Darius Kazemi has some info about networking in the game development industry. I suppose it can apply to any industry, actually. It’s a great read.
One of his key points about networking and job hunting is listing your current projects on a personal website. Websites are expected of all developers (artists, programmers, and designers) these days. They’re replacing resumes. As a hiring manager myself, the first thing I look for is a website. It doesn’t have to be an amazing site, simple is sufficient.
Here is my current project list:
- Teaching and Biz-Dev at Rigging Dojo
- Unannounced Console project
- The Lord of the Rings Online
- Dungeons & Dragons Online
- Art and Animation Work: A job hunting primer for 3D artists
- Organizing the Boston Maya Users Group meetings
Three of these are part of my day job at Turbine, they are each challenging and fun. Rigging Dojo is moving along well, I really think we are creating a great community and providing highest quality education in the character rigging and animation space. The book is a side project that I’m passionate about. I love being part of the art/geek community and the bMug allows me to get people together to see, talk and do cool stuff.
All of these projects are, by themselves manageable; combine them all and well… it’s going to be a busy Summer. In my personal life, there are my children’s birthdays, my 10 year wedding anniversary and many other family birthdays. Yard Work, BBQ’s, beach trips, etc.
It’s going to be a very busy Summer.
I recently turned down an opportunity for another side project. It’s nothing major, just a couple days of commitment for work I find personally rewarding. I just couldn’t do it with all this other stuff. Usually I would have said yes pretty quickly regardless of my current workload.
I took a deep breath and thought about the work and the justifications I’d usually use for a moment or two before instantly committing to the project.
- “I can do some of this other stuff while I am actually performing this new work”. This isn’t fair to any of the existing commitments I have. I’m trying to single-task as much as possible and I don’t want to half-ass anything.
- “It’s something I feel strongly about”. This is true, however I can contribute to this endeavor in other ways.
- “It’s reoccurring and I’ve missed it the last several times”. Also true. I actually feel bad about this, but I can’t let myself guilt myself to do something that I can’t fit into my busy month.
I’m thankful for the opportunity but more thankful that I am turning it down this time. I still have to shake off the “guilt” a bit, but it’ll keep me single-tasking all summer long.
A common misconception with people working on being more minimalist is that they simply sit around and do nothing with no possessions. That was my first impression at least. In my pursuit of minimalism, I’m trying to reduce distractions so that I can focus on what I find important. Actively moving towards a place of focus, by limiting distractions and single-tasking so that I can have time and energy to create the best that I can.
Maybe I’m pursuing “focusism” not minimalism after all.