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NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming

PolarBear

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  1. Day 10: + No games 🙂 + Did some reading! +/- Had a below average productivity at work, but I think it was mostly a result of being ahead of schedule for something I deliver on Wednesday. Now this is good, since normally I am finishing up stuff last minute... - Overslept today, so missed all the things I wanted to do in the morning. - No physical activity (that was scheduled for the morning)... Let's try again tomorrow. Biggest adjustment -> get up when alarm clock rings!
  2. Day 9: Its been a while since I posted, and there are good news and bad news... I did learn something, so I guess its a process. The good news: - No video games - Participated in a meetup "virtual werewolf" on Saturday. The other event on Wednesday got cancelled 😞 Virtual werewolf is a bit awkward without a webcam, had to use a mix of phone and PC. It was not nearly as social as I anticipated mostly because people wanted to make sure they don't talk over each other and because you can't direct your speech to someone by looking at them... Will try more activities and see how it goes... - Sleep normalized to 8 hours 🙂 The bad news: - Anime watching binge... I watched entire Attack on Titan. It was good, but I feel like I would enjoy it more if I stretched it over more time. - No physical activity. - I haven't picked up a book since Tuesday. - Wasted a lot of time mindlessly browsing youtube. Three things I learned: - I was aware from the start that binge watching anime could be an issue. What triggered watching more than 1 episode was an social event on Wednesday that got cancelled... And I watched a second episode and more episodes... and hello downward spiral... Need to be careful of events falling through. Clearly a risk factor for me. I'll attempt to have a backup plan, something like "if I get a free 3 hour window, here is what I'll do". On Saturday, I originally had an all day event as well, but that got cancelled last minute and resulted in a continuation of anime watching binge... Same trigger: change of plan -> slipping to old routines. - There was no plan for Thursday -> watching anime... Must spend more time planning my activities to have a plan for more than 1-2 days ahead. - I captured my reasons on why I didn't want to play some games in the last few days: - Why would I play WoW if I know I will just delete whatever I gain in it? - I don't want to play PuBG or CS because I will get destroyed by kids and I have zero chance to be as good as them because I am older, and because these games give me a headache after 4-5 hours and hence I can't practice enough to get good. - I don't want to play LoL or DotA because I am so out of date on heroes, items, meta etc... Too much trouble... And in a short term I will just get destroyed by kids... - I don't want to play Witcher because single player games bore me pretty quick... I never even finished it in the first place precisely because I got bored...
  3. Day 4: No games 🙂 Woo! Productive activities: - registered for a meetup event tomorrow after work "Couch, Cocktail & Conversation"! I have no couch and no cocktail, so the conversations will have to make up for the other two. - was very productive at work. - watched second episode of attack on titan. 10,000+ people eaten... Holy cow that escalated fast... Still sleeping a lot (12 hours again...), I wonder if others experience something similar... I was planning to go for a run in the morning, but woke up 4 hours later than expected, right on time for work... Will try to set an alarm clock for tomorrow morning and see how that feels. In theory 8 hours of sleep should be more than plenty to feel rested, but we'll see.
  4. Good luck Tabula rasa. Welcome 🙂
  5. Day 3: No gaming 🙂 Woooo!!! Productive activities I did: - Read a chapter of domain driven design. This one was good. It was contrasting layered architecture of Interface, Application, Domain, Infrastructure to Smart UI. A really nice systematization of things and when to use one over the other. I liked it! - Decided that my resting activity will be 1 (One) episode of anime (Not 2! No binging!). Picked "Attack on Titan" as anime of choice. So far 1 person eaten! - Was more productive than usual at work, I think not being sleep deprived was helpful haha. Speaking of sleep deprived... I slept for 12 hours.... 10 PM to 10 AM... Its bizarre... I chalk it up to catching up the last months of sleep time inadequacy... But that needs to get under control lol - Working on my calendar now, trying to make sure I don't fill it jam packed of reading with no social activities. Need a balance! Social activities are important! Still thinking about games quite a bit... Mostly in the sunken cost way.... SO MUCH STUFF WAS DELETED.... CAN IT BE RECOVERED??? HELL NO ^.^! Got a thank you from people I sent all my stuff to, they also said they already spent it all so I can't ask for a refund! I appreciate it haha 🙂 Need to get on meetup tomorrow and find something virtual (can't risk infecting my elderly grandparents), yet interesting... virtual board games would be cool... Among Us would probably be a bad idea, so will stay away from that 🙂
  6. Day 2: Didn't play video games 🙂 Woo!!! Did caught myself thinking about video games on numerous occasions though... I think this is normal though, need some time for my brain to switch away from games 🙂 Productive activities I did: - Went for a walk on the shore. Discovered that ocean smells quite nice 🙂 - Called all of my friends. Debating on whether I want to tell them about quitting video games or not... None of them know that I have this issue... They just noticed that I do a lot less social stuff in the last year... - Read a chapter of "Domain Driven Design" book. The chapter was rather boring because it made an argument for something I already learned from experience: "Software engineers cannot be separate from programmers. If they are separated by corporate structure, or whatever other reason, then programmers get confused by why stuff is designed the way it is designed, and software engineers become too disconnected from programming issues that arise in implementation." - Went to sleep early and woke up late! Holy cow! The head is not all foggy and blurry in the morning 🙂 Now that was some instant gratification lol Planning to take a shower and go raid a park today 🙂
  7. I play too much WoW for the sense of mastery and community, but being good requires lots of practice and farming which results in not enough practice and farming in real life. Hence I want to redirect my competitive energy from WoW to real life objectives. My objectives: - repair social life and catch up with real life friends and acquittances more often - get back to regular exercise and loose 40 pounds I gained in the last 1 year gaming binge - advance toward my goal of becoming a CTO of an insurance organization - continue reading the books related to the topic that were sitting on pause on my shelf for the last year - explore getting a master's degree - advance my business knowledge of how insurance operates - explore entrepreneurial ventures. Day 1 Dilemma: Do I send all of my stuff in WoW to a guild bank and delete my characters, or do I just uninstall the game right now? Sent everything to a friend, deleted my characters, uninstalled WoW, discord, twitch and steam, cancelled my subscription and hugged my cat 🙂 Hmm... What do I do now??? I think I will take a shower, get dressed and go for a walk on a boardwalk! It is nice outside and I haven't done that in ages!
  8. That's precisely what happened to me, haha. I tried playing casually because of more time at home, and games ate my life haha... So I am working on quitting again 🙂
  9. "I can't make the raid tonight. Got bit by the quit gaming bug. Reevaluating my life..." And here we go for attempt N+1! Let's learn from prior attempts, try a new strategy and get this gaming addiction boss down this time! I am in my mid 30s and I've been playing games on and off since I was a kid. The ONs were destructive death spirals every time. The OFFs were dizzying advancements in career, fitness and personal life. And yet I keep alternating... I don't want to alternate! So my gaming progression was top student in high school and one of the best young programmers -> Quake 2, CS, WoW -> failing a whole semester of college, insane loneliness... Quitting WoW... -> Finishing college, securing amazing job, passing half of my professional exams, marrying, starting a business -> Playing WoW and League -> Failing to pass second half of professional exams, nearly loosing my job, failing my business partners, divorce... Quitting WoW... -> Proposing and finishing amazing project at work, publishing a paper, giving speech at a major professional conference, getting an even more amazing job -> Playing WoW Classic -> Not doing much at my new job and playing insane amounts of WoW, and here I am quitting gaming because I know how this story ends if I don't! To me gaming (and WoW especially) does fill the: - social need (guild is a social place, 2 guilds are twice as social, always someone online who I "know") - achievement need (but to maintain it I need to put increasingly more time... life became work -> sleep -> game... and work is often daydreaming about game and being unproductive because of lack of sleep) - something to do when bored (I love snowboarding and social activities, but everyone is on quarantine so I slipped into "casual" gaming as a pastime and then it ate my life!) Sad part is that I knew I can't be casual gamer... And yet I tried anyway... So I am here to learn more about myself and quit this time for good. I haven't tried a group like this before, and I think it would certainly be very helpful to quit in a more scientific and more supported way 🙂
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