The entrepreneurs I know are well acquainted with The Dark Side.

We’ve all been there: We’re on deadline, but our minds and bodies refuse to get going. These days go by many names, including writer’s block, creative block or dry spell. I call them blank moments. Because of the many blank moments I’ve encountered in my life—and the intense level of procrastination growing inside me—I’ve learned how to harness those blank moments and still make them count.

1. Acknowledge it.

Two of the worst things you can do during blank moments are to deny it and run away from it. All this accomplishes is making you feel as if you’re deeper in a rut of inaction. Instead of fighting, acknowledge it. Recognize its existence. Don’t be afraid to look yourself in the mirror and say you’re having a bad day or your mind is not working and you feel like you’re going to lose it. You won’t lose it.

The more you acknowledge these blank moments, the easier it will be to handle them. Remember, even the biggest names in entrepreneurship have blank moments. We all do.

2. Set a time limit.

Once you’ve mastered the art of acknowledging the crazy cocktail of creative’s block, anxiety and overwhelm, be patient. Address your blank moment. Tell it that it can stay, but only for two days. After that, it’s time to go back to work.

Although you can’t erase blank moments, setting a time limit allows you to gain control over it. Allow yourself to dwell, but know that you can’t do it forever.

3. Find the lesson.

Don’t sit on the couch and wait for the aha moment to strike. Let your mind wander. Let it go on a scavenger hunt of random thoughts. Let it learn simply from thinking rather than experiencing. Let it experiment.

When you’re up for the challenge, think about this blank moment. What was going on before it arrived? What were you working on? Maybe you spent too much time in a soul-sucking project and now your brain needs some deep recharging. Scrutinize the situation, because in moments like this, there are hidden lessons everywhere.

4. Hit the road.

Sometimes the best way to deal with blank moments is self-care. Traveling solo is one effective way to be kind to your mind, body and spirit. Travel far and travel alone. Remember the two-day limit? Spend it alone in a new place.

If your blank moments are occurring more frequently, heed the gentle reminder that you’re pushing yourself too hard for too long. You might not be productive in the work sense, but by forcing yourself an inch outside of your comfort zone, you allow yourself to grow out of the blank moment and restart the creative engine in your mind—and when was that not considered productive?

5. Make a changing productivity list.

Forcing yourself to stare at the same project hoping for traction will only frustrate your mind and stress your spirit. You’ve already accepted that it’s “one of those days.” Shift gears and pull out one or two side projects that you’re passionate about. Spend some time on those. Work on them interchangeably with your main project. This will keep your mind busy with a different form of creativity to help you jump out of your rut.

6. Embrace your limitations.

There are ways to trick your mind and body into jumpstarting creativity. But there are also instances when you just have to sit, breathe and accept the fact that you have limitations. Experience taught me that no matter how hard you try making those blank moments count, if your ego is skyrocketing and you think you’re in control all the time, you’ll just end up feeling more frustrated.

Check in with yourself from time to time and be reminded that you’re not Superman or Wonder Woman. You have limitations, and one of them is not being able to eradicate blank moments. Accept it, give it a little time and then slowly work your way out of it.

7. Remind yourself of the power you possess.

You have the power to bring back your creativity and productivity. Learning how to make the most of blank moments takes time. Don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t work the first two or three tries. Simply knowing that you possess the power will keep you from the gloom-filled thoughts that try to interfere. You can come out of the rabbit hole any time you want.

Making the most of blank moments is not just about knowing how to avoid them, but learning how to harness those moments so they won’t end up useless. Sometimes that means doing nothing at all. Using the down days to be still and to remind yourself of the beautiful things—like the fact that you’re capable of bringing back productivity—is just as productive as “doing” something.

From www.success.com.

bq: How and when did you start Girnaas?
Girnaas: We started Girnaas in 2013. The idea came about in 2012 when we participated in the Innovation Theatre for QITCOM 2012 and won third place. The idea was just a gaming lab and the digital incubation centre offered us the opportunity to pitch for incubation as well, as a result of winning the contest. We got the chance to get incubated in 2013 and this is where our story started.

bq: What exactly do you do at Girnaas?
Girnaas: At Girnaas, we develop our own mobile games like Giddam, our first baby, and we develop apps as well. Besides this, we help indie developers here in Qatar to publish their game. We did that for the Hamad and Sahar game which we launched earlier this year. We also work with businesses like corporates, government and other organisations that want to deliver a specific value or a specific message for their brands and we create games that help them do that.

bq: Are there a lot of game developers in Qatar?
Girnaas: Not many, but there are a lot of talented people here. There is a huge network of people talented in graphics, coding, developing and much more. In Qatar, this industry, IT and technology in general and gaming specifically, is rather new here.  We are more on the consumer side than on the producer side and that’s another reason we created Girnaas. We want to put Qatar on the map of producing games for the whole region and the world, and shift the balance.

bq: Tell us about your first game.
Girnaas: Our first game was Giddam which we launched in December 2013 and in less than 5 months we have crossed over 300,000 downloads in about 100 countries and that’s a big number.

bq: What is Giddam about?
Girnaas: Giddam (you can download it here) was our first game which we launched in December 2013 and in less than five months we have crossed over 300,000 downloads in roughly 100 countries, and that’s a big number! It’s a competitive racing game where up to six people can play. It’s more like a running game actually, where you run and get surprises. When we got incubated and were deciding what our first game would be, we got a lot of people, young people and even children, men and women, Qataris and non-Qataris and we asked them what kind of games they were interested in, what kind of characters, what would the weapons be and so on. So we went about developing characters and scenes and finally ended up with four characters for Giddam. There’s Faraoulah (which means strawberry), Umm al Dahab (the lover of gold) and there’s Rashed and Ali. They have different personalities and characteristics and use different weapons. Even the weapons in the game are localised, like we have the Karak which is famous here and gives you more power, and Zanooba or the slipper where you can hit others.

bq: How popular has the game become?
Girnaas: The majority of downloads are from this region, out of the 300,000 downloads. There is a social element in the game where you actually create a room and you can chat with the people you’re going to race with. You can choose different levels. We started off with two levels of Qatar – the Souq Waqif and West Bay and about a month later, we introduced a new character and the map of Saudi Arabia. We are also working on some new characters right now along with different maps from the region.

bq: How long did it take you to develop this game?
Girnaas: From idea till actually launching the game, it took approximately three months.

bq: What business model do you follow? How are you funded?
Girnaas: Games in general have different business models. We had a few sponsors before launching our first game. We had a couple of Qatari companies who saw us in the news and contacted us. We thank them very much for believing in us – Seashore Qatar Group and the Qatari Women’s Sports Committee. They contacted us and we’ve put some ads for them in the game itself. It’s always a give and take and we don’t really want to flood our users with ads so the ad model that we work on with our sponsors is embedded in the game. It doesn’t interrupt gameplay.

Before launching the game, we received seed fund from the digital incubation centre as well. However, its seed fund and covers only basic needs. But the problem is building high quality games that can compete globally is not cheap! We did before launching, when we were short on funds, the first crowd-funding campaign here in Qatar and it was very successful. We got about 25000 USD in one month.

bq: How did people react to the concept of crowd-funding? Did it work?
Girnaas: Basically, it’s very popular in the US and the UK. You ask people from the crowd, the community to support you if you have a good idea and they get rights or content for that. Some of the characters we are building right now are for people who have given us money. Some of the people got our artwork as exclusive backgrounds for their mobile phones and stuff. It’s not a donation as such, it’s something like that. You give one dollar or two and different levels give you different rights. You get an exclusive tee shirt from Girnaas. It was difficult to convince people since this was a new concept in the region. We passed the link around and people would say, “but its asking me for money!” But ultimately we explained how it works to our friends and family and it became successful.

bq: How do games normally generate revenue?
Girnaas: Games usually generate revenue by either being a paid game, having in app purchases or from sponsor ad placements and so on. These are the main revenue streams.

bq: Does have in-app purchases?
Girnaas: Yes, you can “bling” your characters. You can purchase shades for Faraoulah, or change the colour of Rashid’s Thobe or get some different clothes for them.

bq: Does anyone make in-app purchases? Is this business profitable on the whole?
Girnaas: In app purchases are not very popular here, but we do have a percentage of users doing that. Yes it is, with our different business models like building games, helping publish games from indie developers and working with different businesses.

bq: What about the games that are already out there representing the region?
Girnaas: Even games that represent our region are done by people outside of the region and they end up misrepresenting us. They have a camel with two humps or someone wearing a Thobe who looks Mexican, for instance! We are from this region, we are rich with stories and we should hence tell our own stories. So our kids can play and get positive values out of it. We want to use gaming as a platform to teach, communicate or create a value. One of the other main reasons we created this is we see our children playing games that do not fully relate to this region or games that are violent, games that reward them for betrayal or for hitting someone from the back. I don’t want my son to grow up with these values. We wanted to promote the region and tell our own stories.

bq: Have you ever thought of taking a bank loan?
Girnaas: We did not. As co-founders, we’ve used our own money that we kept aside for this as well as the seed fund and now the crowd-funding. We’re currently at a stage where we have more demand than supply and were a very small team. There is a big demand here in the market. As a start-up we are at the next stage. We are looking for investors who can invest in our business to accelerate our growth. The problem with loans is its very high risk. The return on investment for games and technology would need around two years if not more. So banks may not be particularly interested in such small start-up companies or will want a big percentage of the company. This is our baby, and we can’t part with it.

bq: Do you think there is a lack of support here for young and aspiring entrepreneurs?
Girnaas: In general the entrepreneurial landscape in Qatar is very good. We have the ictQatar and HE Dr Hessa herself coming and checking if we need anything. We have great support from her. And, not a lot of governments would give entrepreneurs a free space like this to start your own business. Even though it’s a two year incubation, it’s a great opportunity. There’s Enterprise Qatar as well and other institutions that look after entrepreneurs. In general, it is in line with the QNV 2020. The whole nation is looking to diversify from oil and gas and looking to build a knowledge based economy and a knowledge based economy will come from technology and ICT based businesses. We are one of these businesses.

bq: What are the challenges you face?
Girnaas: Investment, of course. When you reach the next stage and need money to be pumped in to accelerate your growth, this is where we get stuck. In general around the world you’ll find angel investors, who precede venture capitalists. These people are willing to take risks along with start-ups and see results two or three years later. Also, global competition. As a small business, maybe what we need is some priority or preference when it comes to getting projects here in Qatar. So if we know any companies looking to develop an app or a game, they should look for local suppliers rather than international ones. Basically, support in getting us contracts.

bq: What about competition?
Girnaas: The mobile game industry is well above USD 20 bn and honestly, we don’t mind some new people coming in and sharing this profit with us.

bq: What’s in the pipeline?
Girnaas: We are working on updates for Giddam.  We just launched Giddam Connect a few weeks back. It’s the traditional connect four game with a Giddam twist. We have a full roadmap of games and apps that we are developing. We are just phasing things out and finding the right time to launch it.

bq: What does Giddam mean?
Girnaas: It literally means ‘in front’, but the actual meaning is ‘I take the challenge’ or ‘let’s go’. It basically matches the racing game concept. I would tell you ‘shall we go out?’ and you would say ‘yeah Giddam!’

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