In a previous post, I alluded to my hobby of playing farming simulation video games. I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoy this pastime. The thrill of planting seasonal seeds and watching them slowly grow into fruits and vegetables (with no chance of me killing any real live plants); the exhilaration of finally having animals and pets that produce dairy, wool, and other sundries; the delight of courting the town bachelor/ettes; the elation upon finally being able to purchase the 198,000,000G house that serves no purpose other than to say I did it… there is nothing else that can compare.
In my current farming sim of choice, my daily routine of late starts like this:
6:00am: Wake up to my in-game husband,
who gives me the lunch he’s made for me and tells me to be home early (Leon, we both know that’s not happening)
6:10 – 6:45am: Make as many dishes as I can before depleting all my energy
to keep my fridge from overflowing and make some of that precious G
6:45am – 4:00pm: Brush and give all 62 of my monster pets gifts
*RECORD SCRATCH*
“Wait,” you must be thinking. “You don’t really brush and give gifts to 62 monster pets every single day, right? I mean, that takes up most of your day!”
Yes, I really do brush and give gifts to all 62 of my monster pets every single day.
Well, I did, up until yesterday (real-life yesterday, not in-game yesterday).
It started out small, as most things do. I just had 2 sheep and 2 chicken monsters at the beginning. Brushing all 4 of them took no time at all. And then I got 2 cow monsters, 1 bull monster, and an apple monster. Okay, so my little monster family grew a little, but it still didn’t take more than an hour of my day.
As I progressed through the game and caught more and more monsters though, suddenly I found myself grinding through up to 9 in-game hours of brushing and gift time. I had little time left in the day to do the things I wanted to do: adventuring in dungeons, gallivanting around town with my in-game husband, even watering and planting my crops were starting to take a backseat to this daily habit.
Yesterday, I finally tried just… not brushing and giving gifts to all my 62 monsters. Suddenly, I had back so many hours of my day. I was able to go adventuring in dungeons before 9pm. I wandered around town and attended yet another pajama party (don’t even get me started on how many times I’ve been invited to those). I even gave birth to an in-game daughter with my newfound time!
Brushing all 62 monsters was never something I had to do. I did it in the beginning to build my relationships with them so they would work in my fields for me (I know how that sounds, but they enjoy it. Really!), and because my monsters liked it. But once I reached that goal, I just kept going with that habit, even though I didn’t need to anymore.
I know you’re not all farmers, or even farming sim players, but I bet there are things you’ve been doing that take up way more time than you wished. Maybe you’re doing it because it makes someone else happy, or because it made sense a long time ago and doesn’t anymore.
People talk about dropping the ball like it’s a bad thing. Is it really so terrible if the ball you’re dropping isn’t one that needs to be juggled at all? So many times we take on little tasks that we think of as no big deal, and before we know it they snowball into things that take up so much energy and time that we don’t have any time leftover for the things we really want to do.
I guarantee that you can find one thing in your life you’ve been carrying needlessly. What could you do if you stopped brushing your 62 monsters everyday?
Drop that ball, and you might be surprised to find just how much lighter your load is by taking one thing away.
Riffs on the Reg 