Post for those who struggle with motivation to finish their projects.

I came across a study that shows writing down your goals and sharing them with a friend can really help you achieve more (kinda obvious, but proves this point once again). Here are the details:

Participants: 267 people from different backgrounds.
Groups:
Group 1: Just thought about their goals.
Group 2: Wrote their goals down.
Group 3: Wrote goals + made action plans.
Group 4: Wrote goals + action plans + told a friend.
Group 5: Wrote goals + action plans + sent weekly updates to a friend.
Success Rates:
Group 1 (Unwritten Goals): 43% success rate.
Group 2 (Written Goals): 64% success rate.
Group 3 (Written Goals + Action Plans): 68% success rate.
Group 4 (Written Goals + Action Plans + Shared with a Friend): 70% success rate.
Group 5 (Written Goals + Action Plans + Weekly Progress Reports to a Friend): 76% success rate.

The study shows that each step—writing down goals, making action plans, and sharing progress with a friend—increases the likelihood of achieving those goals.

Download the report: https://scholar.dominican.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=psychology-faculty-conference-presentations

Conclusions:
1. The positive effect of accountability was supported: those who sent weekly
progress reports to their friend accomplished significantly more than those who
had unwritten goals, wrote their goals, formulated action commitments or sent
those action commitments to a friend.
2. There was support for the role of public commitment: those who sent their
commitments to a friend accomplished significantly more than those who wrote
action commitments or did not write their goals.
3. The positive effect of written goals was supported: Those who wrote their goals
accomplished significantly more than those who did not write their goals

I’ve been creating TODO lists and full-blown project boards with a backlog, milestones, and sprints using various tools for quite a while. Right now, I’ve settled on Notion and use various templates there for each new prototype. It hasn't helped me finish many recent games, though.

So with my latest prototype, I’m now trying the “Written Goals + Action Plans + Weekly Progress Reports to a Friend” method to see if it helps me reach a first playable prototype more successfully. I'm curious to see how it goes.

If you're interested in hearing more about my progress and how I'm applying this to my game, let me know by reacting to this post.

🔥 – Post progress updates here in this channel
💯 – Post progress updates, but in another channel; leave this one only for references to interesting posts
👎 – Don’t post updates anywhere 💀