Dev Log #1

Hi Everyone!

I’ve been putting off my first dev log for a while because I dreamed of being able to present you guys with lots of progress on my animation app from the get-go. But, in the spirit of honesty, here is a brain dump/life update instead.

I am a full-time community college student this semester, taking both Gen Eds and a few Game Dev classes, just to test that track out. I’ve been enjoying all of my classes immensely, but going from having all the time in the world to a much more structured curriculum has taken some adjustment. Also, due to my debilitating perfectionism I have been spending way more time than is healthy on all of my assignments. No regrets there, really, it’s just that I hadn’t taken that into account when I was planning out this semester, telling myself that my four classes would be my side projects and that my main focus would be working on my app. That just wasn’t a realistic assumption, and so now that the semester has started, I am attempting to find a new balance between school and working on my app.

One of the things that is helping me to find that balance is having a set amount of time that I have to do homework every day. Of course, if I have a project due that night then I might have to work longer, but for most days it is nice to be able to get that time done and be able to fully push school out of my brain. I found that when I didn’t have that timer, I would either push school off (but still stress about it) or just work way too long on one project. So, this has been a great way to keep myself in check.

As you can see from the GIF above, I haven’t actually done much work on my app thus far. But I have finally come up with a solution to keep myself motivated! Basically, I made an extremely strict budget for myself, as my base, and then literally everything else that costs money I have to earn by working on my app. I have set two categories: time-related prizes, and goal-related prizes. The time prizes are smaller — like buying a latte — and each one “costs” a certain number of hours of work. The goal prizes are much bigger — like a budget to decorate my room — and are rewards for reaching specific checkpoints in making my app. Shoutout to coda.io for making this reward system a breeze to make! It took me about an hour and a half this morning, and I am super excited to put the system to the test.

I feel so honored and lucky for all the encouragement that I have received for this app, and thank you all so much for your patience! I will write again soon!

-Zoe