Block twitter, Facebook, reddit and other social media.

Stop reading a.cc threads during class...

Oh, also forgot youtube and twitch.

Back away from the metal and use tools that make your life easy until it has to be hard (i.e., don't use C or C++ unless you really need to). And do yourself a favor and learn some dynamic languages (e.g., JavaScript, Perl, Common Lisp, ... Ruby, Python ^[1]). They are so much nicer to code in. The possibilities are just so much more elegant. These do tend to be slower than native code, but computers are very fast today and most of the time you don't actually need every clock cycle. Your time is usually more valuable than the CPU's. And dynamic languages are every bit as "real" as static languages.

If you do need to use C or C++, try to reuse existing code rather than rolling your own. You don't have time to do better than somebody else has, and you'll waste a lot of time trying. For example, Bstrlib.

Real programmers have better things to do with their lives than reinvent the square memory management. I believe it's very useful for you to learn how to manage memory, what it means, and why its necessary, but once you understand how to do it you should understand why you don't want to do it unless you really have to.

One thing that isn't just removing things... Is just do something you actually like to do.

It depends on how you measure "productivity", If your goal is to actually write the low level bits, then using a prebuilt engine is actually bad

But if your goal is to just whip out a game as fast as possible, yeah, grab unity or something.

I'm actually using GL and Allegro directly for my current game related projects because I want to learn GL and some of the concepts behind what engines do. So yeah.

It's all about understanding what it is that you're trying to do and picking the shortest paths to it. If you're trying to learn GL programming or engine design then that's what you should be doing. Of course, if this is the case then you should get the same satisfaction from meager displays of GL manipulation or engine machinery that somebody actually trying to make a game would get from testing a new part of their game. If you're learning GL and engine mechanics, but ultimately want to be playing your game, then your productivity will be very poor and your motivation will not last. Along with choosing appropriate tools is defining realistic goals. You may be setting off on an ambitious project, but to have any chance at all you need to break it up into smaller, attainable goals that will keep you motivated and move you towards achieving the over all goal.

Just read this --- perhaps the solution is not to increase your productivity, but to decrease it?

Oh, and yes, sleep FTW.

Remove people whose inactions (incompetence?) hinder your progress. <rant> I share workspace with another group on a different schedule. I came in tonight and one of our monitors was missing. We have a cabinet with spare equipment including monitors. The procedure for broken equipment is to replace the equipment and call tech support to restock. The cabinet has two monitors, both broken. The only other time I replaced a monitor, I had to call tech support because we had no working spares.</rant> Also rid your computer of Internet Explorer. Congrats Michael.

Get stoned.

And there are so many interesting topics to explore, it's depressing one is not granted an eternity of time to dabble in all of them.

Unlike elves, we mortal men cannot wait for our time in this world is finite.

Too much Tolkien again, sorry