First thing I gotta do is ... Oooo, a distraction! ... Where was I?

Having a full time job and a 2 hour commute eats at your time and soul, but with the little time and energy you have left, you'd really like to build a game from scratch (for learning purposes as much as pride). A huge task by anyone's standards. So to get the most out of your time and to keep you from being reminded that there's a world outside, you'll need to do away with all them distractions and get some clairvoyance spells... or something. But enough about you, let's talk about me!

First thing's first: If this kinda-too-large-for-one-person project is going to succeed, I need to be the project manager, designer, director and hero (coder). Oh, and I need to cut the reddit feed from my iGoogle page before I hurt myself. [+3 productivity].

To keep me from hating life, I like to squeeze in some gaming and reading into my week [+4 happy].
I can read novels during my bus ride commute to work (and thanks to ebook readers, I can read any sloppy romance novel I please without the judging glares of those who sit near me!).

Since I must, I've allocated a small portion of time to the habits that make me go 'huh? where did the time go?!' (ie. Facebook, Reddit/Digg/etc...), but one of my eyes is fixated on the clock at all times.

Break it down! (-stop, Hammer time) [+4 focus]:

1. Identify the high level idea of your final product (game story, game type, game play, blah blah). Completing this game is the long-term goal.
2. Break it down some to get the features you'd like to have in the game.
3. Break the features down and gather all the components you think you'll need to make this work.
4. Select the most important components/systems for your game (I deem this Phase 1 of the project).

Ok, so I know what I want from my game, now all I have to do is skip sleep and finish it before the sun comes back up! Wait, I have a better idea...

Gonna' manage ma time! [+3 focus, +4 productivity] :

1. Set milestones for each broken down (reasonably sized) iteration or phase. I try to split up the tasks into 2 month iterations, but that is just my preference.
2. Using a ticket tracking system (I've been using Trac), I've placed a bunch of "feature request" tickets under the current milestone target for each major feature I'd like complete. The goal is to complete all of these feature requests before the 2 month period is over. This is the mid-term-ish goal.
3. Using a project management application (Example: OpenProj or Microsoft Project), I've estimated the amount of time to complete each feature. I've over estimated each by approximately 2.25x, in order to give me time for any hiccups. Ideally, these features should add up to the 2 month period milestone (I add more features to the list if I don't anticipate many complications, but I could instead set the milestone date to the estimated end of features date). This is the short-term goal.
4. Each day, I list the small portion of the current feature to cram into my daily TO-DO list to accomplish the short-term goal, which will accomplish the mid-term-ish goal and hopefully, eventually the long-term goal. This is the immediate goal.

Now that all this project planning is behind me, all I need to worry about is the immediate goal and I'll have a game in no time! [+3 happy]

Summary (tl;dr): To keep me focused and motivated I start from the end goal and then break it down into smaller chunks until my puny mind can comprehend the task at hand, and eventually my long-term goal will be realized.

Final Self Improvements:

Happiness + 7
Productivity + 7

Focus + 7