Staying Focused and Overcoming Distractions

This Holiday season has been so disruptive to my plans for executing artwork in the form of a city map for Warten. Preparations (this list is very long, you can skip to next paragraph if you'd like to), cooking, shopping for groceries, baking, cleaning for company, replacing serpentine belt on my truck, replacing tension arm (this part broke my belt in first place), JB Welding parts so that the rear view mirror could be reassembled and placed back on my windshield, evaluating Incarnate mapping software by watching training videos on YouTube, locating my Iwata airbrush kit, using said kit to prime miniatures from Pandemic: Cthulhu (really can't stand not having painted miniatures in a game), ordering supplies for painting miniatures, dealing with bank, not once, but twice to avoid over drafting household bill account, preparing notice to a tenant who rents a room in my home that its time to pay or hit the highway, preparing subsequent eviction notice (I have little faith in renter atm), Unboxing and learning Tainted Grail, a game I Kickstarted last December (2018), playing a few games with family and friends (Terraforming Mars, Gloomhaven, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, and the aforementioned Tainted Grail), trying to help save our dog Rustee (he's been very sick for weeks now and I fear is near the end). I am sure I could go on but this list is exhausting.

Which brings me back to my original point, that Holidays can be really distracting. Dave, the author of White Haired Man, chose a different path. He went on a 5 day cruise at sea out of Tampa, near his home. While there he was able to avoid so many of the regular distractions such as I mentioned above. On the other hand I have lost some drive and momentum to finish a map of Warten I started nearly a month ago, while on vacation at Dave's. Of course it's not even simple to just go gung ho and organize my days with rigor as I have cancer. So in addition to all the serenity snapping life events vomited out above...I deal with recovering from my second round of radiation and chemotherapy in my fight against a stage three adenocarcinoma. Soon there will be surgery, yet another long disruption.

So I've started being quite verbal with Dave as to my daily intentions. I am doing this to build a sense of responsibility to someone that can hear me declare tasks in advance, and silently (or perhaps even gentle inquiring as to progress) hold me accountable for my actions. I promised to prime mini's today and study Incarnate mapping software for suitability in our mapping works to come for our new product. I have completed the first task, yet, as I sat down to begin second task I was interrupted to go put air in my wife's car because she feared the rear driver tire was nearly flat. So, I drove my truck up to her work, then transferred into her car and drove it to a local Belle Tire. I put air in all four tires because they needed it. The tire she had concern about was down to 12 pounds of air, so now I will have to watch it and see if it continues to shed air.

Having completed this unplanned rescue I returned home. Before I could even sit at my computer my daughter calls and says her car is dead...So...back out into the cold to go jump start her vehicle. Job done, I return home.

I sat down to study, but realized it's been almost a week since my last post here where I want to give an account of what I am going through to start up a small RPG game publishing company. I guess distractions come in threes?

So maybe my situation is not all that different for others who are struggling to see their dreams published and sold into reality in the form of published products? What I can share today is that I now expect to be tempted and required to deviate from my goals at any given moment. Because, you know, that's life. BUT! It's on me to get right back to the work set out in front of me. I am sending my goals and agenda to a friend, that I find holds me more accountable. I wish I'd thought of that idea long ago. Maybe it's enough to simply write down what I plan on doing each day. However, I find it's not. By including a friend who happens to be involved in the success or failure of the same company...I am driven to make it happen. It also allows Dave to say something about my plans, maybe he has something else that is more important for me to work on. Bottom line, our communication is flowing, and documented for us to read through a Discord server. We don't need Discord for the audio portion, we just use the chat to keep a running dialogue.

If you have tips to keep your momentum going, and to keep on target with your tasks in your start up company, please share with a comment below. Also, feel free to sign up to become my first follower of this blog because I'd love to have one!