I feel more or less recovered now after the grueling weekend, so I decided to reflect. Looking back, I'm actually amazed at how focused I was. I've done a few game jams now, and I wanted to share a technique I used that I think was pretty effective.

What you're looking at is an hourly time table, which I maintained throughout the jam. Whenever I finished a chunk of work, I would write down a description of the work, and the time slot I finished it in. This worked wonderfully in two ways: (1) I now had a spatial representation of the time I spent on various tasks, showing me exactly what I've already completed, and (2) I have an intuition of how much time it's going to take to complete upcoming tasks.

When I'm in the heat of the moment, I find that the concept of time tends to slip away from my conscious mind, and my memory of even the last few hours is hazy, which stresses me out. I found that this technique of "mapping out" my time was immensely helpful in helping me stay calm and focused throughout the jam.

Hope this helps or inspires you for future jams!

If anything in that time table piques your interest, feel free to leave a comment or play my game!