are not worth resolving. You’ve moved on to a new stage in life, circumstances changed, and this old project is just a bad fit now.

For example, when I grew up, a kind of teenage-to-young-adult books where quite popular in the Netherlands. We had a few big authors that were selling lots of books, which even turned into movies and musicals, and it was “normal” to buy those books and read them at school. That’s why, at the time, I made plans to write a few such books. I was a young adult myself, I was an aspiring writer, and I saw the market for it. I wrote a few chapters, started outlining, but then lost motivation.

A few years later, I finally found my notes again, thought they wre great, and had the motivation to finish these books. But guess what? The circumstances changed! The market had mostly dried up. Teenagers had moved to smartphones, social media, shows and movies, etcetera. Young Adult had evolved as a genre into basically “stories with young characters read by adults” instead. Those old projects of mine, those half-written books, were just a terrible idea now. Finishing them would be a lot of work for probably zero recognition or sales. And I wasn’t a teenager myself anymore, of course. So I dropped that series of books for completely valid reasons, and I still think that was the right choice.

Conclusion

Here’s what I hope you can take away and use in your creative endeavours.

Yes, discipline and good habits are key to getting work done and getting things finished. But there are limits to this. You can’t outthink your complete lack of motivation for a prject.

If at all possible, it’s still most valuable to find motivation and then care for it enough to maintain that momentum.

And this means following your current interests. This means dropping your actual work for a day or a week to get distracted by something you’re really excited about now. Not only will that excitement make you productive, it will build momentum that makes it easier to return to your other work again.

Momentum matters more than what you do, or when you do it, or how you do it, or whether the thing you do is even useful.

Yes, I’ve found that it’s better to waste a day on some random thing you’ll never use again than to kill your momentum. I sleep more soundly knowing I did a lot of stuff today, even if that stuff isn’t actually useful or contributing to the main project. I’ve learned to prefer creating five tiny prototypes for a few days over standing like a statue behind my computer willing myself to work on something.

It’s basically just an unfortunate timing issue. I “should” work on X now, but I “am” interested in Y now. I “should” be polishing the art for my Steam game that will release in two weeks, but I am sick of doing art and “want” to just do programming now.

If you’re lucky, you can find this variation within the same project. Video games make this a bit easier than other kinds of projects, as there’s so many different things to be done (audio, art, programming, UI, etcetera). With a book, you can’t easily say “ugh I’m done typing stuff, let’s do something completely different for this book!”

I think you’ll find the most success if you combine good habits/discipline with following what you want to do right now like a dog chasing its tail. Get some disciplined work done for a few days, then reward yourself by doing whatever interests you now. Get the crucial to-dos finished before the deadline, then allow yourself to keep momentum doing random stuff for a few days.

That’s the whole reason I write this article now ;) I should be working on a game that releases in a few weeks on Steam, but I woke up with absolutely zero motivation or energy for that. But instead of staring at a blank screen and hating my life, I switched to writing some articles (from a list of “thoughts to write down” that I keep exactly for such situations.) Instead of a bad morning, I had a productive morning, and I could take that momentum into the afternoon and get actual work done for the game. And, mind you, this is true even if those articles are shit and I never actually publish them.

Momentum matters more. Grab it, keep it, care for it in whatever way you can.

Hope this helps someone,

Pandaqi