Pretty much what it says in the title: I’m a freelancer, and I work from home. I’ve got an MMO that has some pretty addictive mechanics for keeping players coming back daily (Rift), and I really -do- enjoy playing it. The problem is, I turn to it whenever I’m even slightly bored, and suddenly two hours go by and I haven’t done anything productive, and it takes me even longer to get back in ‘the zone’ and working again.
I know I won’t be able to go cold turkey on it. Nor do I think just limiting my hours is going to help in the long run.
Anyone have any helpful advice on this one?
Is it ok to just point to this thread in cases like this?
Ok, I guess “MMO” is some kind of game, but is it really that hard to type it out? Is there some 100-letter German word in there or something?
Ist step in getting off an addiction is to admit you have a problem. Step 2, quit doing it. This is easy to say, hard to do. But, dude it’s the only way. There is no such thing as ‘slightly addicted’. You are or you are not.
It’s not gonna be easy.
Divert and distract.
If you find yourself loading up the game, then instead, go out for a walk. Watch a video on numbers, listen to some music.
It is similar to overeating. You can’t think of anything to do, so you go with what you know. The trick is to change the habit into something either more productive, or at least less time wasting.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t play. That just means that you should schedule your time for playing, and keep disciplined as to not playing outside of those times.
It will probably make the game more enjoyable as well, as it will be something you look forward to, rather than something that you default to.
Massively multiplayer online game. I thought it was a familiar abbreviation, and I don’t play MMOs. I guess not.
Get a router that has some sort of parental controls on it where you can block addresses at certain times of the day. They are made for situations like this, although typically for kids. Configure it so that the Rift hosts are only accessible in the evening. If you end up bypassing it on a regular basis, set the hours and then change the password to some random string. If you don’t have the password, it’ll make it that much more inconvenient to undo. If you ever need to get back into the router, you’ll have to do a hard reset to factory settings.