Notes

Eisenhower Matrix

If you don’t know what an Eisenhower Matrix is, it’s a tactic to decide what to work on next. You can put each task into the correct category based on whether the task is urgent or not, and important or not.

So for me writing a blog post is urgent and important each day. And sending a design to a client is both urgent and important as well. But buying a Christmas gift is important but not urgent so I schedule it for a specific day. Same with a dentist appointment.

According to the matrix everything that is urgent and not important you should delegate, meaning hire someone to do it for you. But I mostly do everything myself so I don’t delegate but schedule those tasks too.

The most important part, and the thing that completely changed how I handle my to-do list, is the rule that tasks that are not important and not urgent should be deleted. That was a new thing for me. I had almost never deleted anything from my to-do list so it kept growing and growing until it reached a few hundred tasks. There were things like ‘play Terraria‘ which I still want to do but it’s neither urgent nor important so I deleted it. Same with my ideas for side projects – I moved them to my ‘Ideas’ page in Roam. There’s no reason for them to be on my to-do list when I am not even sure which of those ideas I will work on.

Now my to-do list is much more manageable. It’s also helpful to ask myself if the task that I am working on now is truly an important and urgent one. Or am I procrastinating and working on something easier but not important?

I like all the reminders that I should blog daily

I’ve started writing my blog a few weeks ago and it’s been difficult to keep going.

When I was learning to draw a few years back I remember how tiring it was to draw ANYTHING. And when I started making designs for t-shirts even designing the shortest text was taking hours. Nearly 15 years ago I was learning to program and that too was so exhausting that I took breaks every few minutes but somehow I forced myself to write one small program after another.

Now drawing is fun and programming is my favorite activity. So I suspect that writing gets easier with time too. I just like to be reminded because it sure doesn’t look like it right now.

Seth Godin wrote:

For years, I’ve been explaining to people that daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit. Even if no one reads your blog, the act of writing it is clarifying, motivating and (eventually) fun.

I am waiting for it to be fun! I can’t wait for the day when I sit in front of my computer and instead of panicking I think: “I get to write another post, what fun!”

How long is it going to take for writing to get pleasant? Well, Seth Godin answers right in the title: The first 1,000 are the most difficult. He also says:

What I’ve found is this–after people get to posting #200 or beyond, they uniformly report that they’re glad they did it.

That seems doable — just 180 more to go until I am glad that I blog.

Step out of your comfort zone

I was thinking about my first two jobs and that it was a good thing that they were just a bit too uncomfortable and forced me to find something else. Nowadays I like stepping outside of my comfort zone. That’s why I make games and why I started this blog. But back then I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to leave comfortable employment without an external push.

A few weeks ago I took a Self-Couching course and in one of the reading materials was a sentence which I liked:

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

I am lucky that my first two jobs sucked

When I was in my third year at a university, I got my first serious job as a programmer.

I wasn’t very good, but I was just good enough to have my contract extended a few times so I stayed there for three years while getting my degree in computer science. The first two years were fine, but then something weird happened with our boss. Initially, those were small things: he would get irritated or impatient, when he asked me to work on a Saturday and I couldn’t he got offended, he called me in my free time even when he knew I was meeting my family. From what I knew those were common things in any job so I accepted all that.

But then one day he slammed the door to the room we worked in. And I don’t mean lightly pushed the door so it closed without using the doorknob — I mean he used so much force to slam the door that the frame shook and I jumped startled.

After that day he never closed the door the normal way again.

He often left the room to make calls, go to the restroom or the kitchen, to go to talk to assistants, IT guys, HR, or others in the company. On average he would go out of the room every 20 minutes. He would walk fast, open the door and slam it. A few minutes later he would come back and slam the door again, so the glass in the door and windows rattled.

Was it my imagination at this point that the whole room and my desk and computer all shook? Yes, maybe. But I started dreading the job, my head and ears hurt, I could not concentrate, and every day I sat anxiously awaiting the next door slam.

What are you supposed to do in this situation? Should I have told him not to slam the door? I was shy and scared so I never said anything. Is it even possible that someone doesn’t know not to slam doors? Or was he doing it on purpose? I started suspecting that he wanted me to resign but didn’t want to fire me directly. But I couldn’t leave right away.

Finally, I got my degree and found another job — and it too was a bad place to work.

That was enough. I never worked for another company ever again.

If I had a slightly higher tolerance for noise and rude behavior, or maybe if he closed the doors a bit less forcefully, I would still have a regular job. I was lucky it was so awful for me and that I never got used to it or I would not have made the jump to freelance.

My experiences are not some horror stories, of course. I have a friend who cried after work and a friend who had to work overtime without pay. And another who got fired and not paid at all for his work. What did he do next? He looked for another job.

The thing is, you get used to people yelling at you, demanding you work evenings and weekends, you answer phone calls on vacation and accept that you are not being paid fairly. So get out now. Because working for dishonest or rude people builds tolerance. After a few years of this, when someone humiliates you in front of your colleagues or takes credit for your achievement, you will think that it’s not that bad. At least you get a regular paycheck.

Our worst game

After the success of our first game, we decided to make a sequel. Making a second game should be easier, you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, right? Well, not only did we repeat a lot of mistakes from our first game, but we also added new ones.

black cat in a graveyard — Yes, this is a graveyard. In a game about kittens.

The game is Hidden Paws Mystery. Here are the 4 worst mistakes that we made:

1. Scope – As before we planned too big a game, way bigger than we could make in a reasonable time. And we made even more levels than previously.

2. Topic – Our first game was about winter, it looked lovely: islands covered in snow, pine trees, little houses. We decided that our second game would be Halloween themed. The problem is that it’s difficult to make Halloween cozy and beautiful and cheerful. What’s worse — we actually planned to make it all weird and scary. But this was still a game about finding little cats. It didn’t match up. Players didn’t know what to make of our game.

most unsettling! — Yes, that’s a comment about our game.

3. Promoting – since our game didn’t look as pretty as the first one it was more difficult to promote on Twitter and got fewer wishlists on Steam.

4. Art style – our first game had a cute low-poly look. Our second game has more real looking graphics. Not only does it take longer to make a game with this art style but it was completely unnecessary for such a simple game.

swamps with hidden kittens in Hidden Paws Mystery

Not surprisingly it sold poorly. It has very positive reviews though so that’s good.

Don’t let the dead fish fool you

My favorite book from childhood is “Summer Lake” though I have it in Polish. There’s a dead fish on the cover, but other than that, the book really is lovely.

Brigitte Schleusing - Sommersee (Letnie jezioro/ Summer Lake) — Brigitte Schleusing – Sommersee (Letnie jezioro/ Summer Lake)

Or at least I think this was my favorite when I was a child. Maybe I had another book that I loved more, but I forgot about it?

Anyway, this book is wonderful, it has everything a good children’s book needs: beautiful hand-drawn illustrations, lots of details, nearly no text so you can invent your own stories, little animals, tiny yellow ducklings.

The drawing that I like most is on the last page. Do you see the fish net full of flowers? It’s magical.

It’s been out of print for years, but you might still find it.

I’ve been browsing children’s books lately because my brother and I will be drawing our own book this Christmas when we meet at our mom’s house. The previous Christmases we made games.

Why haven’t you opened your TeePublic store yet?

I’ve just finished uploading over 30 designs to my TeePublic store, and there’s still more to go. I am a little behind with it, but now definitely is the time to keep all my stores up to date. Black Friday’s approaching, and it’s the best day to sell t-shirts online, and everyone’s doing their holiday shopping now.

If you haven’t opened your TeePublic store, then definitely do so soon. You can use this affiliate link to open the store 🙂 But either way start uploading as soon as possible, preferably before Black Friday.

Really, November and December are the best months for earning money online. And one thing that I love about TeePublic is that it’s so fast to add a new design, less than 2 minutes. Much faster than any other website.

Also, if you’ve been procrastinating opening your store because you couldn’t think of a name, then I wrote some advice here and here. And remember that your designs don’t need to be complicated.

Minimal designs

Every day is Hug Your Dog Day — Hug your dog today. And tomorrow.

This text is not about dogs.

When I first started drawing things and selling them on t-shirts and such, I spent way too much time endlessly improving my complicated designs. And then after maybe a week of work I would have one finished design and I would submit it to various websites. And it would disappear, no one would like it, buy it, no one would pay any attention. Then I would repeat the whole process: make a design for days, obsessing over tiny details and colors, submit, and most often than not, get no response and no interest.

Even after being in this business for years, I still can’t predict what people will like. That’s why it’s so important to not get too attached to any artwork, but keep making them, preferably fast, keep submitting, and some of those designs will get printed, often the ones you least expect.

Among my 10 most popular designs, 4 are designs that I thought no one would like. But I said to myself: “OK, you worked on it for hours, you might just as well publish it.”

So remember — quantity trumps quality. Draw a lot and publish everything, you never know what will be popular.

Useful gifts for artists and designers

I drew a cat in a gift box, and it made me think that I could write a short note about gifts because I am asked about it sometimes. First, I think it’s better to save money than buy gifts this year. Covid-19 is in no way over, and the worst is yet to come. But we all like giving gifts, so here are the two most important things that all designers and artists and creators will find useful.

PENS

The one thing that any designer that I know would like to get, even if they still have a supply on hand. You don’t have to buy the exact kind, most designers will draw with whatever. Best buy black ones, here’s a nice set.

SKETCHBOOKS

I prefer square ones, but artists often use the standard A5 size like this one. But again, it doesn’t really matter all that much, any sketchbook will find its use.

My Grandma

Two days ago, my grandma had trouble breathing and was feeling tired. My mom measured her blood pressure which was too high and then called a doctor at a local public clinic, described the symptoms, and told the doctor that she gave my grandma Nebilet to lower the blood pressure.

The doctor consulted my grandma’s file.

“I have not prescribed Nebilet,” – the doctor said. – “If your mother dies, it will be your fault.”

She refused to come over and examine my grandma.

In theory, public health care is free and generally available in Poland, as nearly everyone pays a mandatory health care fee. But in practice, you have to wait a long time to schedule a visit, often times a year or two even. So, we pay for private doctors when we can’t wait and Nebilet was prescribed by a private doctor, so that’s why it was not in the public clinic’s file.

This is only partially a story about my grandma, though. The second part is that after the call with the doctor, my mom was very upset and cried, and was furious with the doctor who refused to see my grandmother. She was distraught all day and even when she told me the story the next day, she could not tell it calmly. Most of all, she was angry at herself that she can get emotional and lets other people get to her.

This is a good start — noticing that we get overwhelmed by our emotions and wanting to learn to manage them. Most people don’t even get to that part. I, too, was like that.

Here are 2 main things that helped me:

Writing down all the emotions, in detail. And dissecting them into even more atomic emotions. I have hundreds of pages of notes written after upsetting events or conversations. I kept writing everything that came to my mind and analyzing what made me feel that way.
Realizing that I am responsible for my feelings – Accepting this made all the difference. The fact that someone made me angry is not their fault. It’s my fault for letting that emotion impact me that much. Once you realize that anger and other negative emotions only live in your mind, you get to decide what you do with them.

My grandma’s feeling better now. She’s only 94 years old, which, in her family, would be a bit early to die.

Notes

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