Shifting Focus

My focus has shifted a lot, for the last few months, between work, preparing for my infrequent games, working on Renaissance and working on my world setting. I prefer to focus on one project until it is done and then move on to the next and while that is effective at work and with some projects others require periods of down-time which make it inefficient or ineffective to maintain such singular focus.

The two types of projects which make this behavior ineffective are those in which a portion of the project requires input, effort or resources from someone else (forcing you to periodically wait on them to continue the project) or creative endeavors. At present I am concerned with the creative type of project, perhaps later I will write another post discussing "team" projects.

With creative endeavors, some people are blessed with creativity which is either wholly developed upon conception or which is near infinite. I have neither of these gifts and I suspect there are many others in my boat as well. My creativity comes in short bursts of inspiration in which I may write anywhere from a few sentences to several pages of content whether it's rules for the system, campaign notes, setting material or any other (even non-rpg!) topic. As a result, despite my best hope to stay focused on a project until it's complete and then move on to the next . . . I cannot.

Any attempt to remain singularly devoted to a project ends with me eventually staring blankly at the screen/page after some period of time with no idea how to proceed. If I were to insist on remaining on the project to its completion without switching gears I would never finish it. Because I am both very stubborn and very forgetful it is not uncommon for me to still find myself staring at a project and forgetting that I can set it aside and move on to another one.

However, in the last several months I have been doing much better at juggling multiple projects and remembering that there are other projects to work on besides the one in front of me. As a result, by jumping from my work on Renaissance to working on my world setting, reading up on marketing or even just allowing myself down time to play a video game or watch some Netflix I've been able to make extensive progress. Magic is almost completely done (except for a full spell list et al which I am actively working on), My world map has been mostly fleshed out with climates and terrain, races have been scattered across the globe and I've been able to zoom in on one specific continent to continue developing, adding countries, cities, lakes and rivers and even the beginnings of some standing adventure hooks.