Lets start with a question: how much do you remember about the news you read this morning? How about yesterday? Can you name three details from a story that is directly related to your life that you read in the last 24 hours? I think you see where I’m going with this. Personally, I can barely remember details of the news I have consumed in the last day let alone any period further in the past.
Do you want to improve your personal productivity and accomplish more every day? I do and that’s why I recently completely stopped reading all news recently. Especially consumer oriented game news. Ever since starting to work as an independent contractor hour-by-hour productivity has become even more important to me.
Of course I want to keep up with what the latest news in the game industry to be a well informed developer. From approximately one year ago I started using Google Reader and loaded up innumerable game related RSS feeds. I now believe this method of staying informed was a mistake. I spent way too much time reading unimportant news than I want to measure. One of the most frequently updated news sources I used to follow? Kotaku.
This post is primarily going to reference my experience as a game developer but the general idea works for any industry. For those who don’t know, Kotaku is a primarily consumer oriented videogame news website that also has a smattering of industry insider news as well as plenty of pure fluff stories. It’s fun to read. I’ve met multiple of their editors in person. I like the people and wish them the best success. This has nothing to do with them and 100% to do with me.
Based on my experience, Kotaku updates on average around 50-60 times a day. 50 or 60 blog posts. If you manage to discipline yourself to only read it once per day in your RSS reader it can still take up to 30 minutes of your time. Productivity wise it is even worse if you check it frequently due to the mental context switch associated with breaking concentration on important tasks.
Unlike say stopping work to have a martini, which is unlikely to happen during work since it it is clearly a non-work leisure activity, reading Kotaku for 5 minutes in the middle of the work day feels mildly job related. This is its insidious nature. “Oh, I’ll give Kotaku a quick check to see if there are any new important posts,” you think. There goes 5-10 minutes and an extra 5-10 minutes to regain your concentration on what you were doing. 2 hours later? “I’m waiting for the source code to re-compile / data bundles to be built / build system to spit out an executable. Lets give Kotaku a quick check.” It takes about two seconds to find an excuse to take a “quick” news break. Guess what? There are another 5-10 new posts! Such is the frequency of news on their website and many others. And there goes another 10-30 minutes. If you have the discipline to only read it during your leisure time then no problem. Unfortunately, I don’t, and I know form experience many other people don’t either. That’s why I cut it off completely.
Here’s the main point – less is more. The less useless or non-actionable information you consume the more time you have to spend on what is most important. Do less to accomplish more.
“But Mark – now you’ll never know what is happening in the game industry!” you say. Well, I sat down and really thought about the time commitment I need to dedicate to keep up with industry news and I realized that checking online news sources once a month is plenty. Taking 1-2 hours per month to grab the most important news is all I need. Here is my plan to make this a reality without falling behind:
- On the 1st of every month, use Metacritic to filter all of last month’s game releases that scored above 80. This is usually around 10-20 games and takes less than one minute to setup and execute the advanced search feature. These will encompass the vast majority of games your peers will be talking about. Often these are sequels of games you already know about and you can find about their incremental innovations in about two minutes. If you haven’t heard of the game, spend 5 to 10 minutes to read a few reviews. If it sounds worth investigating, buy the game and analyze it. (and have fun, too!)
- Since I work independently make it a habit to continue to meet with my game industry contacts for lunch or other networking. Over lunch, listen to contacts/coworkers discussions or ask them directly if there is any new industry news. Learn from your peers.
- If you can’t cut out RSS news feeds completely, limit your subscriptions to rarely updated blogs or news sources that pack the most relevant content. For example, industry professionals that discuss issues that affect your daily work. Are you an AI expert? Taking daily time out to read RSS feeds written by AI programmers or designers clearly benefits your job function. As opposed to reading a blog post about a videogame themed cake and a comment by 17 year old “xDARKALEXx” who calls it “gay”.
- Spend some time scanning GamaSutra for interesting feature articles written by industry peers. Skip the ones that are too far related to your work to matter or bookmark them for later reading if you think they may be useful in the future.
- Spend some time scanning the month of posts on an independent gaming site, such as TIGSource, to keep up with the most interesting independent releases. Download the top releases for the month and spend a bit of time playing them.
I’m going to let you in on a secret. Another motivation for this has been my observation of multiple successful business owners, project leaders, or otherwise notable industry professionals I have come across in my time in the game industry. I’ve noticed a few consistent traits that are directly related to working effectively in limited time. And if you want to be successful why not emulate some people who have already achieved considerable industry success? Here’s one of the traits:
Successful game industry leaders I have observed hear most of the industry news through their network of contacts and not through online or magazine news sources. See above: get other people to do your research for you. The lesson is clearly to value building your network of contacts over reading websites.
So, do you want to immediately increase your productivity? Stop reading Kotaku on a daily basis. Stop reading cnn.com or any other general news source while you are at it. Spend the time you used to spin your wheels on those sites to go to industry events or contact a developer on a team of a game that has recently been successful. I guarantee you’ll be more productive personally and just may find out about something a lot more useful for what your work in the process from your new network of contacts. You’ll soon find you are not behind at all on the news and can instead spend more time on improving or keeping up to date with important skills that make a direct impact on your work.
