gloriousclover

I am from Calgary. Boom Woot! Fellow Albertan!

More catch up. Just going to summarize what I think are the key points via calendar and time tracking Days Summary Day 15 (June 2) - Work, played baseball with the little brother Day 16 - Work, cousin's birthday, hang out all night Day 17 - Archery, lunch and catch up Day 18 (June 5 Sunday) - Errands all day, hang out at night Day 19 - Work, badminton Day 20 - Work, team building event with colleagues Day 21 - Work, prepare for presentation Day 22 - Work presentation day, hang out at night Day 23 (June 10 Friday) - Work, rock climbing Day 24 - Archery, cardio/conditioning, hang out all afternoon Day 25 - Cardio/conditioning, hang out all evening till late night Day 26 - Work, badminton Day 27 (June 14 Tuesday, Yesterday) - Work, took a friend out for her birthday, archery Key points - Haven't really had any issues not being able to game. Still think about it now and then, but the concept of being okay with nostalgia still sticking. More concerned with how effectively I am using my time (Pareto) - May 30 - June 5 - 6.5 hours entertainment - June 6 - June 12 - 8.5 hours entertainment - Happy with my engagement/entertainment ratio, challenges in the past was free time at home, and not exercising, what do I do? Now free time is mainly spent drawing, learning about finance/money, lots of reading, planning the next week.

Okay, lots of catch up. Been pretty busy, productivity has gone up a lot. Generally pretty happy with how things are going. Day 10 (May 28 - Saturday) - Did some work on Saturday, went to archery, got some reading in, had a 2 hour talk with a friend Day 11 - Went rock climbing, did a bunch of errands, meditated, had a 1.5 hour talk with a friend, connected with another friend from Korea, went out for a late night dinner to hang out with another friend. Over the course of May 23-28 managed to keep the entertainment down to 13 hours. Feeling good about that. Aiming to keep it down even more in the next week. Day 12 - Work, some online learning, drawing meetup, dinner with a friend and was shooting the shit till late night Day 13 - Work, ran some errands, more reading, studying some concepts on recovery and nutrition. Need to put more effort into recovering and keeping the shoulder healthy between the archery and the rock climbing making it sore everyday. Spent some time doing light cardio and conditioning. Day 14 (June 1 - Wednesday) - Went into the office for work, then archery and badminton. Hung out with the badminton crew after, spent an hour and a half talking to a friend. With all the time out of the house I find myself eager and excited for those days when I can be at home and get more reading/learning in. I've also realized that whenever I feel like procrastinating, it's usually about something I know I won't regret doing, so I might as well start it first and see if I feel like giving up. So far I haven't, so I might as well always start all those things I'm meaning to do.

Thanks Cam and Kortheo, those are all good suggestions. I also agree there isn't a lot of value in watching tv. I mainly just want to know what happens. The 5 hours of tv I watched that day was actually 20 40-minute episodes. I basically skim seasons at a time. Not sure if I should keep up more often so I don't skim an entire season in one sitting or just better prepare myself for when I do. The only silver lining is it is infrequent. Day 7 Wednesday - Managed just 2 hours of tv, practiced drawing, worked, managed my budgeting/finances, went out to eat with my mom. Did a next module of Respawn. Pretty much it and that was the whole day. Day 8 Thursday - More Respawn, work, tried Headspace out, I've done some mindfulness meditation before but I really need to build it in as a habit. Pretty nifty site that hopefully will help me do that. Practiced more drawing, and went out for late night dessert and just shooting the shit with a friend. Day 9 Friday (Today) - More work, then went straight to archery for almost 2 hours, then rock climbing for almost 2 hours. Home now, about to do the next Headspace meditation, then may just call it a night or do some reading. Feeling a bit more tired and mentally lazy. One of those mentally weak days rock climbing, can't really tell if it's all physical or stems from mental > physical. Sleep has been good but maybe nutrition not so much? Or maybe too many rest days shifting the mentality from warrior to peasant haha.

Okay, a little behind on the daily journal. Day 5 - Monday - Good day, basically did errands, did a few hours of work, and was practicing drawing the rest of the day. That pretty much took up the entire day. Day 6 - Tuesday - Less of a good day, worked a long day, but then spent 5 hours watching shows. Was intending to watch for only 2 hours and then do some more drawing but yeah. Not going to let it bother me too much and just go forward, think about what went wrong and how to prevent it next time. For me there will always be TV to catch up on because I watch every few weeks and don't bother keeping up. One thing that's worked for me before is to set a timer for 1 hour, then 30 minutes, then 15 minutes. Kind of how you tell a kid when you have to leave something fun, will do that next time. Definitely open to more suggestions and ideas though!

Day 4 (yesterday), woke up, read a bit, got ready, went and did archery with a big group of friends (different group than the previous day) till evening, had dinner with them for a couple hours, then had dessert with another friend until late at night. Basically was out all day, and didn't get a chance to be "tested". Still feeling relatively optimistic about it, as I am eager to get started on practicing some drawing. Thinking more about how I didn't get a chance to do that yesterday, as opposed to being concerned about not being able to game/be bored/end up on YouTube for hours.

Awesome post regarding the HelloTalk. I've used italki before for Spanish but fell off the habit. I'm definitely making a note of that one.

Thanks Cam! Yes, I had stuff planned for today and tomorrow as well. Day 3, woke up, cut my hair, got ready, went to archery with some friends from out of town. Went to eat and shoot the shit for a while, then indoor rock climbing till about 9, and shoot some more shit until now. Pretty much busy all day, didn't have time to think about not being able to game or anything. Good stuff. Tomorrow is archery again, might climb again, if not I'll likely be home and start looking into some hobbies I might want to do. Going to start with drawing. Other than that, might do a bit of work, get some reading in, and knock some items off the task list. Nothing planned yet for Monday (holiday), and it's going to be a rest day (physically) so I suspect that is going to be a tougher day. Hoping to be able to get through the next couple days without any form of mindless entertainment too, ie: watch climbing videos instead of an hour of random YouTube.

Hi Zak! I'm new here too. Awesome proactive decision making, wanting more of that myself. And if it's cliche it's probably words of wisdom.

Hi Jake, huge respect for the guts you've developed to be so open and aware of yourself, especially at your age. I'm brand new to all this too (day 2), and for myself I know that quitting games will lead to a more enriching life. The support I've found here is more impacting than I would've thought, and I hope that is the case for you too, however your journey looks like.

Day 2, feeling pretty good still. Lucky so far in that I haven't had a huge free time block yet (coming up soon though, long weekend). I imagine it's going to be challenging at that point. For now, pretty good. Appreciate the positive comments and support, surprised at the degree in which it helps! Even if it's a quick message it carries a lot of weight knowing that you're all on the same journey and speaking from experience. Finished deleting all my games, one by one slowly. @Cam Adair, thinking back to your nostalgia video helped. It's ok that I had my fun, and it was nice to say goodbye to each game and the different things they all had to offer. But on to bigger and better things now. Interesting note, knowing that I am quitting gaming, I ended up working extra till 7pm or so today. Normally, at the end of a long week, I think to myself, I've worked hard, produced results, and I'm burned out. I'm going to take it easy and just play games all evening. Instead, today I was thinking it will probably help to work a little extra, get a bit ahead of the next week, and hopefully delay the dreaded feeling of not knowing what to do. Worked great, got that feeling of the flow, was more focused than usual, and am really happy I spent that extra time. Optimistically expecting for it to carry forward in not just career but life outside of work. Spent the rest of the evening just chatting with a friend, looking forward to tomorrow.

Day 1 - Joined and posted my introductory post on the forum. Was going to delete my games right after but ran out of time and had to go out. Got home not long ago, and uninstalled Steam. And damn I have a hell of a lot of games. Took about 15 minutes to uninstall, 450 GB freed . What's left now is all the individual non-steam games. Feeling the nostalgia and a bit of regret that I'll never play these ever again (removing the ones bit by bit is definitely harder than uninstalling Steam), but feels alright this way. Reminds me of the scene from Revolver when the MC is giving his money away slowly. Anyway, I'm going to sleep, and will finish removing the rest after work tomorrow. Did first fencing class in over a year today too. Saw a few regulars I haven't seen since last summer. Good stuff.

Hello, my name is Jason, 29 years old, been playing video games since I was in junior high. I spend anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of my spare time outside of work playing video games or just mindless browsing surfing etc. This ramps up to anywhere from 15-30 hours a week basically pissing around and wasting precious time of my precious life. I struggle with procrastination. Despite really enjoying some non-gaming activities, I've always wondered why I can't develop a strong passion in anything. Since finding the Game Quitters website and watching a couple videos I now strongly believe that entertainment and over stimulation are holding me back. Very key in all this is the whole concept of the challenge/rewards that games give. I would much rather challenge and reward myself with skills/achievements that I can be proud of. My goal is that by going through this journey I will learn to really live in the moment at every point in my life, and increase my productivity substantially. At this point in time I'll be happy with a 75% utilization of my free time (whatever productive will mean for me). This is also the first time I've used a forum, I don't know what else to say at this point other than I'm feeling both hesitant and exited about quitting. But... I have to delete all my games... and I'm going to do it. Right now. Cheers! Jason