Written by On Monday, March 21, 2011, I gave my two weeks notice to my full time employer. No, I’m not moving to another job, and no I don’t dislike working for this company; in fact I was very happy when I started working here, and very enthusiastic about the future. Of course, a lot has changed since then.
The true reason I quit was that I found I was doing too many things, and ended up not doing any of them well. I had my day job, my masters studies, teaching assistant responsibilities related to my masters studies, and a research project in college that might eventually evolve to be my masters thesis. Not to mention personal time, family time, and sleep! I did a lot of soul searching, and tried to ask myself what I really want to do and where I see my self in a year, three years, and 10 years. The decision I eventually came to was, I had to sacrifice either work or college, and I really didn’t want to sacrifice college, especially that this was where I saw myself in the future; not work. Therefore, I went with my heart and did this daring move.
So, by the end of this week, I will no longer have a day job. I will have college, and I will probably do some part-time contracting work here and there to fill in the gaps. I still got my income worked out, which is a big part of what allowed me to make this decision with a high degree of confidence. I will finally have some time for myself, my family, and — hopefully! — game development.
It’s scary, but in a good way. I will need rigorous time management, discipline, and commitment to goals. I will have no “day job” to blame for not having enough time. It’s an experiment, and a challenge. I’m utterly excited about the infinite possibilities!
Hey,
As yet *another* another indie developer, I thought I’d say that I know how you feel. I quit my job a couple of months ago to do indie game development full time, and the urge to spend most of your time sitting around in your pants is quite strong. It is definitely exciting to work on something that you have complete creative control over, though.
@DrFrank:
I guess it’s kinda important to get out of the “relaxation” area and into the “work” area so you would stay focused. I personally plan to go spend my days in the college lab so I would stay focused and not end up spending the whole day playing games and watching TV.
I just checked your website and it looks like you got a nice game project going on. I’m definitely gonna spend some time going through your posts. Any preview releases yet??
Cheers, I’m trying to connect with the indie game community a bit at the moment – I’ve been a bit insular up until now, and being based in the UK going to the GDC isn’t that much an option at the moment.
I hope to have some kind of first playable demo of Juggernaut in a couple of months. I’ve done the probably ill-advised thing of choosing quite a large project for my first game, but I’m enjoying doing it, which is the main thing as far as I’m concerned. We’ll see how it works out
@DrFrank:
I totally know what you mean. The LudumDare website is a good place to start, and the IRC room is plenty of fun to hang around. Blogs and comments are pretty useful too, and some twittering won’t hurt either.
I saw the gameplay video on your website and the game looks like it’s coming along nicely. I can’t wait for that demo
Good luck!