Week 1: A brief overview

I just want to spell out a couple of things that happened in the first week of this year long journey both for posterity and perhaps for suggestions for improvement.

The first few days went along just as I had expected it, I got a decent amount done and began to read like I had intended. Come day 4 or so, that pretty much ended to varying degrees. 

I had to replace my bed, which for the longest time has had it's springs digging into me as I sleep. I had learned in the past year or so to become somewhat accustomed to the idea that I had to sleep in the exact center of the bed and not move a bit, or else I'll get something poking me or I'd dislodge a spring and I'd hear that lovely sound... SPERUNGGGGGUNGUNGGG. 

So that ate up an entire day just purchasing the bed and then another day waiting for it to be delivered and then constructing it.

I could have or I should have rather been able to make a little more productive use of my time but I've also been feeling extraordinarily lethargic and tired lately. One of the personal goals I had set myself was to try if at all possible to completely cut out certain kinds of food, namely a small addiction I call Coca Cola and sugar.

There has always been something in Coke that was extra addictive for me, I don't know what it is. What's worse is I know the more I drink of it, the worse I feel. So I decided to give it up, once and for all. Unfortunately as time has shown over and over again in the past, every time I do so, I have to go through a withdrawal process which ranges from severe headaches/migranes and sinus blockage to lethargy and muscle aches. 

I know that it's definitely a combination of things at work: caffeine, sugar and whatever special ingredient in Coke that makes me yearn for it specifically. Whatever the case though, it plays a certain toll on the body and mind for about two weeks all in all on average if past experience is anything to go by. So I've been suffering, if you can even call it that, from sugar and Coke withdrawl symptoms for the past week.

I haven't made as much progress on setting up the home office, but I have managed to take away almost all of the toys and distractions. There is now no TV, Playstation 3 or cable tv. I will be keeping an Xbox 360 there however on the off-chance that I decide that Xbox development is a worthwhile pursuit.

I'm honestly not sure if I will though, everything I know of Xbox development says that the indie store is utterly pointless from a business perspective and that the Xbox Live Arcade application process is incredibly long, requiring fairly high production values.

I also haven't kept up my promise to stay off Reddit or other time sinks quite as much as I had hoped. I had blocked them all by router without realising that other people may in fact want to use them while I'm working, so I am going to have to find some sort of middle ground approach which literally bars myself (and only myself) from these sites until I'm used to it.

I am still working on an app with someone else from last year, which I had sincerely hoped to have been wrapped up as early as mid to late December but in any case, I hope to have that completed and sorted very soon so I can begin to focus on other projects.

On the positive side however, I have started planning for advertising for future apps. I will be purchasing a block of advertising from a very well known podcaster for approximately 2 weeks worth of sponsorship. It's early days of course, so I could see why some would consider this a premature action. However I feel pretty confident that if I haven't built something worth advertising within the next few months, the failure will be greater than the cost of a few hundred Euros worth of advertising budget. Besides which, I'm of the type that prefers to plan things well in advance, so I will be working on an online advertising plan to get the word out.

Overall I'd say last week was neither a success nor entirely a failure but definitely a damp squib.