Time Strategies

After reading the two articles named 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time and The Important Habit of Just Starting respectively, I've picked up a few new techniques that i'll look to integrate into my schedule and routine.

The blog The Important Habit of Just Starting emphasizes the importance of starting work early while also scientifically breaking down procrastination to a formula. It mentions the pros of beginning work and the cons of procrastinating over it such as depression and anxiety. Personally I find starting a piece of work is the hardest part, and as someone who procrastinates on every project and assignment the blog presents an interesting argument. But what caught my attention the most is how it uses dreams as an example of procrastination, noting how many dreams can go unfulfilled due to people leaving the work necessary to make those dreams a reality till later and continuously putting them off. This made me think about procrastination as mindset, and that continuously avoiding more plain and mundane tasks such as schoolwork can translate into avoiding more serious and long lasting decisions, meanwhile someone with the mindset of a doer acts in the moment, gets what they need done and ultimately achieve whatever they want.

(The aforementioned formula)

Source: Lifehacker.com

The other blog 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time makes note of how unsuccessful people do the same things as they follow the mindset and fall into the same pitfalls as each other. Some of these actions include not planning/scheduling work time and fun time, not keeping records, not having rituals etc. this blog didn't stand out to me as much as the other one but it follows a similar concept, that procrastination is a mindset, and a dangerous one at that. However, I think i'll try and integrate a few of these "11 ways" into my routine and see if I can maintain them and if they have any knock-on effects on anything else.

Last semester we were very time restricted, weekly tasks were one thing but when we were given our final project for the semester for each project it was a huge drag. All of the projects were due in the same week and thanks to the regular weekly work we just didn't have the time to do the work in advance. Thankfully however, this semester we have Mondays off, and this extra free time will be perfect for getting work done. This combined with the new scheduling techniques I've picked up and the overall experience in college I was missing last year means that i'm more confident in my ability to get work done then I was before.

Technology

For this module we'll be working with a lot of new technology and websites that we have had little to no experience with so far in this course, such as Unity, Automotivator, Cheezburger etc. however we are familiar with Padlet and Canvas as we've used them for prior projects.

The online environment for this module is completely different to anything that we've experienced so far in the course. usually we solely use Moodle to submit assignments and the lecturers would grade each piece of work, but with this module its up to us to grade our own work. We also use a variety of sites, including Moodle but also featuring sites like Blogger and our very own CDM Multimedia Development site, this way we don't build experience working experience working solely with Moodle but also with a wide variety of different websites.

In terms of skills that i'd like to build up this semester, i'd love to work with and learn to use the Unity game editor as well as a variety of other game editors/engines if possible. I like the concept of making video games and hope to do something related to it in the future, so getting some experience with that kind of technology is really appealing to me.

(Gameplay of critically acclaimed game "Gone Home"

created using the Unity game engine)

Source: Wikimedia

Assignments

My first impressions of the class tasks and this new approach to them is that its a very interesting and flexible method of approaching a modules workload. It gives students a lot more independence in the sense that we decide if our work is up to task by using the declaration forms on moodle. This eliminates unnecessary micromanagement from lecturers as well, which I found pretty common in other modules.

The flexibility of this approach is great as well. It allows us to work ahead and get work done in advance when we have free time, and allows us to do extra credit projects for if we ever fall behind or get caught up in work for other modules and begin to miss deadlines. The fact that lectures and labs are optional as well gives us more time to use as we see fit to use it while still providing the labs and lectures for people who need help or just need to get work done.

The unity tutorials will be useful since we haven't used the unity game engine yet and this will introduce us to and familiarize ourselves with the engine for when we start working on our final project. Peer commenting will also help us out, since feedback is limited in this module its good to get opinions from fellow students on your work.

(Unity game editor and company logo)

Source: Wikimedia

Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck is a professor of Psychology at Stanford university, she has done vast work in researching and developing her theories on human psychology. From this research she has derived an ideology, this ideology states that there is 2 human mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. I had never heard of Carol Dweck before, nor did I ever formally know of Growth Mindset. I knew that certain people would face adversity and improve themselves in doing so, be it physically or mentally. When you exercise you put muscles under stress so that they grow back stronger and more resilient, so for me its interesting to see that the growth mindset theory claims this also works on a neurological level.


The concept of the growth mindset is fascinating. It states that when faced with challenges someone with a growth mindset will not only overcome that challenge, but will learn and grow from it. Mrs. Dweck also states that when people are pushed outside of their comfort zone the neurons in their brain strengthen and form stronger connections with each other, making that person smarter.

Its interesting just how common examples of growth mindset really are. I've experienced it personally myself. When I was younger I used to be on a football team, I was the fat one who could barely run for like 10 seconds, that drove me to lose weight, go to the gym, train cardio, eat better ect. and that improved me as a person both mentally and physically. There's been examples of this in my schoolwork as well, given the amount of times we've had to do 20 assignments in the space of a week. The effort has made me more apt at getting work done. There's still plenty of more assignments to do though, and i'm sure a growth mindset approach will help me and all the other students through the challenges ahead.

(An example of a growth mindset)

Source: tes.com

Introduction

Introduction

Hola, my name is Adam, 19, 2nd year CDM student at ITB TUD. So far its been a pretty decent course, the work is completely random, irrelevant and tedious at times but overall I have enjoyed it so far. Last year was a hard one, adjusting to college life and all, sorting out assignments and meeting deadlines etc. my favorite and simultaneously least favorite module was web development, initially I found it super simple, I was the "ace of html" (patent pending), but then in the 2nd semester we were required to actually code something moderately challenging and I thought I was going to fail the module because I was clueless. We had a really cool lecturer in Helen though.

By far my biggest achievement in TUD so far was a film I made for the module Storytelling and Narrative. It was called Pope Wars, and it was basically me just taking the piss for 6 minutes and submitting it as my big final project. In summary it was basically Donald Trumps twin sister attempting to become the pope. It was a masterpiece, this is not up to opinion.

Here's the video for those who want to check it out Click Here.

Moving onto more about me, when I finish this course I wanna move on and do something in game design/game development, making video games and stuff. Hobbies include mainly football and video games. Favorite game is probably a tie between "Undertale" and "Yakuza Kiwami", both great games with great stories and characters plus they throw in a little bit of random shithousery, which i'm a fan of. In terms of music i'm a big fan of hip-hop, specifically obscure hip-hop. My favorite artists are 2 lesser known rappers called Aesop Rock and E-Dubble, The latter of which i've been listening to since I was 12.

Well that was my amazing introduction blog post, hope you enjoyed. Here's a copyright free image of a dog to celebrate your completion.

(Cool Dog)
Source: Wikipedia

Workshop 1

For my CDM module Multimedia Development we participated in a workshop in which we had to create a sequence/flow chart detailing the steps and process a driver must go through when using traffic lights at a 4-way junction. We basically dumbed the process down to the simplest description possible in groups of 3. Personally I used cardinal directions to indicate which traffic lights were green and which were red. For example, when the northern traffic lights were green the western lights were lit correspondingly. This project was something different from what I was used to as we essentially broke down the everyday concept of traffic lights into a simple step by step process.

From this project I learned that breaking things down into a step by step process can be challenging, even straight-forward things like traffic lights can prove difficult to analyse in their plainest form. I enjoyed working in a group for this project because we got to see and learn how our peers break down fundamental processes and think in different ways. Overall I enjoyed the project as well as the interactivity of it, it was fascinating for me to try and breakdown the various possible outcomes of the traffic lights and arrange them into as simple a formula as possible with the use of a flow chart.

One thing that I simultaneously liked and disliked about the project was the lack of a solid correct answer. Each member of my team had different interpretations of how the final flow chart should look and this caused some short delays. As well as this me and my team knew pretty much nothing about how a 4 way junction, or how driving works for that matter. So it took us a while at the start to wrap our heads around it.

If I was to choose an image that reflects my thoughts on this first workshop it would be this one,

(Some happy people)
Source: Pixabay.com

It was pretty good.

Favorite Game

My favourite game is Yakuza 0, the game follows the backstories of 2 future yakuza members as a prequel of the "Yakuza" game series.

The first of these 2 men is Kazuma Kiryu (pictured below), hes the primary protagonist of the Yakuza series. Hes a cliche badass hero who never losses but hes so cliche that he actual becomes a fresh character that makes fun of its own unoriginality, ultimately becoming original. The second of these characters is named Goro Majima, although he's tame and unappealing for the majority of this game he is known as a completely unpredictable lunatic in the rest of the series, and has become a huge fan favourite because of it. What makes him so interesting in Yakuza 0 however is that we see the transformation of Majima from an unspectacular and plain character to one of the biggest cult favourites in modern video game history.

The game features moments of comedy at the most random points, as is the hallmark of the Yakuza series, but what sets Yakuza 0 apart is its brilliant storytelling and its showcasing of the transformation the 2 main characters went through before becoming some of the most beloved characters in modern gaming.

Gameplay image of "Yakuza 0"

Source: flickr.com

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