Gaming Energy

I was reading a book the other day that was talking about energy levels and productivity and it got me thinking about the games I play. The book was focused on trying to get the reader to focus their time and energy on tasks that provide a benefit and improves us somehow while working to avoid or at least spend less time and energy on toxic activities. I kinda see a parallel that I try to focus on in my gaming but I often fail, similar to what the book claims many people do when seeking productivity.

The recommendation is to put activities into 3 categories:

1. Golden – those activities that provide a benefit or a learning experience. These are positive but often require significant energy expenditure.
2. Vaporous – those activities that don’t provide much in the way of benefit or learning but just sorta take up time. Often these don’t take much effort or brainpower.
3. Toxic – those activities that are harmful to us in some way but somehow there is an allure to come back to them. These don’t necessarily take significant energy expenditure but they tend to suck us in to keep us spending energy even if we know we’re not gaining much in the way of benefit.

• The book categorizes a few things into the Golden category like Meditation or watching an educational documentary
• A few things into the Vaporous category such as watching sports or reading a “beach” novel
• Finally some get categorized into Toxic activities like watching The Bachelor or getting drunk.
  I’m not gonna comment on the activities the book assigns but I did take a look at some of the gaming activities I engage in and I am hoping to adjust my behavior accordingly.

As far as Golden activities, I see leveling up in MMOs through questing or trying out a new game fit into this category since it helps me get an appreciation of the game and very well could lead to a post for this blog. The same goes for reading comics since I tend to comment on them regularly here. Figuring out the victory condition to pursue in Civilization VI or how to keep my people alive in Frost Punk go here as well.

Vaporous activities tend to be games that push me into a grind in order to gain levels since I pretty much do that without thinking. Mining in Eve Online or flattening land/building a house in Wurm could fall into this category easily since they don’t contribute much but equally don’t take too much energy.

Finally there are the Toxic activities which outside of promotional matches and taking time to learn a new champ, I have to throw the majority of League of Legends play. I don’t get anything out of more LoL play except frustration and anger which is not a reason I really want to be playing games. SMITE play has also moved a bit into this realm since it seems the champs I choose to play don’t seem to be on the right side of the balance curve. Fortnite doesn’t really return much for me and I don’t see that I’ve actually learned much to improve my play other than I’m a poor shot, and Call of Duty should not really even be this low in the list, but should be the ultimate basement of this category.

In any case I am looking to reduce the amount of time and energy I expend on Toxic gaming activities and even cut back a bit on things that I find fall into the Vaporous category and I’m gonna try to work on spending the majority of my time in Golden activities. I figure that’ll get rid of a lot of the negativity that I feel in games and help me feel that I’m actually making some progress towards something as I game. When I figure I don’t have a lot of time or energy to spend gaming I really need to be more targeted with how I spend my attention.

Daily Ramble | Gaming Energy