Game jams are an excellent way to squeeze out some productivity. I'm approaching them lately as motivational tools, and trying to take odd angles to get some focused work out of them.
Jams come in varied forms - lately I'm also thinking about [[roam:prototype jams]], and what the difference between a game and prototype are.
I like to set goals for game jams as well. "if nothing else, at least accomplish
these things."
Those goals tend to be things like: 'Use at least one shader' (if you've never done so), or 'experiment with procedural level generation '.