I learned a few things about blogging, development, and myself that will invaluable to me whether this micro-ISV endeavor works out or not. So without further adieu…

1. Making a public commitment, whether the public sees it or not, is very motivating. When I made the 30 day commitment on this blog I was hoping the public statement would keep me on track and it really did. I’ve made similar “period of time” commitments to myself mentally or even in a notebook, but nothing has kept me going like this one. Heck, I don’t know if there were more than a couple people who saw the post and there was nobody to hold me to it. But just knowing that it was out there had me wanting to keep my word as best as I could.
2. Daily blogging doesn’t necessary make for a quality blog. I’ll be the first to admit that from the blogging side of things the 30 day commitment made for some pretty poor posts. Sure I posted daily, but “Made some progress…” is a poor excuse for a post and really does nothing for the reader. I wouldn’t subscribe to that blog feed. A quality blog has content that’s interesting and/or useful to the reader.
3. Daily thinking about a development project is good for the project. I made more progress on my game than I had on any other solo project I’ve worked on because I thought about it every day. Even those days where I took a break and went golfing or something else were conscious decisions which make all the difference. It’s pretty easy to not schedule time for a project but when you have a built in commitment you have to have a good reason to not fulfill it.
4. Daily habits are easier to ingrain than weekly or semi-weekly ones. Similar to the last point, but it was really much easier to get results by having a daily commitment. I’ve made weekend and MWF commitments to solo-projects and blogging, but the gaps in time just make it too easy to get off track.
5. Doing something, even poorly, is way better than doing nothing. I grew up with the, “If you’re going to do something, do it right.”, and “Do the best you can.” mantras. I think this has in some ways lead me to think, “If you’re going to do something, do it the best (or at least really well) and if you can’t then don’t bother.” This is probably a pretty good survival mechanism because I’ve probably minimized the number of times I’ve embarrassed myself, but I’m sure I’ve missed some opportunities as well. The 30 days have shown me to keep plugging ahead, even when something isn’t as good as I can envision. Comeback and redo it later when I have more time or more skill.

Next time I’ll go into what I’m doing going forward…

My “30 Days of Blogging and Development” were cut short by a faulty motherboard on my PowerBook and a vacation in Lake Tahoe. The plan was to finish the “30 Days” right before my vacation and then write a postmortem when I got back. Of course, “The best laid plan…”, while not something new, it was reinforced by this experience. Of the next few posts, I’ll be sharing some things I learned and relearned about blogging, motivation, and developing a game. Sorry for the break, but I’m back on track and hope to be in this for the long haul.

Minor note: I added “Gaming” to the blog title because I plan on posting about gaming related topics.

My PowerBook is having memory slot problems, again. If there is a memory module in the lower slot, I either get a kernel panic or freeze. Looks like I’ll have to go to the Apple store. Don’t know if I’ll be able to complete the 30 days.

Got some of the inner map done. Still cranking.