Returning to my schedule from around 1.5-2 years back, when I had 1 day off one week and 2 days off other week in hopes that this extra day off every two weeks will be productive, but if not, then I’ll probably return to the grind.
Exceptions will be obviously when I’m doing some grindy marathons like I always do around holidays time etc, then less or no day offs as usual. Now that tl;dr is over, traditional wall of text in full post…
I’m pretty good and consistent with streaming – no day offs or one day off and long streams? No problems, ez, last year I streamed on average 7.5 hours every single day. No vacations outside of conventions for a couple of years? Ez, only got first one last year, because all conventions got cancelled, so instead of being away from streaming/pc for around 3 weeks due to convention travels I only was away 10 days, so it ended up even less missed time (conventions are quite far from vacation though, but that’s topic for another post).
While being good with streaming consistency, I’m complete trash with life stuff. During my 10 hours/day period my apartment basically became hobo lair with dust on the floor and my trails from PC to kitchen/bathroom only being “clean”, but even with regular 1 day off schedule it also gets really bad with all the chores and things I need to do IRL. Another thing that I usually can’t get around to do is doing other things related to my w OMEGALUL rk, but not directly streaming. Like I’m planning to start YT and shortage of time coupled with my perfectionism induced procrastination/anxiety are holding me from doing it, posting more on twitter/insta/this blog, which I actually improved already, but still need more consistency and could do more of it overall too. A lot of this is caused by the lack of free time, which is not that severe technically, but if you try to breakdown my regular days it’s a bit of an issue, because I usually have around 3-4 hours free in the morning and around 4-5 in the evening after streaming. Honestly after stream you mostly want to chill already, so it’s more about morning being productive, add there grocery shopping (which partially thankfully now got replaced by deliveries), making food and some other necessary activities to sink time in and you have not a lot of time left at all. One day going to the gym/swimming pool will return too (can’t wait) and that will cut free time even more.
What’s with streamers who stream 12 hours a day every day and also have YT running etc, maybe you are just lazy? Well as I said I did a lot of stream grind and could do even more, but I’m also already past 30 and while it’s not like I’m already too old for that or something, it’s more that I can feel when it becomes too much. Back when I was a kid I could eat garbage and drink soda in crazy amounts while playing Ragnarok Online all day, then I encountered the results of it after some time in becoming fat, with some thankfully minor stomach issues. Now I don’t need to wait for result, I already can analyze how it affects me faster and then also I got more responsibilities than when I was a kid while on top of that I need to think about future and things in a long run, because taking some wild turns with your life and what you want to do with it gets harder when you get older, especially in Russia. Need to approach streaming as something I plan to do for decades and I can totally see that going ham too much is just not sustainable and it’s better to slowly transform things to more sustainable format, so your audience gets used to it and you are adjusted too, so you don’t need to face burn out one day and instantly change things drastically, causing some unhealthy motions in community and dealing with pretty unhealthy mental things too. Eventually getting to 8 hours/day and 2 days off will probably happen, with editors/assistants (like many of those insane grind streamers already have, but it’s not something I can afford for example right now) taking care of YT and some other things, to maintain proper work/life balance, especially if I’ll ever have family, wouldn’t want them to see me rarely and still submerged in work thoughts. For now 2 days off only every second week though and no family so submerged in work stuff all the time I have, gonna grind still, but just trying to do it more smart and so far my schedule experiments were all pretty good for my channel and myself.
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