appendix ndp #5: A New Year
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to appendix NDP. My name is Nathan Paoletta. I'm a game designer, independent publishers and graphic artists. This is episode five, a new year.

[00:00:26] I don't have a particular calendar for doing this podcast. I definitely felt a little bit of pressure to make sure that I got a couple episodes out kind of close to each other, to at least get things started. And then my kind of overall aim was to do episodes when either the mood took me or when a topic came up or a question came in that I felt like I could structure an episode around. And I do have some more topics and questions to get to. But just in terms of the overall pacing, since the last episode, that dropped right before the holidays, (um, so for me, primarily Christmas and New Years), and that whole transition from one year to the next year. 

[00:01:15] I think the transition from one stage to another stage is really important. Um, and I think I talked about this in some of my zines in the zine2018, um, project. A lot of that was organized around these kinds of revolving topics that brought me from month to month through the intersection of the time of year, and then one of these recurring themes. I talk about it a little bit in my RPG design zine as well. And on the design games podcast, we definitely talked about it. I think the identification and uh, definition of state changes is really beneficial. Uh, I mean for design specifically, but also just, I think for living a mindful life as well.

[00:02:10] The utility; or the benefit, is probably a better way to say- the benefit of treating certain... they don't have to be times of year, but I think just, you know, for me, and I think for a lot of people, the new year is a pretty significant one just because it's kind of like a big culturally agreed upon moment where a lot of people are all kind of thinking about it at the same time and that gives it some, some added power. But just taking moments of transition and really letting them end one thing and start another thing, I think it's important to do that kind of mindfully and intentionally. Rather than just, kind of, let everything smear into an undifferentiated continuum of moments.

[00:03:02] So when it comes to games, specifically, for me, that looks like being very specific, when I can, about when a game ends. What are the conditions upon which either the game itself, if it's kind of a, if it's like a self-contained experience, like, um, like Carry or like my micro game, Be Ashamed Young Prince where those are kind of designed to operate over a cycle. And then when the cycle is over, the game is over. So it can be that scale or it can be the scale of a session. 

[00:03:35] Um, I thinkWorld Wide Wrestling does this where it doesn't have (a) hard, here's exactly when you end, but it gives you lots of tools to match what you're doing in your session to how a wrestling card generally works. So, you know what the last thing is going to be, and you can build up to it and then that gives you the architecture of your session and you know when it's over. And so when it's over, then, you know, it's time to transition to the next thing and begin. 

[00:04:02] I think games really benefit from this because it gives you, and by you, I mean, it gives the player, it gives, you know, everyone at the table, specific moments to breathe in and out. To take a moment to reflect on what has happened so that you can prepare for what's next. And to create, um, dynamism in the game, through contrasting, you know, exciting action and then some kind of pause or some kind of step back. So you have an up and down pacing versus something that kind of paces out everything at the same level throughout the entire session, or experience or whatever. 

[00:04:43] In terms of applying transition changes to, you know, one's personal life. I think, as I said, the new year's good, just cause there's a lot of like reflective energy and also there's kind of a little bit of a pause. I mean, not for everyone. I'm not trying to say that. Like, I mean, I'm very fortunate in that I get to live a lifestyle in which people are not demanding things of me all the time. Um, and that is particularly true between Christmas and New Years, because not only do I not have a traditional, you know, work schedule, um also most freelance work is pretty dead around then. Because everyone is doing family stuff and doesn't really want to be adding to their own workload by work, by, by making sure that freelancers are on task or whatever. Like, generally everyone kind of, like, breaks for the holidays and then picks back up in January. 

[00:05:37] So I have some time, um, around the time of year to reflect and think about the next year. Try and set myself up for, for success.

[00:05:54] There's a number of frameworks for kind of, like, goal-setting, projecting out the next year, uh, identifying trends in your life and kind of visioning how they can change if you want them to change; what you want to add to your life, what you want to take away, those kinds of things. I've gone through those processes and, like, done those exercises and then they just go in a notebook, and I don't think about them again. 

[00:06:27] I think I'd like to be the kind of person that gets a lot of value out of doing that on some kind of ongoing basis. I know there's, there's some of these frameworks that people do every single year and they can go back and they can track how they, their career progress has changed or how their personal development has, has changed by, by looking at where they were a couple of years ago. And having this kind of paper trail about it. 

[00:06:51] When I've done them, it feels a little bit like, uh, like busy work. Like I want to be the kind of person that gets a lot out of this. Cause, cause I like this kind of thing. I like structure. I like prompts and a thoughtful framework for, kind of, getting out of my usual responses and kind of thinking about things in a new way. And when applied to like a project or a specific thing that I'm working on, or as an exercise for developing an idea, that kind of stuff is really productive and helpful for me. But when I'm looking at a longer term thing about what this is going to mean over the course of a year, (usually these are annual kind of check-in things), it just doesn't, it just loses relevance very quickly because the responses that I have are generally not actionable specific items, they're generally more conceptual things. 

[00:07:47] Like, developmental, like grow my, grow my business by a certain amount this year. Like that's still pretty conceptual. It's not really something that gives me a lot of value as to like, hold on to for the course of a year. And the same also kind of applies to, like, personal development stuff, like develop a greater capacity for empathy. This is something I've been working on for awhile and by working on, I mean, it's something I think about and that I try to exercise when I can. But putting it as a goal or putting it as something to focus on, doesn't really change my day to day. 

[00:08:26] And maybe I'm just doing these things wrong. Maybe if you have one of these things that works for you. And that you're hearing my description and saying you're, you're, you're missing out on something because of the approach or because of the specific tools you've tried. Please let me know, cause like I said, I'd like to be the kind of person that gets a lot out of these kinds of things.

[00:08:53] So this year I didn't do any of those things. I did intentionally give myself time to not worry about being productive in certain ways. Some stuff has deadlines and some stuff, you know, there's responsibilities, right, that are day to day or week to week. Not that kind of stuff, but more like, given that there are certain things on the horizon- like for example, just very basic- for my other podcast for, um, Two Hundred a Day. We generally release one or two episodes a month. And then we take January off, which, because I do the editing for that podcast, means that I kind of have a big chunk of work that I just don't have to do that month. We also just generally don't record during that month. Usually we record ahead. So we have a couple episodes in the can, and then we take a month off. And then by the time we start recording and releasing episodes, we kind of sync back up to where we, we never have to like skip a release because we're, we have enough recorded. The other effect of that is that by just not thinking about that show for a month, it makes it really exciting to come back to it in February.

[00:10:03] So even though this is a, you know, new project, new show, and there wasn't a whole lot out. I kind of extended that approach to this podcast as well. For this one, it's less that I needed a break from it. Um, if anything, I would like to be recording it more often, but it was more like, by giving myself a month off from doing any podcast stuff, that just makes it a really nice clean chunk of time where that is not in my head. I can look at and work on and think about other stuff. And then as I come back to it, it starts picking back up. And so as we came into the month of February, and I started picking up the other show where we have a more rigorous release schedule, my enthusiasm for doing this show got pushed back up by getting back into doing podcast stuff.

[00:10:55] So that's one example of, like, where I've placed a big intentionally reflective period. And I don't know if I can do that every year. In the past I've kind of not done it as specifically. This year, I really mentally said for the whole, you know, until the end of January, I'm only working on things that are really exciting to me and that don't come at the expense of other things. And if I don't work on anything that's okay. And then February is when I get spun back up again on projects and, like, give myself that structure to work on things again. And I feel like this year that was really effective. 

[00:11:35] I don't know, like it's, it's really hard to compare year over year, over the last couple of years. Um, the break between 2019 and 2020 for me, was really sharp. Um, both because of COVID obviously, but also because the very beginning of 2020 was when my child was born. And so figuring out parenting has overlapped with the COVID world and everything before then, it feels like it's a very coming from a very different time on pretty much every axis. So it's hard for me to compare the beginning of 2022 to the beginning of 2021 to the beginning of 2020. They're just all so different. 

[00:12:20] But this particular transition had a lot of those characteristics of being like of being a very impactful transition time. I was able to take the nice clean break for projects. My daughter was able to start going to daycare, which ends up being a significant change to day-to-day availability and capacity to pick up new projects, um, forecast for the future, that kind of stuff. In this case, I also had a big opportunity kind of come out of nowhere and slot right into my availability for taking on a new gig! 

[00:12:59] Long story short, at the end of January I started teaching. Um, I have a semester long class where I'm teaching Introduction to Designed Objects to students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. So this is in the department where I got my graduate degree in design and it's in that field. At the school it's called Designed Objects. Um, it's a little more holistic approach to design as applied to product design, industrial design, artistic expression through physicality. I think it's a fairly art ish term, but that experience really informed my design work when it's not objects as well. 

[00:13:44] So now having that be a priority means that something that is a little more of a fun project, like this podcast, ends up on a more extended cadence than projects where I have more external responsibilities. That's a little bit of a shame because I would like to have more of this show exist. But on the other hand, it's just one episode at a time. So as long as I'm continuing to do this work. And continuing to get questions and comments, and continuing to have things that I feel are interesting and hopefully relevant and hopefully, you know, entertaining and or useful whatever combination of that, these episodes end up being for you. Um, I have no reason to stop the show. 

[00:14:33] It's a little silly to talk about stopping the show when it's just started, but it's just in the service of saying, I didn't want to make an announcement. Like "I am delaying the next episode of appendix NDP". It's not the kind of thing that I think that matters. I'm more interested in having the show kind of find the correct track in and among my other projects and other responsibilities. And sometimes that means it's going to be on the lower end of the time that I'm able to give it. But that means there will also be times that it swings up more, and I have more that I want to say and more and more topics that come up. Uh, and so there will be periods of time where there will be more episodes to come up on a more regular schedule,

[00:15:24] The utility, or the benefit, Of taking some really mindful time to reflect on schedule, to reflect on process, to reflect on goals, to identify how things have gone over the last again, whatever this time increment is; for me, it's usually a year. Uh, how things have gone over the last year, how you project things to go in the next year. Having some time, somewhere in your cycle, some, somewhere in your life, somewhere in your process, I think can only be of benefit.

[00:16:02] It can be easy to forget to breathe. It can be easy to forget, to step back a little bit. Um, and also it can be easy to turn stepping back a little bit into not thinking about, you know, whatever, what- not thinking about your projects, not thinking about your schedule or your life, your development. And I think that's also sometimes a missed opportunity.

[00:16:26] I mean, sometimes you do need to take a break. Sometimes it's like, it's very important to take that vacation, take that step back, focus somewhere else so that you don't burn out. Like that's super important. But assuming that you're not on a path towards burnout, using your reflective times to figure out how to best harness your energy going forward: I think that that is something that's both very easy to forget to do and has really tangible benefits in the long-term. 

[00:16:55] At least for me, what ends up happening is I feel much more confident about my decisions because I've actually thought about them. Um, I contrast this with spending a lot of time feeling very, not confident about my decisions. And feeling like I'm making very arbitrary decisions. I can't really put my finger on when or how that changed, but I did at some point stop automatically thinking of arbitrary as negative and start to think about arbitrary, just as a way to describe given an infinite amount of options, what do you choose and why?

[00:17:36] And I think having an answer to that, that resonates with- that resonates with your interests, resonates with your skillset, and resonates with the kind of thing you want to see in the world. Sure, that may still be an arbitrary decision, but if you've taken the time to do the reflection and, um, step back a little bit and kind of assess where you've been and where you want to go, at least for me, it just makes it so much less fraught to say, I could do this in one of 17 different ways, but the way that I want to do it is this. And not feeling like I have to defend that. 

[00:18:10] Like there's not an external... no-one's judging me for that decision. And it may not be the correct decision. Like there may be a better way to do it, and I discover that. Or in hindsight, maybe it wasn't the greatest choice, but being able to make the choices and be confident about it in the moment and then have our framework for re-evaluating the choice later, as you need to, I think has led to just a lot more confidence in the work that I'm doing. And also, I don't know. It's just, it's just easier. I just worry less. And that's just a net positive.

[00:18:49] Well, that's a bit on the state of the podcast / transitioning into the new year / update on what's going on with me and related matters. I hope that there's something in there about taking that step back, doing some mindful reflection and identifying where in your year or where in your cycle, your creative cycle, you can do those reflections.

[00:19:11] Um, it doesn't have to be at the turn of the year, that just, you know, works out for me. I often have a period like that at the end of the summer also. I generally really bottom out during the summer. I'm very low energy. And then as things get cooler in the transition into fall. Um, I start to have thoughts and energy for the coming season again. And I also usually have a family vacation that's at the end of August. So those things sync up for me where I usually use that as a, as a period of reflection as well. And that's just my life. Like that's just my schedule. 

[00:19:45] If there's some moments in your creative cycle, your calendar, your year, your month, your quarter, or whatever it is that you can give yourself that break, where you're mindfully reflecting and giving yourself the space to not have your head down working or not have your head down worrying about things...

[00:20:08] I don't want it to cast this all as work. Like, it's work for me because my creative work is my work work. I don't want to assume, or, or push the same onto anyone else, but I feel like the same thing may be true of, like, running games for your friends or going to conventions, right. Um, or working on your novel or whatever. There's a cycle to that. Where, when there's like a lull or a natural pause, you can use that time to engage in some mindful reflection and build your muscles for doing better with your next phase. 

[00:20:45] I didn't have any particular questions for this topic. Um, I do still have some questions on the back burner, which I will be getting to in my next couple of episodes.

[00:20:54] If there's anything you would like to hear me talk about or any questions for me about this or about anything else to do with game design or publishing, there's a contact form on the website at ndpdesign.com/podcasts, or you can join my Patreon at patreon.com/ndpaoletta to leave me questions as well as comments.

[00:21:18] Thanks so much for listening.

[00:21:25] appendix NDP is written, hosted and produced by me, Nathan Paoletta. Music is by Will Jobst. Be seeing you!