I usually try to read between 20 and 22 books every year. It’s an estimate — some years I read more, others less. But overall, those are my numbers.

I read at night, when my kids are already in bed, or when I’m waiting somewhere. I always take a book with me when I go out and expect some “dead time”.

These are my reading habits. I’ve had them for years, and I’m not even sure how I started — but now they’re part of my routine.

At this point, you might be wondering: “Ok… that’s great, but what does this have to do with your game?”

Let me explain.

One of the best personal development books I’ve ever read is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

I won’t go into too much detail, but one idea from the book stuck with me:

Doing 1% of something every day is much better than doing 0%.

So I needed to build some habits to make at least a bit of daily progress on my game. It didn’t matter if it was something small like “I added an asset pack to the project” — doing something every day was the key.

So, this is what worked for me to build that habit:

  1. I start my day early. This year, I began going to the gym first thing in the morning. After that, when I’m fully awake and before starting work, I try to spend one hour working on the game.
    This is time reserved for things that require the computer — as I mentioned in a previous post, I use other moments of the day for game design.

  2. I pick one task from my TODO list. My criteria are simple:
    a. Choose something that creates visible impact. What makes me think “this is cool!”? Adding a new character or mechanic clearly wins over something like a settings popup.
    b. Choose something that can be done in about one hour. If it’s bigger, I break it into smaller tasks (I talk more about this idea in another post — you can check it here).

What did this approach help me achieve?

  1. For the first time in my projects, I could see daily progress. That was incredibly motivating.
  2. The game started to feel like a real game much earlier. In previous projects, I spent too much time on things that didn’t bring immediate value.

In the end, everyone has their own methods. This is just what worked for me — but if you’re struggling to make progress, maybe starting small is all you need.

And honestly, consistency beats intensity every time.