Getting temporarily obsessed by something

[jack]

Every so often I get temporarily obsessed by something. This month it's stellaris -- the first bit when I'm still learning all the game I'm always like "must learn more, learn faster, impatient to try things out, must micromanage everything perfectly". Maybe someone else would have ran the game a bit faster :)

A few months ago it was factorio. Sometimes it's a project of my own instead of something I'm only consuming, a programming project or planning a roleplaying game.

It's good to have something I'm really excited about. Even if it's not always something productive, it's good to have experienced the things.

It's a bit of a balancing act, because overall it makes me feel fairly good, but it does mean I lose some attention for keeping on top of things I need to do. But that also happens when I feel a bit meh and undermotivated, so I think I need to accept my enthusiasm naturally comes in spurts, but I need to manage the pendulum and take advantage of the highs, lows, and middles according to what they help most with.

But I'm always really cautious, I feel like the right kind of addictive thing I could get into and suck up ALL my time playing something or whatever it was. And I probably shouldn't be *that* worried, because it usually runs its course in less than a month, and I can notice if it starts to be a problem.

But partly, I don't like losing control of my decisions, when I think "ok, I'll go to bed early" and then, oops... I feel nervous about not being in control. And partly my head is full of stereotypes about men who play computer games 24 hours a day and neglect relationships with people outside the game. And I don't think that's *likely* to be me, but I'm always embarrassed to admit I'm super into something, in case it's something that looks ridiculous -- even though in general I think being enthusiastic about things is good and I avoid judging hobbies unless there's something actually bad about them.

I'm also aware that it sort of complements my usually being *insufficiently* into something.

And also always wondering, can I get things to align better so I can sometimes get that excited about something which is actually achieving something.

Comments

[ewt]

I don't like losing control of my decisions, when I think "ok, I'll go to bed early" and then, oops... I feel nervous about not being in control. And partly my head is full of stereotypes about men who play computer games 24 hours a day and neglect relationships with people outside the game. And I don't think that's *likely* to be me, but [etc]

I wonder if setting up some structures and sticking to them would help you worry about this less? Like, maybe you normally go to bed at 10.30 or 11pm and you want to stay up late playing a nifty game, okay, fine -- but set a limit on the total number of should-be-asleep hours per week you spend on it, so the rule is you can stay up until 4am one night or until midnight on a few nights but not 4am every night. Maybe if you notice yourself not spending time with people you care about, you can set some guidelines about how much time you think you should be spending with them. And then when you worry about whether X or Y or Z is taking over your life and your decisions, you can say "But actually, I'm still holding down a job, and seeing people I want to see, and getting enough sleep most nights -- that's all pretty reasonable".

(I regularly play Ingress on walks with hairyears, but not during Date Night, when our focus is more with each other. It isn't onerous and it doesn't negatively impact my engagement with the game, it just feels like a really good rule to have in place.)

I have no idea about the being worried about looking ridiculous aspect of it, I'm afraid.

[jack]

I wonder if setting up some structures and sticking to them would help you worry about this less?

I think that's probably sensible. I need to experiment to find what actually works (having someone else involved makes it a lot easier for me to stick to my plan which I feel shouldn't be necessary but does help a lot).