What's worked for me has been using a blocker. For example "cold turkey" I'm using ATM. I normally set blocks of 1 month or so, then end up binging a gaming weekend when it becomes unblocked, then go again
Seems to be working pretty well. Considering just setting it away for 3 month blocks, but I'm still hanging on to there being a nice middle ground :)
Tried playing less before, but never succeeded for long.
Just not playing at all will probably suit me better. Especially when I know I will be able to at the end of the block.
Starting with it from now! Thanks for sharing :)
If I have good answers, I'll let myself play the game. "I've been programming all day and my brain needs a break," is fine. But if it comes out that I'm playing because I just want to fill time or am procrastinating taking the next step on a project, I put it down and do something else. Doesn't have to be the thing I was procrastinating, just something that won't automatically expand to fill all available time.
I still LOVE games though and I think in terms of them all the time. However I prefer physical games with good design, there's something about having a small enough statespace that it fits in your head but a vast enough posibility space to encourage replay that tickles me.
Nowadays I want to design some games but I want to do a lot of things, so we'll see what happens...