Tabletop Mentorship Stories

I have a fulltime job in the crazy world of robotics and automation. I won’t say which company, but during crunch time, it’s reasonable to expect 60+ hours weeks. I’m heavily involved in my church, especially this past year, as they’ve relied on me almost exclusively to move services online during the Covid crisis. I have a family. My oldest child has autism, and my youngest is all of 7 weeks old. My wife is also quite busy, trying to get her new business venture off the ground. I said all of that to say that when I read about people who describe their morning or afternoon or weekend routine where they’ve set aside a few hours to work on their game project, I stand up and salute those people! I wish I had my act together to be able to do that. Mad props to those who are able to pull that off. I am not one of those people. But, the good news is that it is still possible to make progress. I keep a notebook with me and try to make notes about ideas or cards during my lunch break. Hold...

This right here. These words. This is what you could fairly call "procrastination." But I do know myself. I know that it often takes me 45 minutes to really get going – to grind through my ‘first gear’ – and once I hit flow-state… well, then its flow-state. But it often takes a bit of puttering around on something irrelevant – or in this case, adjacent – to my intended work before I can really capitalize on a functional creative space. I went looking for a good procrastination image and got owned by the internet. Before fatherhood I could make real hay this way. Come home from work, cook up some anti-hangry medication, and fill a glass with something cold. Then do just about anything but what I wanted to work on for a half hour or an hour and then switch gears into the real work… often the next thing I’d know I’d have only a half dozen hours until I had to be back at work, but I’d have a heap-load of work done. But these days, no. The dinners I cook need a little more atten...