A Disordered Life

[rsvp42]

I used to be really messy, but I've gotten better since college and moving out on my own. Partly it's because I have less stuff with me, but I also care more about how I present myself to guests. But gaming definitely affects how often I get chores done like laundry and dishes. Even more, it affects my sleep.

Part of it is that I just got a nice new PC after having only a school-issued laptop for 4 years. Needless to say, I've been playing all the games I've been missing voraciously, which cuts into much-needed sleep time. A brutal school schedule already taught me how to get by on little sleep, but it still messes with my performance. Also, my motivation for going out can wane when there's a new game or system calling to me. Inevitably, the obsession dies down and other things like creative and professional fulfillment become more important, but the intervening weeks are very unproductive.

 

[JMeganSnow]

You treat disorder like it's an on/off switch--either you're ordered or disordered, the end. Disorder is more of a continuum. Would you think it was healthy if a person devoted every waking moment to maximizing their orderliness, to the point where they were getting up hours early in order to be able to groom every single eyelash, re-grout the bathtub, measure precisely their consumption of shampoo and conditioner, etc? No.

I simply have strict limits on the amount of my life that I'm willing to devote to cleaning shit or worrying ABOUT cleaning shit. I prefer to clean and organize very intensively over short periods of time rather than spend a large amount of time every 15 minutes picking this up or cleaning that or whatever.

But I don't care if every time I pass through the kitchen for a couple of days, there's a few dishes on the counter. I'll get to them when I get to them. If it bothers you, clean it up yourself. I don't whine and complain when I wind up cleaning someone ELSE's mess, and I will actually say things like, hey, thanks for picking that up. But never a word of thanks or appreciation do I get when I clean up, which I do far more regularly than anyone believes. I don't understand why people get so effing self-righteous about doing a couple of dishes.

At the end of the day, people have to realize that there's an infinite amount of shit to be done and some of it just ain't getting done. I'd rather spend my limited time playing games, writing, drawing, earning money, cuddling, and do an absolute minimum amount of screwing around with dirt. If I can find my stuff, it's as organized as it needs to be.

 

[Knight Templar]

I take a bit of pride in the state of my room (Being ordered that is, I'm not proud of the structured piles of mess it used to be). I also spend a lot of time making my house in Oblivion and Fallout 3 (Can't do it with F:NV, things go missing) set up exactly right.
However because I have almost no concept of time my organisational skills end there. I'm good with pattens. Applying them, not so much.

 

[BioTox]

I would say I am a gamer but anyone that knows me would agree without me having to state it. I work 40 hours a week, play 20-30 hours per week as well and keep up with my family/friends/girlfriend. All of that being said, I am far from being a slob or having piles of anything in my house/room. I don't think that gamers have to give up playing games or keeping their house clean. How hard is it to carry your old trash to the kitchen when you are going for a new soda? Will a 10 min shower really kill your online presence?

People that let games take over their lives, in my personal, non-professional opinion, have to self control. Maybe they have an addictive personality and get hooked on playing a certain game but it's no excuse when you notice your house smells like trash, your boss threatens to cut you lose or your family doesn't know if you're alive because you live in your room all the time.

I think there are some people that need to unplug before it takes over their lives and they end up on the show "horders" when all they have is trash. LoL

 

[DayDark]

There's a difference between disorder and chaos.

Case in point: My Mother is a hoarder. She has stuff bulging out of each and every cupboard.
My Father is a tidier. He tidies constantly.
I'm a bit of a slob. Always have been LONG before I even had a computer.

Thing is: If they need to find that spare set of keys, I'm the one who can find them.

If I move the keys from one hook to the other, both my folks are lost. If they drop them in the bathroom, I'll still be able to find them quickly.

You can still be messy and organised.

Truth, I remember when I lived at home and my room was completely chaotic, but I could still find exactly what I was looking for, but if my mother cleaned up, I suddenly couldn't find anything.

 

[Latinidiot]

I have a system, but mom says important papers shouldnt be on the floor. doesnt really know where they should go. i mean, the desk is obviously meant for the junk. also, did anyone feel like humming 'Toxicity'?

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I live in disorder, however I'm very organised. In fact my life can very much be summed up here.

I'm a bit of a slob. Always have been LONG before I even had a computer.

Thing is: If they need to find that spare set of keys, I'm the one who can find them.

If I move the keys from one hook to the other, both my folks are lost. If they drop them in the bathroom, I'll still be able to find them quickly.

You can still be messy and organised.

Like The Root of all Evil, I'm a slob and I live with no definitive place to put things that I'll be moving around constantly. However, I always know where they are and I can easily keep things like this sorted. My A-level work will be lying next to the door, in my bad and on my desk and I still get it all done. I have socks all over my floor yet I usually have a pair handy and if I don't there's a pair on the floor, same with my clothes.

Point is, I'm organised while being a slob and living in disorder.

 

[Serenegoose]

My order is anothers disorder. I might keep my games piled high in several cupboards, but I know exactly where they are. I tend to have problems ordering my life when it comes to time, however - that's the killer. Time to travel outside, time to spend with partners, time to spend cooking, and then eating, and time to spend gaming, reading, writing. Time to spend sleeping is usually the one that meets the chop though, when I realise that I don't have enough time to do everything and sleep at the end of the day - which makes my days quite disordered, because who knows when I'll sleep!

 

[Throwitawaynow]

others even dream about it--provided they sleep long enough to enter the REM phase.

LOL, I dream I'm in a different video game almost every night. Not any of the ones that have been made just a dream with video game rules, plots, weapons, etc.

 

[skyfire_freckles]

I don't have enough room for all of my stuff. That's the big problem. One bedroom with two computers (I share a room with a person of the opposite gender, and we are both gamers), a dresser, a tv/dvd on a stand. Between the two of us we manage to keep things fairly tidy. A kitchen-sized trash can under the desk helps a lot, but only because we empty it when it gets full.

Funny, though. When I was younger and had a room all to myself, I didn't bother to keep it clean, except for food debris, and only that because we had an ant problem and I didn't feel like waking up crawling with bugs. Less stuff=less organization? I guess sharing my space with another person has made me more organized.

 

[Hippobatman]

Well, I'm the slightly lazy type in the sense that I really don't mind if there's a little mess around my room, and that's not coming mainly from video games. I've been that way for as long as I remember.

If the mess piles up however, I don't mind tidying up, it's just that my mess kinda makes my room feel.. "Home", you know?

The used set of clothes in my chair, the small gadgets and knick knacks on my desk and the controllers on the floor in front of the tv. They're all part of my room.
Whenever I thoroughly clean my room to crisp perfection, I always feel a slight discomfort, it just doesn't feel quite right. So by the next day, there's bound to be something laying around to drive my mom crazy (she's General Tidy-Face in the household).

Slightly messy room makes me comfortable, and I still find my things, so it's not an inconvinience either.

 

[Irridium]

Some would say I fit the bill, but they'd be wrong.

I am organized, just in a way that works for me. I know where everything of mine is. If asked to find something of mine, I can get it in under a minute. I work on a type of "organized chaos" level.

Things may look a bit crazy in certain areas, but I can navigate them easily. Plus I don't have many things, so that helps.

Its also the same with the other areas of my life. In school I always looked disorganized, yet I knew where all my work was at all times, and always turned in a final copy of my work, never a first draft(except that one time...).

I've also been known to skip a few meals, but I've always eaten whenever I should. I just don't eat as much as others. I eat when I'm hungry, and games have no effect on it at all. If I'm hungry, I'll save, quit the game, and make myself some food. If I'm online, I'll tell everyone I'm going to go eat, then I get off.

In short, I may look disorganized, but thats because I organize in a way that works for me.

Simple as that.

4 words:

"Just five more minutes..."

Or if your a Civ player

"Just one more turn..."

 

[Aurgelmir]

Ask Dr. Mark 11: A Disordered Life

Why do many gamers seem so disorganized in their personal life?

Read Full Article

Clothes piled up on the floor... oh I can relate to that.

But for me a lot of the reasons things like that happened was mainly because of small living space while at Uni.

Now that I have my own place, with more room than I need I have a much neater place.
It's probably not up to the est standards, but I keep it nice

PS: I should stop cleaning my floor, I move faster on creep... FOR THE SWARM!

 

[ZephrC]

Wait, are there actually people without severe OCD that have every single aspect of their lives organized?

Because that kinda sounds like a miserable, self-inflicted hell more than a useful skill to me, but perhaps I'm just odd.

 

[lawdjayee]

Dr. Mark, thank you for this piece. It may seem like basic stuff for you, but there are a lot of folks out there (including me) who ought to find what you've written useful, as you say, on their own time...

 

[gl1koz3]

I very rarely play games. I'm still absolutely disorganized in real life.

Why even try... the things have to be always kept in order by hand, and the process is laughably trivial and boring, which distracts from more important aspects that you actually care about.

An example of how dumb organization is, take the computer. It's always organized, or it wouldn't work. Yes, it's that dumb to organize things, and I guess some people are just cut out to avoid it.

Having said that, I let the computer organize itself or at least with my minimal help and do what I like doing the most with the spare time, letting the things organize themselves. That gives real pleasure at what I like doing.

P.S.
Work: software engineer
Hobby: sound artist/composer
Gaming: An occasional game... maybe once per month.

 

[VonBrewskie]

Excellent article, IMO. It was not condescending, and Dr. Mark gave some good viewpoints. I know I have ignored others for the better part of my life. I'm just not into translating myself for others. I feel weird and out of place in "reality" but I'm good at doing the things I need to do to keep a little coal of satisfaction and peace burning for myself. Games, solitary games where I feel free to invest my own imagination in the virtual landscape, are like my only peace anymore. I don't like online games very much, but I love to get into single-player games that let me escape from this life of mine. When I play games, I don't feel like I'm "doing time" on planet earth, waiting for my clock to run out. Games have been the only thing I have lived for before. Not for the games themselves necessarily, but because other aspects of my life have felt so out of control. I keep my home in decent condition. I have extracurricular activities and personal relationships, but I don't enjoy those as simply as I enjoy games. At any rate, good article Dr. Mark. I have been given quite a lot to think about.

 

[Nurb]

That's not always true, the most disorganized messy games have very organized porn folders

 

[Exterminas]

Disorganized is a broad term.

I often leave used clothes, lying around in my apartement. Then again, I live alone and am a grown up person. If the clothes bother me, I will remove them. If not, they will stay on the floor, till laundry day. I don't have a mother or a partner, waging their finger at me.

On the other hand, I am never late and never miss out on any duties that actually matter, like dates for exams.

So am I disorganized?
There is a difference between gross neglegance of orginization and simply not bother with things that other fancy important.

 

[Fearzone]

Nice article. Great question.

As you mentioned, I think there are a lot of games out there that actually are good tests for thought organization, like strategy games and role-playing games--games with a lot of parameters, a lot of pathways to reach a successful outcome but also ways to fail.

It becomes a question of where one chooses to devote their organizational energy: is is conquering a fantasy planet from a magical flying castle, or solving a complex puzzle game, or devising the next great Terran build, or is it washing the dishes or doing laundry?

Which has the greatest payoff?