Well, uh, sometimes she doesn’t. Hence the lack of posts recently.

Let me give you a breakdown of my day:

I get up at 5 am every weekday, and about 6 am on weekends. On weekdays, I am on the road to work (after waking up husband and both sons) by 6 am and at work by 6:30. At work, I have a caseload of between 35-50 homeless adults needing case management to find housing, jobs, medical care, psychological care, transportation, substance abuse treatment, help with legal matters, identification, etc. There’s not a whole lot of sitting still to be done at my job, except when I’m doing the paperwork, and that is still not ‘resting’. I get an hour for lunch. Often, I use it for one on one time with my husband, or go out with a co-worker. Today, I’m blogging. Don’t tell my boss, but I have WoW on my computer, and sometimes for lunch, I do a little farming or crafting. (the computer is too slow to do much of anything else).

I get off work at 3:30, and am home by 4:00. Chores are assigned to every member of the family, but I’m usually responsible for making sure they get done. We’re usually done within an hour or so (note: we do not have a spotless house. We do have a reasonably clean and neat one, most of the time). I get the boys lined out to do their homework, then I usually check e-mails and log on to WoW.

Now, before dinner, I usually don’t do anything too exciting on WoW. Cooking dinner takes attention, so I usually chat a little with guildies, run an auction scan, or do a little in game farming with my husband or #2 son.

Most weekdays, I actually don’t get a lot of gaming in before dinner. Before dinner is usually “we” time for the family, and that is far more important than getting more faction awards from the Consortium.

After dinner (responsibility for dinner alternates among family members), “my” time begins. If I still have energy left, I might do a five person instance or two. Otherwise, I might quest with guildies or family members.

Weekends are for catch up and raiding. I always reserve several hours on both weekend days for family and household stuff, but weekend (Friday and Saturday) evenings are when I can do some non-guilty raiding. Also, on weeknights, despite the fact that I am the first one up in the mornings, I am usually also the last one to bed. Sleep is a distant stranger.

So what tips do I have for other busy people who want to participate in MMORPG?

1) Budget your time. I have a Franklin Planner, and I organize my tasks into three lists: a) professional, b) household and family, and c) me time. WoW is sometimes categorized as me time, sometimes as family time….but it’s budgeted in, not stolen from what I should be doing.

2) Get what needs to be done completed before you sit down at the computer. Once you accept that group invite, the dishes have a tendency to sit… and more importantly, your family has a tendency to be ignored.

3) Take periodic breaks from the game to reconnect with other hobbies, your family, and your friends. This has the added bonus of breaking up monotony within the game when you’re working on a hard to acheive goal that is time consuming and a bit dull.

4) Make division of labor an integral part of your parenting style. Expect your kids and significant other to contribute to the household upkeep, and stick to your guns. (One of my favorite lines is “oh, you wanted jeans washed? I’m sorry, my ESP antenna was broken again. Go ahead and help yourself to the laundry room”)

5) Hate to break it to you, but if you work full time and raise a family, an ultra uber raiding guild is probably not the place for you. The average “uber raider” has a 9-5 job or less, and usually no family, or is not the primary caregiver for his or her (probably his) family. Find a guild to play with that has interests you share and goals you can help them acheive. I belong to a raiding guild, but a “family” raiding guild. We are all busy people, and raids are mostly done on weekends, with a few occasional mid week raids when we have the numbers.

6) Oh, and if you really want time to game, don’t let anyone talk you into being a guest or weekend or co- blogger on any feminist gaming website

Time management is the friend of the working mother gaming geek, and so is balance. Something has always got to give, but it doesn’t always have to be the same thing… and keeping a backbone and refusing to be the family maid helps enormously. Feel free to offer more suggestions for how to multitask work, parenting, and gaming. Enjoy.

odanu posted this entry on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm and filed it under General, General Feminism, MMORPGs, PC Gaming, Women in Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.