How do people find the time?

Recently I have been really struggling to find quality to being lazy, plonking myself down in front of the PC, and just chilling out killing me some bad guys in either Call of Duty or World of Warcraft.

I've been lurking around here, and from some of the posts I have read, it's like people don't do anything else other than play games! While it would be nice to do it for a living instead of getting bored at meetings or someone whining that a server doesn't work, it's not really going to happen.

So my question is:

How do people find the time to play all these games out there, when real life demands far too much of your time?

Me? I don't. I play TF2 a few nights a week if there are players on the server, or I jump into the Witcher. But with work and stress and home chores, if I'm gaming enough to start to get good, you can be sure that I'm neglecting an important responsibility elsewhere.

If you are looking for advice, check out the "Ask Certis" portion of last week's podcast. He gives some sage counsel on how to find more time for games. You may not want to listen to this week's, because he reveals that its one of those "do as I say, not as I do" sort of deals.

Some folks are just focused when they play. If you are a goal-oriented gamer, you will set out to clear the level, finish the main quest, kill the boss, etc. I'm an escapist gamer, so I don't go into it with the idea that success means completing the game, I just want to go live in another world for a bit.

Procrastination: Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

I only manage about three nights of gaming a week (though I can usually get a good 4 hours each night) - most of which is spent with WoW.

It may just seem like people are playing a lot of games since that's the main focus of the website!

Procrastination would be something I would like to do, but that actually has to wait until after my degree finishes, and by that time I need to find a new job!

Yes I am one of those silly people who works full time and does a part-time degree on the side!

Sonicator wrote:

I only manage about three nights of gaming a week (though I can usually get a good 4 hours each night) - most of which is spent with WoW.

It may just seem like people are playing a lot of games since that's the main focus of the website!

Very true, I guess the correct answer for me is "duh!" I have been trying to just settle down with a single game but at the back of my mind, I know there's work to do and it must be done. I just can't relax properly dammit!!

I think I put in about 3-4 hours of The Witcher last week, and another 3-4 hours Rock Band, but that's been it. I don't have kids, and I don't have to travel all that much. My daily commute averages 10-15 minutes each way. My girlfriend is also a gamer and doesn't mind it when I play. Nevertheless, there are days when I don't get a chance to touch any games. I think the weekends are key. Also I try to work in the multiplayer games with the family and friends time. Recently I've taken a cue from Certis to avoid over-refreshing the site to see if anyone's posted in the last 5 minutes. That's a good way to lose time.

The real problem comes from any game that's single player only or is not pick-up-and-playable (like Warcraft). There's not a whole lot else you can do when you play those games, except maybe laundry, or exercise (if you're talented and have the right setup). I would play a lot more TF2, except whenever I sit down to play any multi-player FPS these days, it feels like throwing my time into a bottomless pit when I could be using that time to work on The Stack. I might enjoy it while it's going, but I could just as easily enjoy something off The Stack at the same time.

I haven't done it yet, but I feel the need to internalize this: I want to play more games than I'll ever have time for. When I was a kid, it seemed that my gaming was constrained by cash. Now it's constrained by time.

I'm curious to hear from other folks as well. Also, there are far too many games out there to play to sit here and write coherently about it. So I apologize for this cranial excrement of a post.

samfisher wrote:

Yes I am one of those silly people who works full time and does a part-time degree on the side!

Yeah man, you're screwed. Just do like I did and promise yourself that you'll catch up on all the games you're missing after you finish school.

Yeah, that's the biggest misconception of people here. I am about middle of the pile when it comes to game time here and I'm still only putting in 5-15 hours a week.

We're not gamers because we play 40 hours a week. We're gamers because we have jobs, wives, and kids and still play 10.

No WoW, and I do most of my Goodjin' at work thanks to a lax No GWJ before 2 Rule.

Yoyoson wrote:
samfisher wrote:

Yes I am one of those silly people who works full time and does a part-time degree on the side!

Yeah man, you're screwed. Just do like I did and promise yourself that you'll catch up on all the games you're missing after you finish school.

Couldn't have said it better. Then just don't start a PhD (that was my mistake) and you'll be fine!

Edit: grammar

People find time to do what they love no matter what their circumstances. I work full-time, go to college part-time, spend time with my daughter, participate in multiple sports, and still find the time to play the videogames I really enjoy. I doubt that I'm the only one who balances a large number of responsibilities while finding the time for multiple hobbies.

I'd suggest keeping a time log for a week or so in order to track every minute of your day. Then you'd be able to see where your time is really going. People tend to fritter time away absentmindedly in the same way that they snack without really thinking about it.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

We're not gamers because we play 40 hours a week. We're gamers because we have jobs, wives, and kids and still play 10.

Beautifully said. I'd sig it, but the lack of wife and kids would make me feel like a fraud...

I'm with cannibal on this one. When there is a new game, I FIND the time somehow. It is a matter of priorities.

I tend to get caught up when there aren't any current addictions.

I go to an easy college. One night a week I do all my homework. The other nights from 7p-1a are gaming nights.

If you look at the finished games post (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/28840), you'll see that people finish games at varying times. I definitely get the sense that people game when they have time, and often complete games far after they've been released. Hell, I haven't even had time to start on Bioshock or COD4 yet

I believe many of us enjoy talking about games as much as we enjoy actually playing them. It makes it look like we play more than we really do.

It's a hobby for a lot of us. Instead of watching television or going to the movies, we play games. I, personally, don't have kids yet and am done with classwork. So I set my own schedule and don't have a 9-5 job. I think you'll find that the people who seem to be spending all their time gaming are coming and going. Gamers With Jobs, Gamers In-Between Jobs. Gamers Looking For Jobs, Gamers Hoping to Avoid Jobs, Gamers In School. We're all moving in and out of periods in our lives where gaming is more or less convenient. Thus the flux of folks who appear, have a meteoric rise in the forums, and then disappear. It's the proverbial circle of life.

Montalban wrote:

It's a hobby for a lot of us. Instead of watching television or going to the movies, we play games.

That's the case for me as well. I spend a good chunk of my leisure time gaming. I enjoy lots of other things, but this time of the year especially, the lions share of my free time is game time. I'm an accomplishment gamer too. Once I get my teeth into a game I like, I'll usually play it and it alone until I've beat it, using almost all of my free time in the process. Once I have, I might not game more than 5 hours a week for a long while, until I get really taken with something else.

I take it out of TV and movies time, basically. I game on perhaps two nights per week plus as much as I can cram in during the weekend. Since my wife is a gamer, too, we often have lazy Saturday and/or Sunday mornings when we both play a game before doing something else for the day. I average maybe ten hours per week. When there's stuff to review, perhaps double that. When there's a real review crunch or a super-interesting new game, I might play for the whole weekend, if my wife's plans allow that.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

We're not gamers because we play 40 hours a week. We're gamers because we have jobs, wives, and kids and still play 10.

Hear hear! I take most of my gaming time out of sleep, I don't watch TV, and I do a lot of multi-tasking (playing games while cooking, waiting rooms, or while waiting for a kid). It's going to start getting a little easier here soon because we shipped the big project I was working on at the Daily Planet and we're out of witch-hunt mode from it here as of tomorrow's post mortem.

I watch TV. And I read long fantasy and sci-fi novels. And I watch movies. And I play CCGs. And I watch anime. And I play pen and paper RPGs. Oh, and I play video games, obviously.

My way is to binge on each item. I don't have a steady relationship or kids so that frees up a lot of time compared to many people here. I have a job that works me to the bone for one week then leaves me alone the next, so in what free time I get I play the hell out of video games and ignore all other media. After I get burned out on that I'll spend my free time reading a ton of books from the library or buying books every other day from Boarders. Then I'm tired of that and I'll start watching rented DVDs of all the TV shows I've missed.

And so on and so forth. I probably don't average a whole lot of gaming time in any given week and I know my SteamID shows that. But when I get into games I really get into games. I don't know if it's sustainable, but it's certainly fun.

I run a dual monitor setup and I play a lot of low maintenance Management type games, or Magic the gathering or Dwarf Fortress on the small monitor while I watch shows and movies with my partner on the 27" tv I have plugged in. The only time I can get stuck into a graphically intense game is on the rare day off I get.

I must admit, gaming is a lot better than just watching TV, it's intereactive and you are being actively engauged as opposed to just sitting there and in essence, turning the brain off. But another thing I don't understand that even today, talking about games in normal social environments is still frowned upon and yet, we can all watch LOST (I hate that show so much, it gives me energy) talk about that with no-one thinking ill of you.

Why?!?!

momgamer wrote:

Hear hear! I take most of my gaming time out of sleep, I don't watch TV, and I do a lot of multi-tasking (playing games while cooking, waiting rooms, or while waiting for a kid). It's going to start getting a little easier here soon because we shipped the big project I was working on at the Daily Planet and we're out of witch-hunt mode from it here as of tomorrow's post mortem.

Multi-tasking eh? Just I can't imagine you cooking while playing a quick game of TF2! "I have you now....no wait the pasta's done!" I would have to have the PC in the same room for that to be a reality! Fair play to you sir!

I don't get game time 7-8 months out of the year, but for those few months I do get.....it's sad really the amount of time I put in. I just have to stay in shape ,do some paperwork every few weeks, and do things with my wife. Otherwise it's all game time when I have those few months.

Playing video games is for losers.

Cool people just spend their time on forums arguing about them, not playing them. Like me.

Normally I get home from work at 5:30ish. Make a quick dinner, on the computer by 6 or 6:30. I game, the GF surfs celeb news sites. Normally there's good shows on between 8-10 at night so we both stop our time on the computer and spend time with each other. By 10pm she's passed out (narcolepsy) so I can turn up the sound on the game without bothering her and game until normally 1-2 in the morning.

Granted this changes. If there's nothing on TV and we have no movies to watch we will just spend time on the computer mostly all of the night. Due to the passing of Heath she's had MORE than enough to keep her occupied lately!

I think I've spent around 15 hours between Halloween and now playing video games due to some personal things that have been going on (wife had major surgery and has been out of work, bought our first house, etc). I've spent many, many times that talking about playing video games here.

When things get back to normal (a week and a half away), I tend to play while my wife's at work. I work days, she works nights. This gives me 3 uninterrupted gaming nights per week, and the other 4 are spent non-gaming with the wife. It's a nice balance.

Since I discovered GWJ, I do talk and read about games more than I play them (like a 4:1 ratio). The rare free time left outside work, our youth house and my girlfriend (disclaimer: this may sound like my gf is work, when it's the most fun I have in my life) I sometimes just want to relax with my mind at sub zero. Games (the ones I like to play at least) don't allow this luxury, with them being interactive and all. All in all, I play like 6 hours per week.

Cannibal and Montalban summed it up nicely for me. Gaming is one of my hobbies that I try to make time for since I enjoy it so much. I gave up watching TV a while back, and when most people are watching sports or some sit-com, I am gaming. I have a full time job, friends, family, an apartment to maintain, and other commitments on top of all that. Some days I get to game, other days I don't. Most weeknights, after going to the gym, shoveling, cooking supper, cleaning the dishes, and tidying up my apartment, I may get to game for about 1.5-2 hours (depends on how tired I am).

I generally take my gaming time out of my wife and kids time. I find it works out best for all of us.

Honestly, though, I tend to play only on weekends when I'm visiting Robear. I don't have a game console or game enabled computer at home.

Honestly, I've pretty much stopped sleeping.