Balancing games and work

lovestospooge

I'm looking for advice/opinions on how I can be successful IRL but also really enjoy videogames. I guess it's a personal thing, but I'm either all videogames and no work, or all work and no videogames. There's no lack of motivation in either sphere, it's just that, for whatever reason, I have trouble putting one down to pick up the other. I might describe it as too much motivation for both?

I'm not sure if Khoo still frequents the forums, but I'd be particularly interested in his take on it. How does one run a business and still have time to play games? I have aspirations of running my own business and I know it takes a lot of work. I'd prefer it if I didn't have to abandon videogames, something so big a part of my childhood and still very enjoyable today.

Peen

What kind of work? School? Job?

Do your work first. It takes a finite amount of time. Use your remaining time for whatever, games included.

Xaquin

Work your 8 hours or whatever and game after work?

If you want to do both, that's pretty much your only option I'd think.

ceres

Khoo does not often visit the forums outside of the PAX forum and is unlikely to see this.

If you have trouble putting down either to pick up the other, then the answer is to prioritize the one you need to get done first, which is work. Make sure that's done before you get started with games.

NightDragon

If your work is more like "homework" and would allow for this kind of schedule, you could try getting it all done in the week, and using your free days for videogames. It can be hard to go from the "play" mindset to the "work" mindset, and vice versa. By doing the required stuff all in one go, you can try to minimize the number of times you have to switch from one to the other.

I did this all the time in high school and college....not out of laziness, but just because that was how I worked best: a 12-page essay was due in a month? I can't do 30 minutes of work every day. It is not a large enough block of time for me. I'd wait until the last few days before the due date, and spend a handful of hours each day (while I could stay "in the zone") writing the paper. This allowed me to spend all of my free time in a large "block", and do all of my work in a large "block". I would go crazy if I had to switch back and forth multiple times per day. Of course, I could have reversed that timeline as well...and just finished the entire thing in a few days, and not have had to worry about doing it at the end of the month. If you're worried that you would slack off or spend too much time doing videogames, I'd highly recommend you try that out (doing work first, in the largest block of time you can), so that you can rest easy afterwards, and spend your free time gaming.

That being said, if being successful to you means excelling in your work, and especially if you're hoping to ever start a new business, "play" will absolutely have to come secondary behind "work". That's not to say you will never have fun ever, but rather than spending your time evenly divided between the two, you'll likely have to spend a bit more of your time doing your work or building your business. For somebody who has never done that before especially, there's just no way around that. Time has to be put in to be prepared and knowledgeable. Try to lay out a plan for yourself, and dip your toes into the process. Start forming good habits. It'll be good practice for when you have to balance your time well.

lovestospooge

Thanks all for your comments. Maybe I'll send Khoo an email. I reread his AMA and saw him talking about how his time to play games had become more limited.

NightDragon wrote: »

That being said, if being successful to you means excelling in your work, and especially if you're hoping to ever start a new business, "play" will absolutely have to come secondary behind "work". That's not to say you will never have fun ever, but rather than spending your time evenly divided between the two, you'll likely have to spend a bit more of your time doing your work or building your business. For somebody who has never done that before especially, there's just no way around that. Time has to be put in to be prepared and knowledgeable.

This is pretty much where my thoughts lead to, and I guess where trouble starts for me. After a bout of working hard and having an efficient mindset, I can only see games as a time sink. They're just such a time investment. It seems to me that the only way to play a game is habitually. Consider the scenario where I only play for a few minutes on random occasions. When I boot up a save, the chances are I won't remember the plot, characters, or even the gameplay mechanics. At that point, to me, it just becomes pointless. Would you disagree?

Usagi

lovestospooge wrote: »

Thanks all for your comments. Maybe I'll send Khoo an email. I reread his AMA and saw him talking about how his time to play games had become more limited.

NightDragon wrote: »

That being said, if being successful to you means excelling in your work, and especially if you're hoping to ever start a new business, "play" will absolutely have to come secondary behind "work". That's not to say you will never have fun ever, but rather than spending your time evenly divided between the two, you'll likely have to spend a bit more of your time doing your work or building your business. For somebody who has never done that before especially, there's just no way around that. Time has to be put in to be prepared and knowledgeable.

This is pretty much where my thoughts lead to, and I guess where trouble starts for me. After a bout working hard and having an efficient mindset, I can only see games as a time sink. They're just such a time investment. It seems to me that the only way to play a game is habitually. Consider the scenario where I only play for a few minutes on random occasions. When I boot up a save, the chances are I won't remember the plot, characters, or even the gameplay mechanics. At that point, to me, it just becomes pointless. Would you disagree?

Well, you end up choosing games that allow you to put them down/pick them up easily, and games that can be played in small bundles of time rather than spending consecutive hours/days playing them.

Example: FF13. I looove Final Fantasy games, but 35 hours just to get through the tutorial phase? NOPE.

admanb

I think you're underestimating your brain's ability to store and recall information. I finished Dark Souls 1.5 times and 75% of Dark Souls 2 (both known for being punishingly difficult and relying heavily on memory) while often not playing them for whole weeks.

Plus, there are plenty of games that are still great experiences when you can only play an hour or so at a time.

NightDragon

Yeah, I'd agree that you may try looking into games that don't require such a heavy investment of your time for each play session.

I don't play MMO's all that much anymore, for example, because I realized how they can be really big time sinks. In a game like the Sims, Pokemon, Minecraft (or almost any mobile game, which are built for this playstyle), you can spend a much smaller chunk of time playing, and still get stuff done. Mobile games you only need to play for a few minutes to get stuff done, and there's a pretty large range of genres available. And again, that's not to suggest you'd never be able to play those other games, but you would likely not be able to play them every single day...just in moderation.

Kakodaimonos

It doesn't sound like necessarily have a time issue but more of an engagement issue. You might have some success actually scheduling out your time for games/work/life so when you sit down and play a game you can tell yourself, "OK. In two hours I'm going to hit a stopping place and go do some work."

WiseManTobes

Try treating games as your reward for finishing your work. ( Repurposing Sarah Silverman advice about pot, but it works for almost anything recreational)

schuss

As you get older and more involved in your career, there's less time to game. Choose experiences to maximize your enjoyment, and don't worry about playing the latest stuff. Special bonus: since the volumeis lower, you can get great games for cheap months after release

WiseManTobes

Be careful, when busy like this too, it's really easy to accidentally join a small subset of PC gamers, ( I'm stuck in it atm) where the only "game" you play is called buying cheap games on steam and never actually playing them, the chase of the dollar games becomes it's own game.

davidsdurions

WiseManTobes wrote: »

Be careful, when busy like this too, it's really easy to accidentally join a small subset of PC gamers, ( I'm stuck in it atm) where the only "game" you play is called buying cheap games on steam and never actually playing them, the chase of the dollar games becomes it's own game.

Stupid back log. Then you get depressed because some of the games you know are good but you still can't pull yourself away from Civilization long enough to make progress on any of them. Ahhhhhhhh!

Lilnoobs

What type of work? Since you're having this problem, I doubt it's a 9-5 and the job is over after you get home. If so, the only choice you have is to play different types of games or to get a different job.

The days of getting lost in an epic narrative of a videogame for 3-5 hours at a time are over. The sooner you come to grips with that and make your choice, the better off you'll be.

curly haired boy

for me the biggest change has been the degree of investment and the ramp-up time to enjoyment

i relish a good challenge, but these days i usually play the stuff i'm already good at - because getting good at something NEW would take much more time and energy than i can devote to any one play session

the old games have the lowest barrier to entry or exit. no need to brush up to have fun, and no impulse to practice more and delay other things you need to do.

Sterica

Okay, let's be a bit honest here: Khoo is not your average Joe, and he has a work ethic that is incredibly high. While it's good to aim high, I feel like trying to emulate Khoo, at least to begin with, is going to make you feel incredibly shitty about yourself. This is a man that works like 14 hours shifts or something ridiculous.

You say your problem is that it's all-work or all-games, but I get the feeling Khoo leans heavily towards the former. And that is fine for him, he found something he loves to do, but that may not work for you.

schuss

Also, one of the keys is divorcing yourself from "I have to be successful as X", as you're not X, you're you. Everyone tops out at some point in their careers, and it's up to you how far you want to go. If you'd rather play more games and make a lower salary, go for it, it's your life, just understand the choices and tradeoffs you're making. Same goes for if you work super-hard; don't get salty that you don't have any free time.

Iruka

To be honest, I balance some of this out with lets plays and podcasts. It is sometimes enough for me to keep up on the news and watch some youtubers play something while I multi-task. The thing is that I can multi-task with the work I do, so that may not work for all.

That being said, no matter what you do or what your hobbies are, it is an excellent idea to teach yourself how to take a break and then get back on task. If you have work that is somewhat endless, learn how to break it up and walk away for a bit. If you are the same with games, get a DS and flip that thing closed when its time to walk away or you're done in the bathroom or whatever.

Since you say its either all work or all play, it sounds like more a problem with that than with video games in particular. You can certainly use games as a reward for doing work, but only when you know when you can stop working.

EWom

You sound like a couple guys I know, one of them works through the winter to support his summers (fly fishing) the other works through the summer to support his winters (skiing). Both of them dedicate themselves wholly to their hobby once they can, and will just outright quit whatever job they are doing in order to go enjoy their hobby. Both of these people seem over all happy, but this all or nothing lifestyle seems to be wearing on them a little the older they are getting.

In addition to this lifestyle being extremely hard on anything resembling a career; it is brutal on relationships. Turns out significant others don't feel very significant when they are abandoned repeatedly for a trout, for fresh powder, or for mario.

Your best bet is to decide what direction you want to take your career, and shoot for that, and realize that video games are entertainment, that are here to supplement happiness, not be the sole provider of happiness. Then learn to enjoy video games in moderation; which to some people means cutting out certain kinds of games (MMO's for example).

The Ender

Have you tried to use a physical scheduler of some sort to prompt you when to switch activities?


This used to work wonders for me when I was freelancing; set an over timer (these days you can probably find an app for your phone or whatever) to buzz me after [x] amount of time, play games / do whatever, reset it when it went off, write, go back to leisure time after it goes off again.

Nija

I work from 7am-3:30pm M-F. (insert 1 hour commute from work to school here). I am in school from 5pm-9pm M-Th. I do my homework for 2 hours on Friday (from about 5pm-7pm). I play video games from 8:30pm to whenever I want. Saturday I wake up at 9am and finish the rest of my homework. Then I do household chores (cook foods, clean the house, grocery shopping, etc.). When that is done (hopefully by 7pm Saturday night) I don't have anything to do until Monday morning. Hooray game time. I am generally in bed by 2am Sunday morning and my alarm is set for 9am Sunday morning.

This is my base schedule. Work > everything. I have to keep a roof over my head, which means work is the most important thing. Find a way to schedule your life around work and, like those above said, use gaming as a reward.