How A Pro Gamer Taught Me The Productivity Formula

In 2016, I left Facebook to put more emphasis on my personal relationships and figure out a better productivity formula. This decision couldn’t have come at a better time because one of my closest friendships was tested this year. I never thought my roommate and best friend would become a pro gamer – getting paid to play video games all day.

Upon first glance, I thought this would be an awesome opportunity for him, and it was. But, like any new opportunity, it came with a tremendous amount of stress. The life of a pro gamer consists of playing video games for 8-12 hours, mostly in the middle of the night. As a result, many of his relationships became strained (especially ours). If I wanted to hang out with him, I had to stay up late and find short windows of time between games to converse with him.

The flow of communication began sputtering and naturally, we stopped talking for extended periods of time. And when we were able to catch up for more than 10 minutes, we generally argued over simple issues blown out of proportion because I was angry over the pro gamer lifestyle.

For months, every conversation had a negative narrative and I knew I’d have to make a change before we snapped.

But, how could I change my routine to support my roommate without compromising my goals?

My new daily schedule:

5:00 – Hop out of bed

5:15 – Walk

6:00 – Write

8:00 – Grab breakfast

8:30 – Arrive at Redox

5:00 – Leave Redox

5:30 – Eat dinner

6:30 – FREE BLOCK (hang with roommate)

7:30 – Answer emails and work on Quick Theories

9:30 – Go to bed and read

Right around the time my roommate’s work day ends, I wake up to get my day started. My new schedule allows me a lot of free time in the mornings to pursue my creative outlets. Around my lunchtime I can catch the pro gamer at breakfast and in the evenings I can hang with him before he has to hop back on the games.

We’ve already seen a massive improvement in our relationship, restoring what we had before. This schedule is far from perfect, but I’m tweaking it along the way to make it impeccable.

Coming into a new year, I’m sure many of you are setting goals for personal achievement, your social life, or career aspirations. To achieve these goals, you must change your routine to better accommodate this level of productivity. You might work longer hours or change the hours you work.

Pursuing your goals is designed to mess up the relationships you have with others because you are focusing on bettering yourself.

But, what fun is it to achieve your goals and have no one to celebrate with?

Crafting Your Productivity Formula

As you set out to achieve your goals, your main focus should revolve around balance. Balance means you don’t have to turn water into wine overnight, but you can begin stepping on grapes a little bit every day. The irony is that there is no singular productivity formula; there’s just balance in your schedule that helps you be productive.  

To help you balance your day, you should write down your current daily schedule. Then make two lists:

1. One list containing the goals/ improvements you want to make
   1. Write a book
   2. Build a website
   3. Workout three times a week
2. One list containing all of the entertainment/ leisure activities you want to maintain
   1. 1 hour of daily TV
   2. Dinners with family
   3. Friday nights with the guys

Then, you can begin building your new schedule. But, don’t start from scratch. Instead, take your old schedule and mark it up like an elementary English teacher would.

In crafting your new day, you’ll begin to mold a routine that puts what’s most important to you on a pedestal–keeping it safe from extraction.

Productivity isn’t about maximizing the work hours in your day. Your ideal productivity formula is a result of finding time for your goals while balancing the relationships you hold dearly.

Your goals should be at the top of your To-Do List. Personally, a lot of my goals revolve around growing Quick Theories–a brief, weekly newsletter of my thoughts on modern technology, how it’ll affect your life, and why you should adapt to these changes in your own creative way. So, my schedule is crafted around creating these. If you feel overwhelmed by the rapid advance in technology, you can sign-up here: quicktheories.com