NEW VIDEO: Why You MUST Quit Gaming in 2025
WorkInProgress
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Posts posted by WorkInProgress
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I already fell of the wagon by missing some journaling days here.
My situation changed a bit because I am effectively was layed off from my job and have three Months of payed free time until I find another job. This also changes my goals for the next three months and I think I should therefore use this three months as an opportunity to
- Find a better job.
- Develop a healthy way to care for my self.
- Strengthen the bond with my wife.
- Being present with my children.
- Connect with my friends and family.
- Get things in our apartment organized and clean.
These are my objectives.
To reach them I need to do a few things:
- Clarify my objectives by breaking them down in parts.
- Note down the actionable tasks I need to do to reach my objectives.
- Note down habits that help me to be in the reach my
- Note down single actions that enable me to do
Because this is a lot of planning and I need to go to action immediately I start today only with the most time sensitive goal (my job search) and will use every day at 8:30 plan out the other habits and reflect on my existing habit trackers.
Find a better job
Meeting following objectives would make the job better:
- pays more then 62k
- time doesn't have to be tracked
- location is under 30min driving distance away
- no travel to customers
- more technical then my previous job
- I can leverage my Atlassian experience
Actionable Tasks to reach the objective
- Add stored job listings which match this criteria to 80% into google sheets
- Cluster them in the categories software tester, product owner, it consultant
- Create a cover letter and a customized cv for the software tester jobs
- Look-up the organization and write down questions to the jobs in the sheet
- Call the organizations and ask the questions
- Customize the cover letter regard the answers and the job listings.
- Send the letters
- Repeat this for Product Owner jobs and It-Consultant jobs
Habits that help me reach the objective (PomodorosFocused Knowledge Work)
- If I sit down at my desk (cue), I will write down the tasks I want to do the next 25min (action), then I will make 5minutes break to stand up, drink water, and think about the things I accomplished in the session (reward)
- I will do at least 4 25minutes sessions every day starting at 8:30
- On Weekends I will do the same but instead of job searching I will post my results here and plan out the other objectives or study software testing topics.
Supporting Environment Changes:
- Clean my Desk (only laptop, Notepad and a glass of water)
- Clean my Desktop (keep only relevant stuff for job search)
- Fill the Notepad with Headings for the date and task list
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Block youtube, and porn sites
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@royal pandaThank you for your good wishes. Best of luck to you too with your own struggles 🙂
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Counters (since 2020-11-25)
Days with sweating: 0
Days without sweating: 3
Days I went to bed before 10 in the evening: 3
Days I went to bed after 10 in the evening: 0
Days without sweets: 1
Days with sweets: 2
Days with more then 2l water consumption: 2
Days with less then 2l water consumption: 1
Relieved Stress mostly positively today: 1
Relieved Stress mostly negatively today: 2
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Counters (since 2020-11-25)
Days with sweating: 0
Days without sweating: 2Days I went to bed before 10 in the evening: 2
Days I went to bed after 10 in the evening: 0Days without sweets: 1
Days with sweets: 1Days with more then 2l water consumption: 1
Days with less then 2l water consumption: 1Relieved Stress mostly positively today: 1
Relieved Stress mostly negatively today: 1-> Two rocky days with bad overall scores. At the end of next week I want 75% or more on every metric so I have to step it up.
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Counters (since 2020-11-25)
Days with sweating: 0
Days without sweating: 1Days I went to bed before 10 in the evening: 1
Days I went to bed after 10 in the evening: 0Days with sweets: 0
Days without sweets: 1Days with more then 2l water consumption: 1
Days with less then 2l water consumption: 0Relieved Stress mostly positively today: 1
Relieved Stress mostly negatively today: 0Got fired yesterday. Or more preciesily got a "Aufhebungsvertrag" and telled that they don't want to work with me. Well luckily in germany we have nice worker protection laws, which means the offered contract stipulates that I get payed for 3 Months without working. Seems like a good offer but I'll spent some times today to check some stuff written in it.
But needless to say this was very stressful for me so I was happy to stick to the exercise instead of youtube plan.
I think I need to drink water today though.. Challenge accepted.
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@dasvira and @championeal Thanks for your answers. It means a lot that people read about my struggles.
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Short summary of the content in this journal: I want to change Stress -> Gaming Videos -> Self shaming to Stress -> Burpees -> Self appraising. I will track my successes with that tactic here and iterate if necessary. In parallel I try to understand myself more and identify good/neutral/bad habits of mine.
To be able to build new habits and handle in my every day challenges I need to focus on energy. Without energy everything gets harder. What is giving me energy? Do sport regularly, prioritize sleep, don't eat sugary foods or drink coffee, drink enough water.
Counters (since 2020-11-25)
Days with sweating: 0
Days without sweating: 0Days I went to bed before 10 in the evening: 0
Days I went to bed after 10 in the evening: 0Days with sweets: 0
Days without sweets: 0Days with more then 2l water consumption: 0
Days with less then 2l water consumption: 0Relieved Stress mostly positively today: 0
Relieved Stress mostly negatively today: 0Long Version:
Hello fellow game quitters.
My name is Mario and I quit games quite a while ago. After eliminating this bad habit from my life (beside some short relapses), I was able to reach some moderate amount of success in my life. I am a father now, have a happy marriage, a moderately well paying job and am still okay in shape. Yay!
On the other hand I did struggle lately. My father and wife suffering from mental illness, and I myself realizing how lacking I am in so many areas of my life. Especially in knowing what I want. I suck at my job at the moment and am on the verge of leaving it or getting fired because I can't deliver value. I tried to become better, but it feels like the stuff I do there just isn't something I like or am good at, at the moment.
I am bad with stress. If stress and uncertainty come up, I will often switch to distractions (lately more and more nostalgia gaming videos on youtube). These are also the situations where I relapsed in the past.
Why am I writing here again?
I want to be in good community and you guys and gals having the same background of gaming addiction makes gamequitters a safe place to write for me here.
I want to be better. I want to live my life on my terms. So the questions is following: What would I like to be if I had the choice?
I compiled a little list of adjectives I would like to embody more in three areas (Character, Mind, Body)
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Character
- Helpful
- Honest
- Human
- Loving
- Positive
- Respectful
- Curious
- Direct
- Disciplined
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Mind
- Reflective
- Focused
- Present
- Thorough
- Organized
- Resilient
- Happy
- Systematic
- Creative
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Body
- Energetic
- Agile
- Groomed
- Attractive
- Healthy
- Strong
- Balanced
- Coordinated
I hope to find habits to improve these three dimensions which allow me to becoming a person which I would describe with this words.
So what is the action plan until my next birthday? Recognize the bad habits I have and switch them with a habit which serves me in the long run.
First candidate: Trigger: Stress/low-self-esteem -> Watching feed media/youtube/porn -> short term dopamine boost -> long term disappointment in my self -> Stress/low-self-esteem.
What I want to do instead: If I realize that I am stressed or feeling worthless -> do burpees until the pressure feeling is better -> Ask for help / Do the first action of the things I must do which is done in under 15minutes -> Be proud of myself (happy) for realizing I was stressed (Reflective, Present), following through on my planned alternative behavior (Resilient, Systematic, Disciplined, Energetic, Healthy, Strong).
By tracking these here and also writing down about other habits I have I hope to embody these adjectives more in the future.
Edit: Added a few counters for energy habits. I plan to update them regularly in a daily review, on my phone and update the numbers here. If I have a n overall 75% (positive/negative) ratio over a longer period of time. I will become the person who sleeps well, does sport and is psychical and physical strong.
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2020-06-10
Free of games and game-related videos since 2020-06-01
Right now I am procrastinating from work. That is why I thought I do this in a more productive way and write a quick entry here.
Today I am pretty energetic and had a good morning. I took actively care of my son and we had a good time. I was still able to shower and make breakfast + coffee. I think it helped that we were awake around 5:10 and I slept well. So I had a lot of time this morning (from 5:10 - 8:10) to generate a good start in the day for my family.
Work was a lot of communicating so far so now I need to sit down and produce something in a planned matter. I think the solution to my hesitation here is just to make a plan with times and stick to it if at all possible. I will also mute slack/outlook/etc for this time to get some work done.basically 2hours production mode.
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2020-06-09
Free of games and game-related videos since 2020-06-01
It sucks but I need introspection way more then I was aware of. I am glad to have a medium here to "think in writing". Today was another stress inducing morning. Work coupled with some private family issues forced me to stop working and I couldn't get into a focussed mode. Unable to deal with my feelings I again opened youtube and watched something to get some distance (nothing game related though). Now I am able to write about it which is good progress. But to get back in that mental state costed me half an hour of work time.
I read a book about feelings. It says it is essential to "feel through" the feelings and that they have a message to sent you. I think I am sad and frightened about this family issues. Maybe I should be angry instead to fuel my motivation against it. But I am not often angry about stuff. In my childhood I always had to cry if I were really angry which led to mocking at school. I think I somehow surpressed this feeling. And now I can't use it in a productive way. Instead of getting angry about things I can change (and then changing them fueled by that motivation) I feel helpless, sad and scared. This doesn't lead to action and should be appropriate if I couldn't do anything about it. But to always believing you can't do anything keeps you helpless and doesn't change the situation. I can do something about this and I will!
Thanks for reading. I am back to work.
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16 hours ago, ace_dee said:
Always will be good days and bad days.
I found completely avoiding game related media definitely helps prevents cravings. It seems like it isn't the game itself that is the draw but being a part of a "community". I disabled my twitch account and even through some streamers are great people and worthy of support I can't let myself go back there until I get the rest of my life in order.
Don't looking at the same stuff helps wiht craving. I think in my case it's just a way to handle with bad feelings and its hard to change that habit of watching stuff (especially since I went without gaming for over 2 years before I "relapsed"). But that's why I write here for accounatabilty. Instead of entering the loop I watched as a short break from work someone building a loghouse in canada. Then I was able to come here instead. Still not optimal but better. I will get there again.
Thanks for your input.
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2020-06-08
Free of games and game-related videos since 2020-06-01
Today was a stressfull day so far. I have a lot of work to do and did argue with my wife this morning. Now after a bigger representation went reasonably well I feel a bit better but still have a lot of tension inside me. I felt the urge to go the youtube route and even started to watch a video (non-gaming related) but after some reflection I decided to write here instead. Another little project will be due on 15:30. It feels like my lack of timemanagement is setting myself under a lot of unnecessary pressure. Because I don't know what I will have done until a point in time, I have always the feeling I need to do more. Slack on my mobile isn't helping. It is a crutch around bad planning/communication to be available all the time for work. The goal should be to have everything settled in a way that you don't need to be available all the time.
After this realisation I deinstalled Slack.
Writing helped a bit with the tension but no
I need to,want to go to work again.Thanks for reading.
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7 Days
Free of games and game-related videos since 2020-06-01
Todays highlight was a trip with my son to the nearby playground. My mobile battery was almost down so I couldn't read a lot, and *had* to enjoy the time with him. Was great.
A lot of worries about work though. It's hard for me to chill out. I should uninstall slack on my mobile again.
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6 Days
Free of games and game-related videos since 2020-06-01
Thank you all for your comments. I realize how much it helps to have a community of people around which are in a similar position. I also told my wife about going back to gamequitters so I don't have to sneak around doing it. I am thankful to have her in my life.
My 3-month parental leave will begin in July and this means there is a lot of work to do at work. Due to corona, I took also a lot of holiday days which makes me anxious about finishing my current work before I am off. I am scared to leave in a bad way because I think this job is great and I don't want to leave a bad impression. Especially since I am still a new member of the team.
The other thing I am anxious about is the birth of my second son. Our first one is challenging we don't have a "village" to support us because we don't have the best relationship to my mother and all my friends don't have kids and don't understand how hard it can be with one and soon two children who need a lot of attention.
I am learning to draw with pencils from books right now which is in theory a great hobby. It doesn't need a computer and I imagine myself drawing for my wife and my children. I read in a book about some executive who draws a picture every day for both his daughters and puts them in their lunch packet. I would love to have such a routine. But it's hard for me to take time for myself if I am needed that much in my family right now. And if I am honest I was a little demotivated because the process was slow. I think I will post some sketches here from time to time. But I need first come into the habit of journaling again before I can commit to anything.
I hope you all are doing well. I'll write to you soon.
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15 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:
Welcome back. I was in a similar spot as you before going on my current 84 week stretch without games. You'll get it back.
Good luck.
Thank you. And you beet me on reputation 😄.
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3 minutes ago, Erik2.0 said:
Welcome to the forums. I don't know how distracting it was for you to be on here. But, if it helps you stay off games it's probably good for you in moderation.
It just took a little too much time and I used it as a more positive evasion tactic for me not to have to feel current discomfort. Thats my thing. Evading bad stuff. Not so much the gaming addiction itself. Can do the same thing with watching stupid things. It was still essential to break the habit/addiction of gaming. Because if i am gaming I can basically stop thinking about anything else. So this is way worse then writing in a form or reading too muhc self-help 😉
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Hey there.
I also realised that porn/masturbation is linked to gaming/youtube in my neuronal network. If I do one or the other, the probabilty increases a lot that I do the other too. If you are the same in this regard this is for sure a solid case to quit both things together.
I think there are two different skills you'll need to quit gaming. First you need to be able to be okay with witholding instant gratification (this is what this detox is for). Second you'll need to find out what feelings evoked your gaming habits. I can't generalize but for me it is the case that if I dread something, I will feel the urge to distract me. Often this isn't concious and I only realise whats really going on if I feel the urge to play/watch youtube/porn.
So my advice would be to watch yourself in situations you have urges and note down what you were doing. Over time and with some reflection you surely will find your own triggers.
In my case I am working on feeling the dread and accepting that I am scared of not finishing or beeing not good enough. Acknowlidging it often helps. And if not I atleast know why I have to fight that urge again and can try to avoid or accept this situations in the future.
Best of luck with your 90 days 🙂
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1 hour ago, Cam Adair said:
Welcome back bro. Congrats on your soon-to-be 3rd child - very inspiring to me.
Thank you. Hope your still doing well Cam. It's only the 2ond one though 😉.
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Introduction
Hello, my name is Mario. I was a member of this community from 2016-2018 and stopped writing here because it distracted me from my life.
My main problems were online games like Dota2 and LOL. I use gaming as a distraction from negative feelings. I am good at focusing so this worked well at first. But over time it became an automatic pattern with bad consequences. It led to me failing at university and in my relationships. My gaming time at university was the worst in my life.
After I stopped playing games things got better. I finished university more or less successfully. After university, I found a good first tech-job. Recently I changed jobs into another way better-paid tech-job I enjoy. I also am a happy father of a 2,5-year-old and expect another son in the mid of July. Besides all the challenges a new child, a new job and live in general provides, everything went well.
But lately, I started to watch more WC3 footage on youtube. Then I watched hearthstone footage. Finally, I played Hearthstone instead of working. Immediately my world began to crumble. I started to dislike my work. I was stressed. My wife said I was absent and unfriendly.
Then I pulled the trigger and told my wife about my slip and stopped gaming. This worked for a few days but then I had another setback, as I had a challenging time and couldn't resist dropping into Hearthstone again. I uninstalled it this Monday and am back on track.
Gamequitters worked for me in the past and that is why I will write here about stuff that challenges me and game-related urges for the next 90 days. I probably won't write on not working days. But we'll see how it turns out. Happy to be back. Thanks to all creators and contributors of this community.
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Hey this sounds really troubling man and i am sorry you are going through this. This way of thinking is your mind and body screwing you. The only thing you can do right now is not killing yourself but reaching out for help. Family, friends or even better professional help like a suizide hotline. People will help you and you deserve to be helped.
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Date
Friday 15.08.2018
Thoughts
The reality of others is important. Be always sure you at least get a feel of how the people around you see the world. What are their goals? What are their motivation? How do they assess you? Use outside perspectives on you to improve you weaknesses.Thankfulness
I could work in a soulless cubicle. I could have no freedom. I could be to scared to learn new things. I could ahve no money forbooks. Live is great!Goals
I will earn 8k+ more money next year
Get leadership position as a mentor for new members of the team.
Become an expert in the user macro development
Become an expert at the Java-API and Scripting Jira wiht teh help of Scriptrunner-Be the leading expert on our most important customer project and use above skills there.Management changed its plans. In retrospective I wasn't ready and quite happy tofocus more on my expertice -
Welcome back Zala. He was right. You had a success and a failure. You aren't unsuccessful. You are riding the waves and now it is time for things to look up again after a downwards spiral. Now things will be better and you will start to feel better with yourself again.
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Date
Friday 13.07.2018
Thoughts
I again said yes to a promising project at work. Now I need to focus on results that I can actually reach that 8k+ at the end of the year and have a lot of results to show for.
Thankfulness
We could be indebted. We could be without jobs. We could be without a support system. Things are great. I am thankful for that.Goals
I will earn 8k+ more money next year
Get leadership position as a mentor for new members of the team.
Become an expert in the user macro development
Become an expert at the Java-API and Scripting Jira wiht teh help of Scriptrunner-
Be the leading expert on our most important customer project and use above skills there.-
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Pernix's Journal: New Direction
in Daily Journals
Posted
I personally wasn't able to do it in moderation. Every time I started playing I couldn't stop. Thats why cold turkey was the only way for me.
But I use distractions and used games in specific to evade bad emotions. So this is the main problem. Cold turkey helps to face your problems. Ylu got nothing else go do. That feels bad. But better bad in the moment then much worse in the future.
If gaming makes you stop enjoying human connections it is time to let it go. It won't be easy but worth it.
I had a struggling relationship when I stopped gaming. Now almost 4 years later I married that woman and have two great sons with her. I am sure that we would have split up if I did not stop this addiction.
So do it like it works for you. But give it a honest try. Its worth it despite being bored or having other bad feelings for some time.