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60-60-30 of Level Design Productivity

January 30, 2009
Category: Productivity & Goal Setting

Over the month of January at World of Level Design I've been posting nothing but productivity and planning articles. I've been reading, watching and learning about personal productivity. From books, to youtube to blogs.

My main problem over last few years has been a lack of focus. I wanted to be good at everything. Jack of all trades and a master of none. What that basically is saying that I am not great an anything. Just good to decent at a lot of things.

So over last few months and specifically over this coming year I have narrowed my sight on environment and level design. It's what I truly love doing.

The following technique has become almost a mantra for me over last few weeks.

60-60-30.

I learned this from Eben Pagan. If you do a google search on him you will find that he is a personal and business coach who mentors individuals and their businesses. The thing that I learned from him that I will share with you is the principle of 60-60-30.

What is 60-60-30 rule?

60-60-30 stands for time; time chunks. 60 minutes, 60 minutes and 30 minutes.

It's basically this. You work for 60 minute, twice and then you take a break for 30 minutes.

Let's break this down even further. What 60 minutes stands for is 50 minutes of work on a single activity and 10 minute rest.

Work for 50 minutes. Rest for 10 minutes. Then do that again 50 minutes of highly focused work and 10 minute rest. Then you will take a break for 30 minutes.

I want to emphasize that for 50 minutes of work, you only work on a single activity, highly focused and an activity that will bring you the most results when it is done.

Think of the outcome and the result you want to achieve. It could be a new map. Getting really good at 3d modeling and building a Roman set design pieces that would be used in a mod or anything else you have on your mind.

You want to work on the highest output activity that will bring you results. Focus on the result and the outcome you want to achieve.

The key is single activity and focus.

Lets go over the key concepts.

Get a timer
Having a basic timer set for 50 minutes frees me from everything around me and I can focus on what I am doing. I know once the timer goes off I can take a break. I don't need to spend time looking at the clock. I can just focus and work.

50 minutes
Focus on a single activity. No distractions. No multi-tasking, no checking emails or surfing the web or playing videogames or refreshing the forums. You can do that when you have 10 minutes of rest or when you take a break for 30 minutes.

10 minutes
Use this time to completely unplug from what you are doing. Step away from the computer and go grab a snack, drink some water or tea. Just relax for 10 minutes and don't work. Rest. Set the timer for 10 minutes.

30minutes
30 minutes of break is when you grab a meal. It is recommended that you should eat 5-6 small meals through out your day. When you work in 60-60-30 chunks take breaks as instructed this allows you to fuel your body and renew yourself at 30-minute breaks by grabbing a meal.

This is important. You are what you eat and to function properly you can't starve yourself and expect to operate at a optimal level. So during this 30 minute break, completely disconnect from you work. Eat a meal. Relax and renew. Stretch. No work at all.

Final Thoughts
I have been implementing this over last couple of weeks and I find myself working longer then 50 minutes. Once I get in the zone I continue often to 90-120 minutes then take a break.

Also being focused and working on one thing at a time is very liberating. At the end of the day I can look back and see actual progress I made on my work. Done over a long period of time working this way you are going to create some amazing work at a level that hasn't been done before.

Let me know what your thoughts are and share your personal productivity techniques and mindsets.

Also take a look at http://www.ktims.de/timers.exe. It is a downloadable timer touse on your computer. Thanks to Benjamin Spang for the tip and the link.

Comments are Closed. Please Join & Discuss this post in the World of Level Design Forums Comments AlexG 05 Sep 2009, 03:32 Thanks Ben. I am happy to hear that. I'll update the article and will include the link. Thanks again man. CrEEp3r 03 Sep 2009, 09:08 Todays my First 60-60-30 Day and its great! Im doing my Work very well and i finish the Work in the Next Days... Heres a great Tool to set a timer for yourself: http://www.ktims.de/timers.exe Maybe you can put it in your Article, Alex! :) regards - Benjamin Spang KeithG 26 Mar 2009, 06:07 On my path to becoming a master programmer, I found advice that said "Find a mentor, or a community that will fill in the real life questions that the books can't answer for you". AKA forums(or worse, IRC); internet; distractions. The advice didn't warn about these new products; to be fair, though, it isn't the internet's fault. I remember getting sucked into petty things at grade school/high school, and losing focus on what was actually important. You can unplug the internet for a while, and if it helps then great! However, having an all girl school will fail at preparing them for an environment with men; having an all black school will fail at preparing them for an environment with a culturally mixed group of people; and so on. Anyway, I just had to come back to this article as it's so well written and filled with delicious strategies. Thanks again, Alex. AlexG 07 Feb 2009, 07:17 That would be awesome. Wish I could have an office completely dedicated to level design and environments. Posters, printouts. Surround myself with the content. Complete immersion. Interent connection is evil when you are trying to get things done. I've been going as far as unplugging it when I work. Also setting a timer helps me alot. I know that until that timer goes off I can't do anything else. It helps to keep focused. sarge mat 06 Feb 2009, 12:59 We were watching a doc in college the other day about film editors, but to cut a long story short this one guy had a room for editing and nothing else. Its own dedicated PC (MAC in his case) with a set up just for development. Would be great for games development too I would think if you have the space and money. Minus an internet connation too lol. Nothing to distract you. keith 31 Jan 2009, 22:28 This is excellent, thanks a lot Alex. I admit nutrition and exercise are my weakest areas so I will be committing those to memory. I was interested in level design myself, ran into the modding area of Half-Life 2 and bounced right into the programming field. I'm currently learning C++. Similar to your odyssey in level design, I'm fighting through C++ programming and enjoy a lot of it (but certainly not all of it). Within the next couple months I should be approaching my first Tetris clone, and in good time (about 5 months), I'll be doing online classes for programming as well. Oh, good call with the link man. It's too bad there isn't an easier way to get solid tips on nutrition considering how important it is. Thanks, Alex. I'll talk to you soon. AlexG 31 Jan 2009, 09:38 Hey Keith, I try to eat foods that will give long-lasting energy and don't make you crash. What usually makes you crash is the sugar, the fake sugar in foods not natural. And you are right, no energy drinks. So I tend to eat alot of fruits, and nuts. Alot of fruit trail mixes they sell at the store. I try to buy with nothing extra added. I stay away from overly-processed foods or foods that require alot of time to cook. By the time they are cooked the nutritional value is gone. They usually take alot of energy to digest. Good article I found is here. It just talks about sugar, natural foods and eating raw food. I don't want to eat nothing but raw like he does in the article but it does made me realize that atleast 50% of my diet should be fruits, vegetables and nuts. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/raw-foods/ I used to take vitamins but the problem I found was with so much extra vitamins and minerals packed into a pill your body usually flushes everhthing out within hours and only small percentage gets kept in. So now I tend to drink wheat grass few times per week, which is nasty but does wonders for your body and I make juice from fruits and vegetables. I do take Omega Fish Oils. I used to keep my notebook by the bed and keep notes of ideas and dreams when I woke up but I stopped. I need to jump back on that. PS. I know what you mean about the animals. I got two cats and they drive me nuts scratching at the door. I keep a bottle water spray right next to me. Haha. You have me a good idea on a future post about nutrition and optimal energy for working. Thanks Keith. I am going to explore this further and write about it. keith 30 Jan 2009, 14:47 Hi again, Alex. Yeah, this is something I'm struggling with right now. I usually get up at 3:30 AM, grab some tea and go straight to work for an hour. I'm usually doing programming exercises to strengthen my basic foundation-- which can get rather boring to be honest and I'm hit with a shroud of boredom and tiredness which I try to work through ( waking up from my nap now haha). I'm going to try this 60-60-30 plan. What foods do you recommend for snacks and lunch? I want to get the maximum amount of energy without an energy crash, so no energy drinks. And there's something about energy pills that makes my bullshit detector go off. Aside from those things do you take vitamins? There is something I'd like to add to productivity. I keep a notebook at bedside with a pencil. Before I go to sleep I will analyze my day and plan for the next, setting goals and objectives. Thanks, Alex! P.S. Side note: attention seeking animals must wait on the other side of the door until break time. I've heard of Sigor Ros. They were one of my favorite bands back in the day. Powered by Scriptsmill Comments Script