Hi there! I’m Crypt. Yesterday, I reviewed 41 cars in one day. Across the past 2 months, I have reviewed 76; I won’t be shocked if I hit 100 in 3 months soon. How? Something I call extreme hosting, inspired by extreme programming. The tenets of extreme hosting are simple:
- Less Is More
- Find Your Voice
- Rhythm Mania
- Know Your Limits
- Spreadsheets Are Your Friend
Taking ages to write a challenge is easy. Putting up something half-baked (regardless of how long it took you) is easy. I know this first-hand, and all these lessons came through trial and error. So, let’s go through them one by one.
The first point is the most controversial, with good reason. Wanna hear a secret? I didn’t download the cars for QFC until after it closed. Did not touch a single one. I got all the reviews out in a few hours. I could not do that for any other challenge, but it’s a good example. QFC reviews are 140 characters or less. Nice and easy. You’ll notice it’s a running theme in my hosting though. I’ve stopped doing anything involving CSS beyond the very basics. I don’t write overly long fluff. There’s no long descriptions of the character’s inner life, there’s nothing beyond the basics, explicitly stated. Now, is this universally good, is this the one true approach? No, but it’s an approach that gets good results - and it makes your life easier. Be brief, cut the filler, just go with the basic facts. Less work for you means you get done quicker.
The second applies everywhere, but it’s much harder. My voice is heavily informed by technical and academic writing. It’s based on a tone I use at work and university. When I write reviews, I already know the style. I know how I am going to write, so I can get it done. There’s no escaping it, being good at writing lets you write quicker - who would have guessed? But even if you aren’t, you can still find a voice, you can find a consistent way that works for you. Even if you aren’t following the rest of this, you can find a way that works for you. This isn’t unique to this approach, but it’s a prerequisite to the next point…
Remember how I mentioned doing QFC in one day? How I didn’t even start until then? The same is true for elsewhere, I didn’t do the writing for any portion of ALC1 until the day I posted them. I did it all in one day… But not one session. Rhythm management is cruicial to maintaining high productivity, and avoiding burnout.
It’s a balancing act. No breaks means you have issues with getting your mind working. Long breaks means a lot of time re-finding your place. You need to be disciplined and find the middle ground. Take breaks of around 5-10 minutes every hour, maybe longer breaks of 30-60 when you are at a clear transition point. When you do this, get away from your computer, drink some water, stretch your legs. Maybe even go outside and get a change of scenery. Do something else - but stick to it at the same time, maintain your rhythm.
Rhythm is one of the best reasons to manage the scope of your challenge, by the way. If you can break the challenge into segments where you can do each in a day, ideally in 3-5 hours? Yeah, that’s best for rhythm. If you are going to write several pages of fluff which isn’t actually reviewing the challenges? I doubt that you can get that done in a day, so you’ll have to sleep, which breaks your rhythm.
Anyone who has been following ALC will know that there was a period of a week or so when I did nothing for judging. You’ll also know that I have delayed the next round substantially. Why? Because I know that I won’t be able to judge it. With the most recent set, I could’ve tried to do a little bit of judging here and there, but that would take twice as long because I wouldn’t have any rhythm. I waited until I could do a solid block, and then I did that block. Not judging is as important as judging - and if you expect that you won’t be able to judge? Don’t host. If something comes up, let people know. People will understand and have a better experience that way. This, like knowing your voice, is essential if you wanna use that rhythm.
Finally, spreadsheets. Use them.
The most powerful command in a spreadsheet is one you may not know - the concat command. concat(“a”,“b”) returns “ab”. How is this useful? concat("@", concat(username, concat(" - “, concat(carname, concat(”: ", review) returns something like “@AMuteCrypt - BRM Sensible: Your Paint Choice Sucks, Boo!”. Do this for each of your cars, and you can just copy-paste all your text in one review, then add whatever images you want to. Want an example? Here is a pared-down version of QFC’s sheet, hiding each entrant’s stats (some entries were edited in the post, which is why they don’t match). All I had to do was copy column D and paste it into the body of the post and bingo, nicely formatted text. You can even do it if you want to add CSS or stuff, feel free to copy this trick. Less work to do means your life is easier and less time spent reviewing. Can you do this with other methods? Sure, but this is easy. Spreadsheets are good for other stuff too, like comparing stats at a glance.
You might think that using a spreadsheet is basics, but it’s part of a crucial ideological thread here: Be lazy and value your time. If you don’t have to do something? Don’t do it. If you can find a tool that does something for you? Use the tool. There’s effort you can avoid, effort that doesn’t improve your challenge. Maybe you enjoy putting in this effort, but this is a blueprint for how you can save time and effort without a meaningful drop in challenge quality.
I’m not saying you have to do this, feel free to ignore it by all means.
