Search for Simplification in 2024
Posted on December 19, 2023 by Aywren
One of the things I’d like to achieve going into the new year is to work at simplifying the things I do, especially on a daily basis. I’m looking at eliminating stuff I spend time on that I really don’t need to (such as daily log in to games I don’t really play).
I talked about this a little bit a few months back, how even though I’ve achieved what I’ve wanted out of Black Desert Online, I still log in each day. I’ve continued to do so since I’ve written that post, until this past week. And I’ve discovered this wasn’t as hard to make a break from it as I thought.
So, here’s some things that I’m cutting out – either temporarily or permanently – starting next year (or now, in some cases).
Black Desert Online Daily Log In
As I mentioned, I was already questioning why I was logging into BDO every day despite not really having any goals or desire to play. Yeah, you get login rewards, but after several years non-stop of logging in to Awaken my Dream Horses, I don’t need to do that anymore.
As of last week, I’ve quit the daily log in. I haven’t uninstalled the game yet, despite the fact I don’t have a lot of interest in the new classes coming out or playing my current characters. They are going to be giving away yet another dream horse this week, so I’ll be logging in to get a Doom, since that’s the only horse of the three I don’t already own.
Why? Well, just to complete the set, I guess. Aside from that, my desire to play BDO is nil since I only played for the horses. I can get horse raising/training/breeding in other games, so it just makes sense to cull this from my time sinks.
PC Game Pass
I love PC Game Pass, and have been subscribed for a couple years now. I love the idea of paying a single price for a good library of games. I have a lot of games on my list there that I want to play.
So why am I finally cancelling it?
I just don’t have time to play the games on that list. I splurged on too many bundle games this year for Steam, and my backlog is way too large to add any other service to my gaming rotation.
I kept PC Game Pass around specifically for Cities Skylines 2, but after it launched and I tried it out, it didn’t really hook me. Besides, I’ve got lots of DLC for Cities Skylines 1 sitting on Steam that I still haven’t played.
So, yeah. I may return to this in the future because I feel like it’s a fantastic deal. But only once I’ve focused on the games I actually already own.
Uninstalling Games I’m Not Playing
I have a bad habit of installing a game, playing it for a bit, and leaving it to sit on my computer for months because “I might get back around to it.” Sometimes I do, but not very often.
I’m trying to move into a mindset where I’m only keeping the games that I’m actively playing installed. Especially since Steam cloud save does a good job of holding on to your save data for the most time. It’s not a big deal to uninstall when you’re not playing something.
There are a few exceptions for games that are just downright huge – ARK is one of them. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back into playing ARK, but if I had to blow the bandwidth to download a game of that size all over again… well. I want to be sure.
But smaller games? Yeah. I’ve been uninstalling and putting them into a category on Steam to return to them when I get the inspiration.
Updating my WordPress Blog
This is something I’ve gone back and forth on for the past year. Now that I have my HTML blog completed, all I ever do with my WordPress blog is create posts that point back to my actual blog posts. However, looking at the stats, I’m not seeing enough traffic from WordPress to make this worth the time it takes to create a second blog post to get the word out about my actual blog post.
If I were getting lots of hits through WordPress, that would be one thing. I’m just not seeing that based on what JetPack stats tell me.
If you’re one of the folks who still keep up with my blog through WordPress, I apologize. I do post updates to lots of locations such as Mastodon, Tumblr, the Blaugust Discord. I also have an RSS feed, which I know can be flukey sometimes, but it works in most RSS readers.
I’ll finish the year out at WordPress, and unless I get some strong feedback against dropping the blog as an update feed, I’ll just let it be once 2024 rolls around.
Have you considered simplifying or cutting out some things for the new year? If so, what?