Schedules and Availability

[Chance]

First off I'm strange for wanting to know, but I'm curious as to all of your work hours, and how you manage to make time for the huge time sink we know as an MMORPG. I'm expecting to land a new job sometime soon, but want to enjoy my experience playing the game as much as possible. For better or worse I'm a gamer at heart, and I only work to sustain myself and those I care for. I believe that will change when I attain the knowledge I seek for the career I want. 

 

ANYWAY I just want to hear from those who juggle the masks of responsibility and fun on the daily basis. Opinions, advice, anything. The problem I think I'm having is I am having a hard time accepting that chunks of my life will be consumed by work.

[ShoggMommy]

Currently I am a full time student, since I am taking night classes I am mostly available Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday any time. But I am mostly a late night gamer on the west coast. Wednesday and Thursday are my two night classes but I will be available on those days just probably after 11pm PST/PDT. 

 

As for juggling things, I try to allow myself two days to do whatever I want for as long as I want. All the other days, I have to allow myself time to study, homework, etc. The Academy is a heavy work load school and it keeps me extremely busy. Overall I had to cut back on my MMO time with SWTOR, and chose to focus more on XIV: ARR. 

 

I won't know how much I will be on till a couple of weeks after school starts on frequency. But those are my general days. Having full time school is just as difficult as full time work sometimes, we just get extended breaks. I used to do full time school and two part time jobs, needless to say there was not much fun to be had then.

 

But seriously, scheduling out your day will really help with this.

[Flynn Bladebreaker]

Gotta work for your money to enjoy game time, that's the unfortunate reality I'm afraid

 

I myself am looking to get back into work, but something part-time. I worked full time for a year under a contract. Personally I felt it was a waste of my life.  Where I worked was hours away, had no car to get there, earliest train to get there on time. Would work, come home, late night snack, sleep, up at 4am (this was all a 9-5 shift btw), and so on. Didn't have time to see friends because they worked weekends, no time for games. I was lucky to have about an hour.

 

Now that I'm unemployed I still rarely get to see my friends, but there's plenty of game hours. I rarely game in the night. Come 10pm I go on the laptop and see the family,

 

My advice... if you can, go for part time. If you're desperate, both. Make a schedule, see what time you have spare.

[Chance]

Currently I am a full time student, since I am taking night classes I am mostly available Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday any time. But I am mostly a late night gamer on the west coast. Wednesday and Thursday are my two night classes but I will be available on those days just probably after 11pm PST/PDT. 

 

As for juggling things, I try to allow myself two days to do whatever I want for as long as I want. All the other days, I have to allow myself time to study, homework, etc. The Academy is a heavy work load school and it keeps me extremely busy. Overall I had to cut back on my MMO time with SWTOR, and chose to focus more on XIV: ARR. 

 

I won't know how much I will be on till a couple of weeks after school starts on frequency. But those are my general days. Having full time school is just as difficult as full time work sometimes, we just get extended breaks. I used to do full time school and two part time jobs, needless to say there was not much fun to be had then.

 

But seriously, scheduling out your day will really help with this.

Thanks for taking the time to share some advice! Scheduling things has always been a weak card of mine, so working on that aspect is definitely something I should work on. I think my job will be some sort of morning shift, 7-3, 8-4 something like that, I'm worried about 10 hour shifts though.

[ShoggMommy]

You're most welcome. Getting a calendar like one of those calendar books or even using something like google.calender may be something to try. I'm pretty bad at it myself and I have procrastinated horribly on things, and its always difficult to do a photo-retouch the night before its due.

[somrue]

I work full time and go to school full time. I play Saturday and Sunday and a couple hours Wednesday nights, assuming I don't have homework.

[rynshun]

I am in full-time work and my shift pattern is Tuesday to Saturday where I do eight ours; Tuesday to Friday 12noon till 8PM and Saturday an 8 hours between 8AM and 6PM. I am in a relationship but my longterm partner still spends half the week living with his parents.

 

Due to my late working hours, I come home and play the game to last and get up the late morning the next day for work. I won't spend every night on it though. Monday's are best for me to get something heavy done as my partner is at work and I can arrange any chores to be done around said day.

 

My advice might be is once settled in the game, maybe make your own timetable; when you will be on and when you won't. And then one for when you are on what you are going to do. I made one on FFXI to utilize my time effectively instead of standing in a city waiting for something to start up.

 

I don't have many responsilbities except for work, homelife (animals, housework etc) and friends so it's easy for me to divert which time I can and cannot do things. Sorry I can't offer anything more.

[FreelanceWizard]

So... I've been playing MMOs since I was a full-time student, then a grad student, then into the corporate and, currently, senior management life. The key rule I follow by is RL First, Game Second. While I love XIV, I also love my job, and priority-wise, the job is more important. Thankfully, I also have an SO who plays XIV, so we can play together on weeknights when we're both home and have taken care of food, the dogs, and such. Keeping priorities straight is critical, and to be honest, an MMO -- a game -- is lower priority than real life.

 

The end result is that, yeah, I don't get to play as much as I would maybe like to during the week, but I make up for that on weekends.

[AkhutaiAngura]

I'm 24, in school part time and work full time.

 

I love to game more than.. Well, any other hobby of mine. Honestly, I find it pretty easy to 'dedicate' time to the game. I set it up so my classes are in the afternoon/evening, two days a week, allowing me to sleep in some on those days unless I have errands I need to get done.

 

I work retail, so my schedule changes from week to week. I might close two nights, open three, and then the next week open every morning, so on so forth. I take a simple route to gametime. If I'm not at work, in class, or doing homework, I'm ingame. Granted, I don't have much of a life to speak of, but when something comes up - Say some friends want to go to a movie or something, it's easy enough to plan a time when I'm not in work/class/homework, and go. Those times aren't often so they're not a big deal.

 

I stay up till about 12/1AM, generally wake up about 8 or 9.. Have 5 dogs, so they're let in and out/fed/watered. One of them, I take for a walk every morning off.

 

Basically, to make this work for you.. Take your schedule, plan the important things if you're a planner.. And then just use the game to fill in the cracks. It's like ice cream.

[Fiona Swift]

my job is actually variable schedule. Basically I don't have a normal 9-5 style schedule but instead every week it changes as does my days off. I might have Thurs and Sat off one week then Mon Friday the next.

 

I might work 8 - 5 on mon then 4 - 11 on tues then off wed then 6-11 thurs then come back for a 7am to 3:30 shift friday. This makes my schedule crazy since I can't exactly plan on being around on a regular basis for things like raids... but I never was much of a Raider.

 

Outside of work and the occasional Real-Life junk that comes up I try to use my spare time to relax which often ends up being music, or gaming or sometimes meeting up with friends

[Eva]

I work full-time but have a lot of flexibility with my schedule and sometimes have the option of working from home - which is helpful for a number of reasons.

 

I think it boils down to time management and just making the most of what free time you do have. Rewarding though the game can be, in most cases it won't pay the bills. At the same time, it's a good philosophy to "work to live" rather than "live to work".

 

Juggling game time (which itself can be subdivided sometimes into RP time, progression time, etc.) along with work, sleep, exercise, family, social life, etc... It can be a real challenge sometimes and it's mega-important not to neglect those people and things you care about as well.

[Chance]

Is it bad that just seeing how all of your lives work makes me feel more at ease lol? I seriously need to do stuff like this more often. I think you all are BA's for actually being able to schedule fun, work, and errands so easily into your lives. I'm whining like having to leave the house for 9ish hours is going to make me have no time to myself, but you all make it sound not so bad at all.

 

I tried scheduling a job into my life, and like Kaln said filling in the empty moments with gaming cuz it's what I love to do. and I end up with roughly 7-8 free hours depending on how much I sleep, or if I get off work early.

 

Also I need to keep in mind that I don't need to stay with a job for the rest of my life I plan on being a Computer Hardware Technician some day so I'll be studying and preparing my self for that career.

 

Thank you all SO much for slapping me back into reality and making me realize what's truly important. This 23 year old apparently has a lot of growing to do! 

---

I just realized how bad the last part of the last post I made was. :dodgy: I guess you can say my inner child was taking over.

[Apoc1216]

I am going to school full-time and work full-time so time management is absolutely key. One thing that I have learned how to do is maximize my time while playing, and yes the game can be very addicting and wonderful but the first rule is: Priorities. If you have school work or you have to go to work do that FIRST. Then you can play to your hearts content. :lol:

 

I work a 9am-6pm job with classes that are online that require at least moderate attention (12-18 hours of school work + studying) with Wednesdays and Sundays off so I never get a "full weekend" as it were so my days have to be planned nearly perfectly (and most of the time they fall apart because I just want to be lazy as hell) :sleepy:

 

One thing that I have always done is just look at everything one week at a time. "What do I need to do this week, or what needs to be completed" kind of schedule. Planning months/weeks ahead just gets too chaotic and hectic. As long as you can maintain a proper schedule you should be fine. I've been playing MMO's for 10 years now and I definitely know the good and bad sides to not scheduling properly. :bouncy:

[Aduu Avagnar]

I usually have maybe 2 weeknights dedicated to playing an MMO if I have one on the go, I know that those nights I'll be playing, and have that as a minimum. If I find myself with time left over, then I will usually find myself popping on.

[Niteshade_Rune]

Sadly after picking up a job back in march, i kind of miss my gaming time when i was unemployed.

 

since i work 8am-4pm EST mon-fri it cuts down on my weekly time to game or enjoy an mmo, which is further broken up a tad bit as i kind of keep myself somewhat on alert incase my granpda needs help w/something or something falls/drops so i cant 100% focus and commit to solid mmo time mon-fri, well mon-thur. friday-sunday is usually clear tho i do spend most every weekend w/my gf over.

 

On that same hand tho she has expressed an interest in FFXIV after the various pics/vids ive shown her then she made a character on my account during the previous beta and enjoyed it. We are likely getting her set up with her own copy and she'll b able to play here w/me on the weekends using my ps3 while i play on the pc or vice versa lol