Switching Hats: Embracing Yourself by managing them!

Hey 👋

Yes, you heard it right — “Hats”. For years, my mind has grappled with a universal problem, one that I believe every indie game developer encounters; Not just game developer it’s a challenge faced by people worldwide who juggle various roles, we have multiple roles in our lives depending on who we are, you had different different roles or well said responsibilities, and these responsibilities needed to be handled with precision, but these roles often intertwine, creating a chaotic mess where every aspect demands attention simultaneously.

At times, it feels like escaping to a peaceful place and letting go of the responsibilities, while you just relax and drink a sip of a chilled juice, and yes I’m familiar with that chaos. I’ve discovered that my brain operates like a stack of processes, manageable up to a certain finite number. Beyond that limit, they collapse into one another, resulting in complete chaos… well, you already know the rest.

When I first delved into game development years ago, I stumbled upon an indie developer ‘Thomas Brush’ video introducing the concept of wearing multiple hats as an indie game developer. These “hats” represent various roles and responsibilities that need to be fulfilled by an indie developer, such as game producer, director, designer, and more. However, it struck me that, as ordinary human beings, we wear even more hats beyond game development — roles like being a good friend, and a family member, and handling various aspects of real life.

My Current Situation

To navigate this complexity, here are three simple rules inspired by the game developer’s approach.

1) Know Your Hats!

The first step is to Know your Hats! Identify every single role or responsibility you think you have either it is chosen by you or given to you. It happens so many times when we are wearing hats which was given to us for no reason at all and we don’t even know if we can able to do that or not, but we have that hat and we are suffering from that hat problem.

Recognize them as professionals in those roles, for example, if you give it a deep thought you will find you are always wearing a professional fitness and Health trainer’s hat for yourself or if you have so many humans to handle you find out you are a professional communicator or a diplomat for yourself or you are wearing a Self Care or a Motivator’s hat and … just like that I have 56 or more hats (currently searching for more).

By doing so, you’ll separate them as distinct entities, making it easier to identify hats that aren’t chosen by you or you are not good at.

2) Find The Hats that you are good at.

“It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than to improve from first-rate performance to excellence,” said Peter F. Drucker in his book “Managing Oneself” (recommended me to read by my best friend). There are always some hats tailored for you, empowering you to handle them effectively. Conversely, some hats are theirs which are worse for you, and don’t align with your strengths; Consider leaving them for rule number three. Focus on becoming the best at what you excel in. It will boost your confidence with time as well.

3) Review, Reject and Delegate Your Hats.

You need to regularly assess your roles throughout the day. Say “NO” to hats you don’t wish to wear, even if it feels challenging initially but you will learn to say it easily after you have done it for the first time. To manage roles you’re not proficient in, delegate them to someone who excels in those areas. While the temptation to handle everything independently exists, I know sometimes you just don’t want to delegate things, as an indie developer I also want to do everything myself, but to increase the speed of your work we need to collaborate with someone or least delegate some of our works, preventing your weaknesses from diluting your strengths.

These three rules are not my creation; they encapsulate wisdom gleaned from my friends and game developers across the internet. I’ve applied these principles to my life, and I hope they prove beneficial for you as well.

Thanks for reading, we will meet next article!