Multitasking Only Exists in the Task Manager

I wanted to start making a small game. Nothing with brand new mechanics, just a copy of one of the games on the App Store. The concept was simple, the player was controlling a car and the player had to dodge the incoming traffic. I even wanted to make the assets for this game. So, I was set, I made the Unity project and started making the game. Since I was making the assets too, I jumped from the 3D modelling software to Unity and back pretty often.

I was making steady progress. I realised I was slow comparatively, but I just attributed it to the time spent on 3D modelling. I kept on working. After 3 or 4 days, I started to realise that I was slower than ever. It felt like I was making no progress at all. Making no considerable progress, I lost interest in the game and I soon archived the project. I archived a project which was supposed to be just a week-long project.

The reason I was virtually making no progress was that I wasn’t focusing on one aspect of the game. I was switching tasks and constantly jumping back and forth. This was the reason why my efforts were futile. This can even happen if you try to work on different multiple mechanics or features of a game simultaneously. You will virtually make no progress.

When programming, there is a buffer period where we are familiarizing ourselves to the already written code again. Focus on the task at hand. Complete the feature or mechanic you are working on and then progress to the next task, this is will increase productivity dramatically and give you your effort’s worth.