I’m a strong believer in “work on more than one game at a time”, because it prevents tunnel vision, helps give you distance from the project, and maintains momentum when you hit a roadblock with one project. But that requires a lot of organization. I also have ADHD, which requires a lot of organization. I developed a method, and I thought, hey, that would definitely be useful, why not share it?

Disclaimer: This is a method that works for me. If you have a different method, awesome! If this one doesn’t work for you, I’m sorry! This is just meant as an example: you can try it out and see what sticks.

So first, this method is going to be digital. Look, I work in IT, and I am usually an advocate for people using physical tools over digital ones, but for this purpose, I gotta have something that holds all of my info in one place and… well, organizes it. I need to be able to look at the data how I want to, without having to make a brand new table. I need one source of truth, which is hard to maintain on physical media. I can’t have stuff fall between the cracks, with multiple versions and having to remember whether final_final or final_for_real is the latest one.

The method works on paper or on any other software, but it will be optimal when using the platform it was designed for.

Speaking of platform, I used to organize stuff in Excel, then OneNote, and now I swear by Notion. I use Notion because of its different views: I have a view for individual games, a high level overview table, a timeline, a to-do list. It’s quite handy. I also will point out this isn’t sponsored in any way and all that jazz. I just like Notion.

For each project, I have seven fields: Project Title, Stage, Excitement, Pitch (“A game with…”), Description (“What’s this again?”), Next steps (“So what now?”), and time requirement of those steps (“How long”?).

Project Title is a working title, just so I can identify what project this is about. Obviously, I’m not going to publish a game named “Kaiju Emotional Growth”, but until I figure out what that title will be, I still need a way to refer to the game. Obviously.

Stage is how I can keep track of where I’m at with each of these. As of right now, there’s about 20 projects on the list. I don’t write every throwaway idea in there, but I do once I start doodling about it, talking about it with my wife, with my friends. These are the stages I use, because they’re (almost) the ones I use in my day job, and they’re obvious to me:

• SHELF are games I used to work on, haven’t actively thought about in a while, but still would like to get back to;
• BLUeprints is for when it’s in doodle mode: I haven’t really nailed down what the pitch is (I design pitch-first, and you should too!), or the central mechanism.
• SandBoX is when I’m filling out that experience into something playtestable and working on a first prototype. Best practice is to get the game to the table as quick as possible, but I often consider building my first prototype to be a first playtest.
• DEVelopment is the early discovery stages of testing. Those tests are usually with other game designers, or with my wife. There’s a very common advice in playtesting not to test your game with your wife, but people who say that haven’t met *my* wife, who will happily destroy my little baby project.
• QuALity is when I have figured out the shape of the game. The quality stage is where I fine-tune systems, create and test out content, and balance the game. Ha, just kidding, I don’t balance games.
• PRoDuction is when what’s in the box is figured out, and all that’s left to do is get the game out there. It’s either being pitched, or waiting to be prepped for a Kickstarter.

Now game design is not just forward process. Sometimes, while making my first prototype (Sandbox), I realize the pitch doesn’t actually interest me, and the game goes back to Blueprints. Sometimes, a Quality-stage playtest breaks down a side system, and we go down to Development. It happens oh so often, and there’s no shame in it. There’s also no shame in fighting it before accepting that you’re not as close to the finish line as you thought. As long as you end up accepting it, it’s all good.

Second property is Excitement level. I track my projects’ excitement level for two reasons. First, because every now and again, I just need to get excited again, and that field helps identify which project can help. Second, when I lose excitement for a game, it often is evidence that something about the game doesn’t work.

Then comes “A game with…” As I said above, I design pitch-first. My goal is to have a compelling pitch before I start working on a game. When the pitch is determined, I find design a lot easier, because you just… work towards delivering on your pitch. And if you can’t find a compelling pitch for your game… then maybe the game isn’t worth spending time on?

The name of that field is mostly a suggestion. I often write my pitch as “A game with X, but Y”, and having the first bit written helps me avoid blank page syndrome. Works for me, might not work for others.

“What’s this again?” is where I write my high-level idea of what the game is. Titles change all. the. time. Early, the pitch might not be established yet. What’s this again is how I keep my ideas straight. This mostly came after a period where I had a cool theme idea (Dream Weavers Inc, a corporation that steals dreams from the population to build tailormade dreams for the highest bidder), and tried to apply it to every. single. game. I worked on. It got very hard to track what was actually in the Dream Weaver folder on my laptop, so I instead went with a high-level description of the mechanic.

Finally, “So what now?” is where I keep track of what my next steps are. Having this up-to-date means I can peruse it when I have a free half-hour and get a quick win. It also helps me focus on progress when playtesting: WHAT am I actually trying to glean from the playtest? It’s combined with the How long? field, which helps me identify how doable stuff is in a given window of free time. “Update prototype” sometimes is a 10 min affair, and sometimes is a 3-hour chore.

Overall, what I try is to keep this list focused on action: what do I need to know to push these games forward. I also keep it to a minimum: the larger the table, the harder it is to keep up-to-date, and the worse it is when it falls behind.

And let’s be real, it’s not completely filled up all the time. White space is fine. I used to push off making this list because there would be white space, and that led me to be disorganized for a few weeks longer than I needed to. It’s been over a year using this, and it still isn’t completely filled, but it’s usable, and that’s okay.