Skyrim on productivity and relationships, Part I

This is the first in a 3 part series on lessons I’ve seen demonstrated in the game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The complete list:

• Part I – Me, the Individual
• Part II – My Situations
• Part III – My Relationships

If you’re not familiar with this game, it is the latest in the Elder Scrolls series, a set of RPG games available on PCs and console machines like the XBOX 360. Of the series, it is certainly the most expansive, with a huge environment and a partially non-linear system of quests to keep you entertained for hours and hours and hours. Because of the graphics, the size, and the sheer immensity of all that you can do, a lot of folks have rated it one of the greatest games ever. Others, not so much. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in Skyrim and as I played, I noted a series of lessons that come through time and time again. Today’s lessons focus on the individual. You. Me. Jim. Mary.

So here they are:

You aren’t going to be good at everything.

Skyrim’s character creation is incredibly simple. You spend more time in designing the look of your character than anything else (including war paint). Still, with the various races, there are some skills your race is better in than others. Your race may be better at weapons while another race will be better at magic when first starting. Also, all races have a particular perk that sets them apart. For instance, one race is particularly resistant to cold while another race can’t drown. So right from the start you learn that you’re not going to be good at everything. It’s just not possible. Some races are better at magic. Others are better at swinging swords and heavy gear. And still others are better for scouts and rogues. While you can play a race in a way that it isn’t well suited for, you should do so with the understanding that by going against the grain you’re making it harder on yourself. And as a result, you’ll need to concentrate even further in a few areas, thereby making you more specialized.

With my first character, I really tried to spread out my skills and perks (choices in the game that make you really good at certain things). However, the way the game scales based on your character’s level meant I eventually reached a point where my lack of focus meant the game is too hard for that character. Having learned that lesson, I created a second character and chose what areas to be good at and what areas to neglect. For instance, the second character doesn’t use heavy armor and therefore has not acquired any of the heavy armor perks.

This is like real life. We’re not going to be good at everything we try. Also, we can’t master everything we’d like to. There’s simply not enough time to do so. Therefore, we have to come to terms with the fact that we’re not going to be good at everything. We should try to work on the things we are weak in as they pertain to our goals and desires, but if it isn’t relevant to what we need or want to be, then it’s probably a good candidate to be put aside.

Plan your advancement.

This goes along with the previous point. With my second character, I wanted a stealthy scout/archer type. So that meant I had to focus on a few key areas:

• Light Armor
• Archery
• Sneak

Since you can’t completely avoid hand-to-hand combat, I wanted the character to be able to do as much damage as quickly as possible in order to get out of hand-to-hand combat. Standing around and trading blows with folks in heavy armor is a great way to get killed when you’re running around in light armor.  As a result, I also concentrated in Two-Handed.

That meant I put aside all the magic, the heavy armor, the social skills, and the item creation areas. I focused in on what was important to this character’s design and as the character has advanced, I have resisted the urge to generalize beyond the skill set I’ve chosen. As the character has developed I’ve had to expand the list slightly, but always intentionally and in keeping with my overall goals for the character.

We need to do the same thing in life. Otherwise what happens is we spend a lot of time working on many different skills and abilities and what happens is we do improve at a much slower rate than we should have for what is really important. Often times because we are so scattered in our efforts, we get discouraged in our progress towards those goals and we give up, telling ourselves it’s something beyond what we are capable. For instance, I may want to be good at both golf and racquetball. However, if I split time between the two, I may advance each one too slowly for my liking and end up giving both up.

That’s why we have to be intentional in our efforts towards our goals. That does mean saying, “No,” to areas that won’t help us or areas we need to invest in later. I should pick golf or racquetball, but not both. With that said, there needs to be some flexibility in our plans. However, when we make changes to our plans, we must do so intentionally. Otherwise, we’re back in that scattered effort cycle and we will bog down. So while I may have decided I want to learn racquetball, my wife decides she wants learn golf, too. Since golf would be something I could do with my wife, which improves our relationships, I may need to change and decide to work on golf first. I’ve been flexible to change, but the change is intentional.

Make sure you have the right tools.

Imagine an archer without arrows. Not very effective, right? As an archer type in Skyrim, I’m looking for the really good arrows. As a stealth type, this is critical because if I can’t put an opponent down with one or two arrows, especially when dealing with a mob, I’m in trouble. My character isn’t designed to survive by wading into the middle of the fray slashing away. That’s how Brian’s character dies suddenly and brutally. Skyrim rubs it in as you see your character lying there in a crumpled heap while the game continues for a few seconds past you. Therefore, I need to avoid running out of the good arrows. Yet there have been a couple of times in the game where I’ve run short on arrows and ended up scrounging lesser quality arrows from my opponents, thereby making the game harder than it should have been. A quick equipment check and a resupply run would have made a world of difference.

There are tools we need for our lives, too. For instance, if I’m preparing for a professional certification, I likely need the study material and I may even need some equipment. If I want to learn how to do cake decorating (and I do) then I have to have the proper equipment (which isn’t cheap, by the way). Tools should be considered in a generic sense, because it may not be an actual tool you go and pull out of a toolbox. It could be a skill you have to develop or a set of knowledge you must gain. For instance, if you want to be a SQL Server DBA, you absolutely must understand how backups work. Once you’ve identified what you need, make sure you do an equipment check. If you don’t have a tool, go get it.

Prioritize and filter.

In Skyrim it is easy to have 30 or 40 quest tasks to complete, all at the same time. Naturally, it’s very easy to lose focus of what you’re trying to do and get lost in the minutiae. I know I have. Thankfully, I’m at a point with my character where I’ve only got a few big things left. The way I got there was by picking certain paths through the quests that were advantageous or doable by my character at the time. In other words, I prioritized what to focus on and I filtered everything else out. As a result, I was able to carve out big chunks from the overall list, making them manageable, and I am almost through… at least until they come out with new downloadable content.

In life, not only can we get scattered with how we develop ourselves, we can also get scattered on what we’re trying to do. Studies are showing that multitasking is less efficient than single-tasking. Focusing one task at a time means you will get the overall set of tasks done faster than someone trying to multitask through the same list. That means we have to prioritize what we’re working on and filter out the rest. It’s not that the other tasks aren’t important. Some of them may be equally important to what we’re working on right now. However, we need to remember that if we split our attention, then neither task is getting the attention it should. Prioritize and focus is key to our success.