The reason you don't enjoy video games like you used to isn't the time you have. It's something you started doing without noticing, and chances are you did it again the last time you picked what to play.
The first thing I want you to know is that I'm not a psychologist.
I'm not a games journalist either, or an analyst, and I have no qualifications in the human mind, behaviour or anything like it.
I don't stream, I don't play forty hours a week and my backlog is still embarrassing.
I'm a dad, a developer, and I've been playing games for more than thirty years.
If that seems too little to be telling you what I'm about to tell you, I completely understand, and you can stop reading right here.
But first, a question.
Do you know the fastest way to ruin something you love?
It isn't giving it up. Or doing it badly. Or doing too little of it.
It's something anyone would recommend. I did it for seven years, convinced I was doing the right thing.
Let me tell you about one night.
It was half eleven at night and I was updating a spreadsheet.
The console had been off for ten minutes. I'd just dropped a game I was enjoying.
Not because I was bored, mind. I dropped it because I saw everything it still had ahead, worked out how many hours it would take me and decided it wasn't worth it.
So there I was, in the dark living room, laptop on my knees, deleting that game from a list.
And watching the dates move.
Because that's what I had: a spreadsheet with every game I wanted to play, each one with its length taken from the internet and its two dates, start and finish, calculated at one hour a day. One after another, no gaps. I could tell you the exact month I'd have finished playing everything.
And when you take one out of the middle, everything else moves forward. The sheet recalculates itself.
I remember exactly what I thought, watching those numbers move.
Well, that puts me ahead.
Ahead.
I'd just given up something I was enjoying, and the first thing I did was congratulate myself for going faster.
A player doesn't do that. A factory worker does, when a part drops off the line and he checks, relieved, that the line's still running.
I spent several days turning that night over, and the more I thought about it, the worse it looked.
I checked that year's spreadsheet and it said fifteen games finished. Fifteen. And I couldn't tell you a single moment from any of them that was mine.
Not one.
Every good moment in those fifteen games had been told to me first by a YouTube video, a Reddit thread or a review I'd read to decide whether they were worth it.
They'd been spoiled for me with my permission. And with my money. I'd watched them to go faster, which is exactly what the sheet was asking of me.
I made that spreadsheet myself. Nobody asked me to. Nobody was waiting for my end-of-year report of completed games.
I'd built a factory inside the one thing I did purely for fun.
Maybe you don't have a spreadsheet. Hardly anyone does, and I had one because I'm that intense.
But you've definitely done the maths. The one where you check how long a game is, work out the hours you have a week and decide no, not now, with everything else you've got waiting, it isn't worth starting that one.
That sum is exactly my spreadsheet. The only difference is you keep yours in your head and it doesn't make you look at it written down.
And it's no surprise you do it. Everything around you pushes you there: there are whole websites dedicated to telling you how long every game is, videos promising that if you watch them you won't screw it up, and every week something comes out that you can't miss. With little time and that much noise, doing the maths looks like the most sensible thing in the world.
What nobody tells you is what it costs you.
Because that's the fastest way to ruin something you love: organising it too well.
It took me a good while to take mine apart. It didn't happen all at once and it didn't take willpower, I was far too worn out for that: it took changing concrete decisions, one by one, until I could sit down to play and enjoy it again, without worrying whether there were fifteen games queuing on the conveyor belt.
Everything I learned taking it apart is in here:
Why checking how long a game is before you start costs you exactly what you were trying to save, and what to do instead when what really worries you is not having time.
The exact difference between being stuck and wasting your time. They're two different things and confusing them is what makes you reach for your phone. Here's how to tell which one you're in.
The five things I check before buying a game that almost no review tells you. None of them is about the game: all of them are about how it's going to treat you.
Why the fifteen-year-old gamer inside you is still picking your games, and why he almost always gets it wrong.
The three things that tie you to a game you no longer enjoy, and why the second one is the stickiest of the three.
Why every system for organising your backlog lasts a few weeks and dies, and the mistake they all share even when they're well built.
The door that was in front of me the whole time without me seeing it, and why I remember it better than every puzzle I solved with a guide.
Why having two games on the go works much better than having one, and the one condition those two have to meet.
The exact feeling you're after when you switch on the console, and why it hasn't changed one bit since you were fifteen, even if you're convinced it has.
By the way, this isn't a theory book. It's fourteen short chapters, and each one ends with a concrete decision you can make tonight. No introspection exercises, no gratitude journals. The only thing you'll build is a small table, with no dates or lengths, that tells you what to play depending on how you show up that night. And at the end, the whole method on one page, to keep handy.
On we go.
What happened to my backlog the day I stopped treating it like a to-do list, and what I put in its place.
How to tell a healthy quit from running away. They feel very alike from the inside and only one of them leaves you at peace the next day.
The four questions I ask a game when I stop feeling like playing it. The third one decides on its own whether you're letting go or running away.
Why the minutes you lose getting back into a game aren't fixed when you come back, but when you choose.
The genre I'd written off on principle and what happened when I gave it a chance. I tell it because the mechanism repeats with any other.
The uncomfortable truth about "everything you need to know before you play" videos: who they're really made for and why the algorithm wants you to watch them.
How to decide what to play tonight in under a minute, without opening your library and without regretting it ten minutes in.
Why some nights a calm game feels unbearable, and what's happened to your head that day for that to happen.
What to do the night you slip back, because it's coming, and why it almost never has anything to do with games.
Is this going to make me play more hours?
No. It isn't about playing more. It's about the hours you already play no longer feeling like a chore and becoming yours again. Concrete decisions, explained one by one, with the why behind them and with examples. You can read it in the time it takes to watch a film, or a chapter at a time whenever you have a moment, and you start applying it the same night.
How long does it take to read, and to apply?
You can read it in the time it takes to watch a film, if you sit down in one go. But you don't have to: each chapter takes about ten minutes and stands on its own, so you can read it one at a time, whenever you have a moment. The first decision I suggest you can make tonight, before you switch anything on. No thirty-day programme, no challenges to complete. The only thing you'll build is a small table, once, and I tell you what it looks like a bit further down.
Fifteen dollars for a PDF?
Yes. There are no videos, no platform, no community, no twelve-minute welcome module, and I'm not going to add any of that to justify the price. What's in it are the decisions that took me years and a fair few games bought and never enjoyed. If it saves you one wrong seventy-dollar purchase, it's paid for itself, and then some. And if it still seems expensive, I completely understand: then it isn't for you, and that's fine.
Isn't this the same stuff you already write for free in the newsletter?
No, and I'll explain the difference because it matters. In the weekly letter and the first emails I give you the whys: why your backlog isn't a debt, why an unfinished game isn't a failure. That will always be free. This is the how: the steps, the criteria, the checks and the concrete decisions. If the emails are enough for you, don't buy it, seriously. That's what they're there for.
Isn't this a self-help book using video games as an excuse?
I get the suspicion. There are no motivational quotes, no comfort zones to step out of, and I'm not going to tell you to chase anything. What there is is a handful of practical decisions and the explanation of why they work, including the psychological part, told simply and without making up studies.
Do I have to set up some system, some list, some spreadsheet?
A table, yes. But it's the opposite of my spreadsheet: no dates, no lengths and no queue. You set it up once, in fifteen minutes, and from then on it asks nothing of you: you glance at it and know what to play that night.
What if I haven't played properly in years and barely feel like it anymore?
Then you're exactly who I wrote it for. The hardest part of all this isn't finding time, it's switching the console back on after months of looking at it, switched off, from the sofa.
What if I already have my own rules and they work?
You might not need it. If you already drop games without guilt, don't look anything up before you start and know how to pick according to the night you're having, this will confirm things you already do. That's fine, but I'd rather tell you before than after.
What if I'm into long games, or online ones that never end?
Then you'll find it even more useful. Nobody here is going to tell you to play short things. The game I've put the most hours into in my life is an online one with no ending, and it was one of the best things that's happened to me as a player. Length was never the problem.
Do I need to be a parent?
No. I am one, which is why my daughters turn up on a few pages. But this is about having little time and still wanting to play, and that happens to anyone with a job, shifts, a partner or a tiredness that coffee doesn't fix.
What if I have questions after reading it?
Email me and I'll answer myself. Questions about what's in the book, I mean, I'm not going to tell you what to play on Saturday. But if something isn't clear or you don't know how to apply it to your situation, reply to the email and we'll talk.
Is there a refund?
Yes. If you read it and it didn't help, write to me within 14 days of buying and I'll refund your $15. If you tell me what didn't work for you, I'd be grateful: it's the only way I have of knowing what to fix. I do it myself, by hand, because there aren't many of us and I prefer it that way.
Is the Situation List included?
In the book I explain the idea and how to build your own. Mine, with lots more games organised by situation, is a much bigger table and will come by another route later on. You don't need it for this: yours is enough.
Is it a good investment?
If what you want is to sit down to play again without doing sums, with decisions you can make tonight, I think so. I spent years paying for games I didn't enjoy because I didn't know what's in here, and any one of those purchases cost more than this.
But nobody knows that better than you.
PS. If you've read this far and you're not going to buy it, at least take this with you, it's free: next time you start a game, don't look anything up beforehand. Not how long it is, not where to start, not which build to pick. Nothing. Play two hours blind and notice how you feel. For a lot of people, that's enough to feel the difference.
PS2. My youngest daughter and I have a game that's ours: Carmen Sandiego, the old one I loved as a kid. She'd choose where to ask, I'd help her with the clues and the flags, and between the two of us we'd try to remember whether the thief was blond or had a tattoo. No clock, no list and no hurry to get to the next one. She still remembers that game. So do I. That's playing again.