Everyone knows it’s easier to buy new miniatures than it is to sit and paint them. It’s easy to walk into your local hobby store or shop online, all you have to do is hand over some cash and you have a new shiny box of miniatures.

Unless this is kept in check your collection of miniatures waiting to be built and painted will quickly get out of hand. (The dreaded ‘Pile of Shame’!)

You start out with good intentions, convincing yourself that you will only buy one box, which you will build and paint before buying any more. You get half way through building the kit when something else catches your eye and you order more miniatures. This happens again and again until you have this giant stack of miniatures that you need to build and paint. This is when the project becomes daunting and you start to make excuses not to paint. The project drags on and on and you try to ignore the giant pile of shame.

You continue to tell yourself that you will get around to finishing them but things get in the way, work, family, friends etc.

When you have some free time you need to know how to allocate it accordingly. Things can easily distract you, films, tv, internet. You can spend time sitting on the sofa watching tv or you could do some hobby. At the end of the day you would have something to show for your time other than a warm spot on the sofa.

There are ways to keep yourself motivated and on track.

Join forums or groups on social media, tell other gamers what you plan on doing and post pictures for support.

Making to-do-lists and timetables also help.

We live in a world of distractions, so if you don’t start using your time wisely, you will end up looking around your house at the age of 70 surrounded by piles of unbuilt, unpainted miniatures.