Reassess time spent enjoying luxury
Every time my wife is away for business travel, I take the opportunity to do things I don't have time for when we're together: video games, movies and TV shows my wife won't watch, that sort of thing. Inevitably I wind up spending too much time with these luxuries. Just last night (Monday), when I had all day to play with a vacation day, I didn't go to sleep until 12:50 AM.
My alarm is set just after 6am so that is a sub-optimal time to go to sleep on a weekday. But this is a regular occurrence and no matter how many times I say to myself "that's enough, no more staying up past 11pm", I get carried away and keep shorting myself sleep time.
Video games
Video games are the number one time sink for me. My wife doesn't mind when I play video games, but I usually avoid playing them when she's here because they are solo activities and take my attention away from her. When I play video games while she's home, it's usually when she's working on something else and isn't interested in watching TV.
For example, last week she had a few later nights with work so I fired up a few video games to kill some time between reading a book and doing some writing.
Still, that doesn't leave me very much time for gaming. So, when my wife is away, I break out the games. For something like NHL 25 it's easier to manage since there are time limits to each game (I play with 4 or 5 minute periods), and I can decide on playing x amount of games - so maybe I play 2 or 3 games per session and dedicate 30-45 minutes and then do something else.
But games like MLB 24 or Star Wars Outlaws or Star Trek Resurgence take a lot longer. At least with MLB, games generally take 15-20 minutes, so it's similar to NHL where I can set a limit to 2-3 games (but they still aren't timed, so the total time played can last an hour plus). But for the other two games, I have no idea how long an individual mission might take to complete.
Add to that the fact that Outlaws is an open-world game, so I might do one mission and then decide "Oh I'll just do this one side quest..." and lose track of how much time I've been playing1.
Other than watching a movie last night, this is what had me up past midnight. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but I spent too much time on this one.
Movies & TV shows
These aren't as "bad" as video games. With TV shows I know how much time is involved - usually I line up 2, maybe 3 shows at a time. Not always the same show in a row, but that largely depends on what I feel like watching. For instance, this week I might watch several episodes of Andor since I am one episode removed from my season 1 re-watch and starting season 2; or I might switch between that and Only Murders in the Building.
Where it becomes dicey is when I decide that I want to watch more. I watch my 2-3 episodes, but my entertainment desire is not sated. So I throw on another one, and suddenly it's 11pm. Oops.
Movies, too, take up a lot of time. Some of the movies I want to watch that my wife won't want to are 2 hours+. Last night's choice, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992, dir. Francis Ford Coppola) mercifully clocked in at only 2 hours, 8 minutes; I was able to fit that in easily. The problem lies in that after watching the movie, I decide that I want to play a video game, and then I fall into that trap.
The solution?
The reductive answer is "better time management" or "self control". Those are such easy answers, something that would be obvious to an outsider looking in. I'm sure others know this is easier said than done.
So there are some things I'm going to try:
- Tonight, I'm focusing on the Sens vs. Stars game; it'll finish by 10:30 at the latest, and I can do some other productive things between periods. No extracurricular activities (TV shows, video games) afterward - just go to bed.
- Bonus, if I do start another activity I have a hard stop - the game starts at 7pm.
- If I do play a video game, use my timer to set a limit. When the timer goes off, finish whatever I'm doing in the game and shut it off.
- Actually I don't have a better third option other than doing my best to set a hard stop. Say, 10pm; don't start a new video game / movie / TV show after that time. Finish whatever I'm watching/playing if I hit 10pm, then that's it. Go write something.
We'll see how it goes tonight!
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Sabaac is pretty easy, but I played at least 3 rounds, and those take a while. And then I did more missions on top of that!↩