Going to bed early and stop playing World of Warcraft - Kick off
Tags: career, productivity, mentalhealth
Published: 2018-05-15 17:21:52

---
title: Going to bed early and stop playing World of Warcraft - Kick off
published: true
description: A short kick off describing why I'd like going to bed early and remove World of Warcraft from my life (again)
tags: #career, #productivity, #mental health
---

In my [previous post](https://dev.to/josegonz321/no-social-media-in-the-mornings---wrap-up-1ifm), I mentioned my new challenges, or areas I'd like to improve on.

But since maybe you didn't click that link, (oh you!), here's a quick reminder of my next two challenges:

1. Going to bed early 10pm.
2. Stop playing WoW (World of Warcraft)

Before we embark on this new journey, let's find out why we are doing what we are doing. This way we won't lose our way and stay focus on the path.

## Start with Your Why 🤔

Sometimes we do things without knowing our real reasons. And since I have the attention span of a squirrel, I can easily get distracted. 

In addition, writing down the reasons reminds you and motivates you on why you are in the path you are on.

### Bed by 10pm ⌚
1. (Start) Go to bed early 10pm.
2. Wake up earlier...say 6am.
3. Get nice start on my day, no rushing, enjoy my morning runs, etc.
4. Get to the office early
    - avoid morning rush hr
    - get a head start
    - shift my working hours (come in early, leave early)
    - talk to some people / do some work before stand-ups
    - avoid afternoon rush hr
5. Get home early
    - early dinner 
    - **more quality time with family**

If I'm honest with you, I want the very last item in that list. That is my current priority and motivator.

**Notice how going to bed early will have super awesome cascading effects in other areas in life!** This is the reason why I decided to go on this challenge!

### Stop Playing World of Warcraft 👿

It's not the game. It's me.

I'm dead serious. I'm the problem, not the game. 😖

I have an addicting personality. I can easily get sucked into a game and loose track of time. 

Recently, I was playing over two hours on weeknights. Weekend hours were much higher than I care to admit (near double digits in total for both days easily...).

As mentioned in my previous article, this isn't my first time wrestling with this beast. 

A decade ago, my addiction with the game drove me to a 12-step program. If you are interested in finding out more, you can check out my Developer On Fire interview:

{% podcast https://dev.to/developeronfire/episode-308--jose-gonzalez--mind-body-soul %}

**This time around it was cutting deep into my personal time.** 

Here are other effects it had on me:

😴  Less sleep 
👀🔥 Burning eyes 
⌛  Wasted time 
😡  Annoyed (yep, I was!)
💔  Not having fun
🏃💨 Impatient / feeling rush to play

In short, I burned out and should've stopped playing the game a few months back. But it's never too late. Now, you get to be part of this journey. 

Prepare for some with-drawl rants 😅

## Wrap up

Thank you for taking your time to read this. 

I'm already cooking Day 1 entry for this journey. We got off to a rocky start but not where I expected it to have! 

What will your journey say?

Till very soon!

**Update:**

✅[Day 1](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-1-7f6)
✅[Day 2](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-2-215a)
✅[Day 3](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-3-1jfe)
✅[Day 4](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-4-2h93)
✅[Day 5](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-5-4hai)
✅[Day 6](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-6-57ea)
✅[Day 7](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-by-10pm-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---day-7-55kn)