Programmer's Blocker :(

I am stuffing from it(I have low Motivation but I have normal Determinations to get the job done) but how can I get back to it?

Had anyone been through it before?

If you are even a bit talented, you can't do anything about it.
The real talented people are productive when the spirits are right.
Only business people can do things by predetermined time schedules,
but the results are then also horrible.

I noticed that to raise spirits you need to get away from the computer,
and start to imagine things, whistle songs, and capture your creativism when you least except it.

I need also to buy a Yamaha sound recorder, because right now my most productive inspirations are just fading away, and I can't remember almost any of them afterwards.

Low motivation can often lead to eating disorders. You should probably stop stuffing and get some work done.

Yeah, a bit of Glenmorangie does the trick for me.

Just play a game for a bit

Wrong.

And tell that to Mozart. As a working musician he had to produce work on contract for his wealthy patrons, regardless of how he felt - and he did, methodically.

Get something done everyday. If you can't handle programming, do some planning or documentation. It's always nice to be able to do a small or easy job as a lead-in as well.

Agreed. It's a myth that you have to wait for the planets to align before you can be creative or motivated. You just need to start *anything* related to the project and often you'll suddenly find that you get motivated to continue and ideas start coming to you (good music also helps). I recently read an old book, The Magic of Thinking Big, and it has the exact same advice in it. It's also true that taking a break can be useful, just don't do it ALL the time or that's called procrastination (and believe me I know ALL about that...)

LOL

Either 'stuffing' is a joke, or he didn't have the motivation to type 'suffering' - extra letters you see ;-)

My breaks usually take six months to a year (mostly when the sun is shinning)


You missed out drinking the hard stuff ( though I wouldn't consider it a disorder in my case )


Can be translated as filling your face, porking/pigging out or in common English as eating.

Good job he didn't say "Muffin the Mule" ( http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/children/muffin/muffin.htm ) as in some countries that's a serious sexual offence.

I think creativity could be roughly organized into two categories - objective, and subjective.

Objective creativity is where you're working towards specific goals, with specific limitations such as completion time-frames; feature-sets to implement; etc.

Subjective creativity is where you're just doodling around without a specific purpose; letting things flow and evolve, with no real presssure to achieve anything specific.

Most of the time you will be working objectively to complete a project. When you feel yourself getting burnt out it can be useful to switch to working subjectively for a while on any random project that takes your interest, in order to 're-charge' your creativity.

I had this problem last night. I was meant to get the highscore table code written for a game I'm writing, but ended up watching 6 epsidoes of an anime series on youtube instead. Really regret it now. But the anime was cool.

I had this in spades with 3030 Deathwar. I did a developer interview over at bytten.com about it: http://bytten.com/article.php?id=8&page=1

The author of the Dune novels said that, even when he forced himself to write through writer's (writers'?) block, afterwards he couldn't tell the difference between what he wrote naturally and what he forced out.

My suggestion is you get a computer to use which has only Blitz installed, maybe no Internet, and make it impossible to use your own computer. Then you have less distraction.

Unless you have unusual mental issues, there is no such thing as a <Profession>'s block. Hell, I have some issues that make me a danger to myself and others, but I can still work. What's eating away at your brain that's stopping you?

I really want some stuffing now.

Yes it goes nicely with a roast dinner.

Hack through it. Don't worry about actual gains, so much as visual gains. If there's a huge coding nightmare that needs to be addressed versus a minor eye candy effect and my spirits are down, I pick the eye candy every time. Once I see it work, it gets me back in the mood and makes me excited for more coding.

Hey I know! Start a new project!