Started forcing myself to take the weekends off

Recently I started forcing myself to take the weekends off. This isn't as easy as it seems. As a full time indie my office, and therefore my work, is only a flight of steps away. Obviously this makes commuting terribly convenient, however it also makes it far too easy to just swing by for a few lines of code, to check the email, or to read what's going on in the community.

Lately I've become moody and relatively short tempered, largely due to the amount of energy I'm putting into my work without any breaks other than sleeping and eating. Clearly this isn't conducive to actually enjoying my job, something I became a full time indie to do.

So now I sit and read, watch tv, or exercise, anything to distract me, but all the while I still think about going downstairs and working. This clearly isn't working...

For those who feel that being a full time indie would be the greatest job ever I say this; keep working your day job and being an indie at night, then nothing will ever shatter that wonderful dream of what being a full time indie is like. For those looking for an effective way to shatter that dream, try going indie.

In all fairness my indie career was a "job" long before I was full time, so ideas of a fantastic independent career didn't even exist in my head. Going indie was more about knowing that my day job sucked, that every one I had respect for quit long ago (or was considering it then), the actual work was becoming boring, and that I enjoy creating games and game technology, so, after working out the finances, going indie was a no brainer.

But now I'm faced with how to keep myself from thinking about work on the weekends. I know there are a lot of options, but the weather just became cold, and things like watching sports is right out (unless I'm looking for an early nap).

So I'm stepping up work on remodeling the house, which, though it sounds expensive, really involves very little money and instead a ton of elbow grease (frankly I don't have greasy elbows but I'm hoping I'm still qualified). More importantly a lot of fiddling around with things means less time to think about work.

The remodeling project has been in the works for well over a year now, but has stalled on several occasions due to things like; working my job 40 hours a week while being an indie 40 hours a week, preparation for IGC 2004, preparation for IGC 2005, quitting my job and being an indie 80 hours a week, and difficulty with paint matching. Paint matching? How difficult is that? Well with a relatively open floor plan and questionable lighting in the kitchen, very.

After many attempts at finding the right wall colors I decided to address the real issue and the kitchen lighting is going to go. Why didn't I do that before? I'm generally into constructive remodeling, you know adding things to a room, like paint, crown moulding, and art to name a few. I'm not very fond of de-constructive remodeling, which seems to be all the rage with most guys. You know rip something apart then figure out how to fix it - not my style, if I need to remove something (notice I even use the polite term "remove") tremendous amounts of planning and research goes into the process, and usually a few test runs when possible.

Anyway seeing as all the color problems stem from the bad kitchen lighting, addressing the lighting is at the top of my priorities, and with colors already chosen for the rest of the first floor I think things will come together rather nicely.

-John