Gaming addiction can cause issues in your productivity. When you start playing PUBG, Call of duty or candy crush. Hours can pass by and you’re still playing. At that time you were supposed to do something else, And that part is replaced by the game you played today. Games are highly addictive and they’re so accessible with cheap subscriptions and sometimes free. That anyone can become an addict. I’ve personally suffered from gaming addiction. I used to play a lot when I was in college, And this continued after job hours in some months too. It’s a great pastime and for me, it usually happens when a new game comes out. These days I play at max an hour a day. And to achieve this, I had to set some rules and guidelines about how do I cut my gaming time. I used to play 5-6 hours at once when I was playing call of duty, which also impacted my sleep schedule. I used to sleep late as I was playing games at night. And this resulted in a bad sleep schedule as I woke up late the next day too.
Let’s look at the ways I used which you can also use to get rid of your gaming addiction.
Have a game timer
Having a timer for gaming is a good thing. You might be tempted to use digital wellbeing apps from apple or google. But these applications are not restrictive, And more of statistics. I would suggest setting up an alarm after 2 hours when you start gaming. And you need to leave the gaming part for the whole day once the alarm goes off. You should even leave it if you’re in between a game and let the device rest for good that day. Once you enforce this behavior for a few weeks. you’ll become strong enough mentally to reduce that time. Which will gradually decrease and your gaming addiction will go away.
Maintain a streak
Do remember the number of days that you’ve followed your less gaming routine and keep them written in someplace. It fills you with positivity for the task When you stopped playing and there’s like 15 days you didn’t play. You will also realize that the time spent gaming is now much more productive. Having a streak will motivate you to maintain that streak and you’ll be game addiction free.
Do not have a cheat day
Having a cheat day will first of all break your streak. And after a cheat day, it’s really easy to fall into the addiction again. Don’t break the flow of your progress by having a day where you play all day. Cheat days are a trap and should be avoided. I would not blame you if you’re with friends for a day and game a lot, but playing alone cheat days should be avoided as much as possible.
Don’t play multiplayer games
Move towards single-player games instead of multiplayer games. I’ve found that in my case multiplayer games are much more addictive as you’re playing with real people. And you’re killing them in games, they’re taking revenge and it gives a feeling that the game is new and random. Which turns out to be highly addictive. Moving to single-player games actually made it a lot easier for me to reduce the game time easily. On one hand, I can’t leave a multiplayer call of duty match in the middle. But I can leave the single-player at any time.
Reward yourself at the end of each successful day
You can enable positive behaviour for a much longer time when you reward yourself for what you’ve achieved every day. Have that piece of chocolate that you like at the end of each day. Or go play a physical sport for an hour at the end of each day you’ve not done digital gaming more then you should. This will help you keep yourself motivated for long.
Set your priorities
Gaming must be your last priority if you want to reduce the gaming time. If you’ve any work left to be done. That work must come first. Any critical deadlines for work must be managed first and then with whatever time you’ve left in the day, You can run your gaming timer. Any focus timer will work for a gaming timer and even a sheet of paper is good enough.