Alright, so today has been a very insightful day and I’ve consumed a lot of content and spoken a lot too! One of the interesting videos I watched has really stuck with me and I think it’s something that everyone ought to paint a picture in their minds about. It’s time management.
Time management is quite a huge topic. And hell yeah it’s important. You have one life and if you can manage the time you have well, you’ll be able to reap maximum benefits. I would contradict this by saying that if you truly lived and enjoyed every moment, you wouldn’t have to worry about the time that much, but, let’s leave that there for now.
The video highlighted how we all have the same time in a day and if you overview your time as 3 chunks, you can effectively split the 24 hours into 3 8 hour parts and dedicate them for sleep, activities and work respectively. This visualisation literally blew my mind. I mean literally. It shredded the nervous system and tore the insides. Ok, I’m just kidding. Giggles in the side.
Anyway, I realised that this was a neat way to put it. But this is, of course, assuming that you sleep for 8 hours a day. Some peoples’ sleep varies and can be shorter or longer but even then, this overview of our time is a very meaningful and useful one. Since I heard it, I’ve started calculating my time in my mind and am becoming much more aware of how much time I’m spending on each task…
Karthik, what’s your point here and how does this link in with games?
My point is that we always have time for things we say we don’t. In the overview, I’ve dedicated 8 hours to activities which composes of leisure, play and procrastination. 8 HOURS! So you definitely have time for helping out your family, talking to your friends, completing side hobbies or ticking off any additional work.
In my case, I tend to spend too long doing work and side hobbies and almost disregard the fact that I have 8 hours of playtime. This is why, today, I actively chose to take a 2-hour break to just play video games. And you know what? I had so much fun without a pinch of stress/worry in my mind that I’m not being productive.
Of course, if the balance is leaning to the other side in your case, where you find that you’re playing too much and not doing work enough, you can remind yourself that you can play for 8 hours a day and still be productive.
An instant thought that springs to my mind is how I find myself not being productive for more than 4 hours a day, but, that’s for another blog.
So, let’s talk about my game experience!
Game Time
I sat in front of my new personal built computer(which by the way is an absolute performer) and decided to play CS: GO. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a multiplayer FPS game which is based on terrorists vs counter-terrorists and the objective for the terrorists is to plant bombs on one of the few dotted sites around the map and the counter-terrorists have to diffuse the bomb before a time interval. I must admit that by the end of the 2 hours, I was super pumped up. It was an intense session due to the close effects, sudden attacks and brisk firings. And I definitely missed that fact that I played for 2 hours; it felt more like 30 mins.
I have several thoughts related to the game.
Self-control
The most important thing to keep in mind while playing games is that you need self-control. Without self-control, it becomes an addiction that can quickly tumble downhill into a chaotic and transformational activity. The inception was pretty stabilised as I was just getting into the game after a few years. Then it quickly escalated into a yearning to discover my capability and without knowing, I already played for an hour. Thankfully, I realised that I better control myself before falling into the rabbit hole of addiction. So I added a 1 hour time(I know) to scheme for self-control.
Games are developed to hook you onto the seat and magnetise you to the screen. And you wouldn’t believe what level of research they do to achieve this level of attraction.
Community
One of the fascinating traits of video games is how easily you create a cooperative/competitive atmosphere depending on the game. In my case, it was a team game and I endeavoured to pay special attention to how everyone was working together. Despite the fact that all of my team were strangers and most were mute, we still stuck together in captivating formation and supported each other where it was highly demanding.
Reaction, Awareness and Knowledge
Another phenomenal trait is the fact that gaming is fundamentally erected on the concepts of skill. It’s a skilful activity and involved close attention and quick reaction speeds. It’s only a matter of time before these skills are reflected in the gameplay. Once developed, they’re useful even outside of the gaming world. I was always fascinated by how good the reaction speeds of some of my friends were and I wouldn’t be surprised if gaming was responsible for such an outcome.
As I was playing, I noticed that when an opponent approached, I reacted to the environment quicker and built up a great sense of awareness in the scenarios. This is encouraging me to play more although, going back to my first point, I need to maintain self-control.
Furthermore, every video game is developed with a sense of a goal and a basic plot/concept. This is why they are also great knowledge banks. They allow you to tap into a whole new world and explore the creativity of other people on this planet. I remind this fact to myself and admire the imagination that went into the development of the game. Despite the fact that some games are more story-focused than others, I would be surprised if there’s nothing new to learn from a game.
Happy gaming, but be conscious of your time…
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