Hi everyone. This is my first journal progress thread. Feel free to read my introduction post if you haven't yet.

My goal right now is to go for 90 days straight without gaming, and then after that, I might still track them, but not as a streak.

Today:

Day 4 without video games.

Day 2 of spending 30 minutes or more outside.

Today isn't day 1 for these but day 1 for journaling them!

Other notes:

I am studying for my college math final today. It's been hard but not stressful. Thanks to uninstalling Steam I've been able to focus on it better!

Edited May 23May 23 by RealityOptimizer

Welcome warrior. Thanks for joining us!
If you plow through my daily journal you can see I deleted my steam account on the first page. Perhaps that is something you want to do too?

Godspeed!!!

Day 5 without video games.

Day 3 of spending 30 minutes or more outside

It was a 28-minute walk. I got hot and forgot to come back out. I'm still counting it as a win. If it keeps happening, I will lower my goal to 25 minutes.

Notes:

Didn't work on my math final today. Kind of fine, since I wanted a break, but I still wanted to do at least a little.

@Yan I will probably delete it eventually. For now I prefer not even going to the site.

Welcome! We're here for you on your journey, Godspeed!

Thank you Pulse.

Day 6 of no video games

Day 4 of being outside. Will have to adjust the time to something below 30 minutes probably. Today I was out for around 19-20.

Math exam tomorrow morning.

Day 8 without gaming!

Day 5 of being outside. Yesterday I was out for not much, like 10 min. Today was definitely over 30. The new rule is 15 minutes or more.

Finished math exams today. All done for spring semester finally.

On 5/28/2026 at 4:15 AM, RealityOptimizer said:

Finished math exams today. All done for spring semester finally.

I've read somewhere here around the forum that when the tension from exams goes down as the main focus, gaming cravings get stronger. Keep that into account. It could possibly help to have your next step in mind, regarding the next things you're going to focus on.

Way to go on Day 8 and 5 accordingly. Keep it up!

Absolutely you are right on that. Yesterday and this morning I got cravings but thankfully didn't play. Also had pressure from family members so I had to be quick to offer a board game alternative. Since summer now starts for me I will be actually be doing summer classes. I also want to get a gym membership.

Day 10 without gaming.

Day 6 of being outside for 15 min or more.

Not sure if I lost today or not.

I ended up playing a video game that I made earlier this year after realizing I was still paying for hosting services.

I'll still avoid everything else today. I'll keep figuring out if I need to restart or not.

On 5/31/2026 at 8:16 PM, RealityOptimizer said:

Not sure if I lost today or not.

I ended up playing a video game that I made earlier this year after realizing I was still paying for hosting services.

I'll still avoid everything else today. I'll keep figuring out if I need to restart or not.

Thanks for admitting it. Sometimes it's tempting to write it off as "That doesn't count", but a video game is a video game. If by "figuring out if I need to restart" you mean, whether you should continue the streak from 0 or not, my opinion is that you should definitely continue from 0. But remember, you have 10 in your pocket already. Now let's see if you can keep it up longer.

Remember: There is no shame in falling down, there is however a lot of shame in staying down.

One more thought here: Are you developing games as a profession? Or is that just some one-time thing you did?
If that is like a game for learning law for example, and that is what you were concentrated upon maybe you can still not count it..

For example I use duolingo at times, and there are sometimes characters waving there, so you could count it as a video game, but I don't.
I also used flashcards for language studies. So for me, if it is something which I deliberately do towards a long term goal, that is not a video game. In fact they also have very little "video" elements, if at all, but there is a tiny amount there.

They are however really not video games per se...

I don't know if the opportunity to use a video game to study for a longer-term came up if I would have used it. It depends on whether that is 99% concentrated on the subject with 1% video for example, among other factors.

Day 2/90 without ANY video games.

Day 1/90 of being outside for at least 15 minutes. (Now tracking it as a streak too)

@Yan No, it's not a profession for me. It was a platformer game I built in the past when I was learning programming. Not related to my studies or anything.

At first I was a little bummed seeing this with the idea of restarting my 90-day streak, but thankfully today I'm not feeling that anymore. Now I see it as buying more time to stay away from gaming and focus on health.

Thanks for the encouragement to restart.

On 6/2/2026 at 8:08 PM, RealityOptimizer said:

Day 2/90 without ANY video games.

Day 1/90 of being outside for at least 15 minutes. (Now tracking it as a streak too)

@Yan No, it's not a profession for me. It was a platformer game I built in the past when I was learning programming. Not related to my studies or anything.

At first I was a little bummed seeing this with the idea of restarting my 90-day streak, but thankfully today I'm not feeling that anymore. Now I see it as buying more time to stay away from gaming and focus on health.

Thanks for the encouragement to restart.

I think being discouraged is not what you should feel, on the contrary, 10 days is a huge achievement. In fact when I was just beginning to avoid gaming (like 4 or 5 years before I started the journal here) I've just set myself a goal of 21 days. It was already huge for me as a person who used to devote 95% of his free time to gaming. Those are huge steps you're making there.

Maybe you can even put yourself a smaller goal of 21 days and start there. Once you have achieved that you can consider if you want to keep going towards the 90, but one way or the other you'll already have those 21 under your belt.

In any case I just underline here. Every single day you avoid gaming is a win. It doesn't have to be 10, 5, 21, 90, 365 or 3650. Every single one.

Naturally of course building a habit is beneficial and helps "automate" the whole thing, but the single days are what eventually builds a habit, and even if you don't manage to build a very long term one, you can still be proud of a shorter term achievement. There are so many people that don't even dare to call out gaming as the enemy, because they subconsciously know how hard it is to withstand the temptations, and are very scared from the change it may bring. (Among other things, but those are two reasons I assume they don't. Fact is, on the bottom line they don't. But you did and you do.)

Keep it up my man.

Day 3/90 playing zero video games

Day 2/90 being outside for 15+ min.

Back when I'd waste hours gaming, I was rarely keeping care of my oral health. With a 6mm gum pocket, I was on track for developing periodontitis. (Thanks, online chess)

Now today I went back to the dentist and thankfully they said I managed to reverse it just in time. 6 months ago, it was 5mm, and now today, 4mm.

Floss your teeth. Dont be stupid.

highly-immersive activities such as video games make you forget to do the basics. it's quite embarrassing

Day 4/90 no gaming (we came close, hungout with friend and he showed me a game on his phone 😬)

Day 3/90 outside 15+ min