I am a father of two girls and have many life goals. I am 42. At 41, after years of trying desperately to ignore chess (because I know I love the game and I can get crazy addicted), I started playing online. Just a few games a day, I told myself at first... However, I have spend around 2 to 4 hours each day for a full year now... It's too much. Its not like I am good at chess. I just love the game. But in the meantime, I am spending way too much time on it.
Now, please understand, answers like "just stop" or "try to allocate just one hour" as tips are not helpful to me. I tried and failed. What I want to know is tactics to decrease the playing time or make me stop completely due to some magic tip or formula. Chess is, for me, a perfect distraction from real life. An escape if you will. That is not cool, I know. Anyway, I am greatful for any tips or tricks on this issue. Thank you in advance!
If you play on an iPhone (i'm not sure about androids but there is probably a similar feature), get your wife to create one of those "Restriction" PINs. Then have your wife enable the "Screen Time" Feature and limit the amount of time you can play on chess apps to a low amount say 20minutes/day.
As someone who has battled with addiction myself, its all about your mindset towards the stimulant. For example, if you tell yourself chess is your only way of escaping the difficulties of the real world then it will be virtually impossible to quit. You need to make sure you think of it as nothing more than the game that it is. If that fails, then talk to someone you trust to try and make sure that you arent playing it too much, i.g. your wife, best friend etc. I wish you the best.
If that fails, I've heard using
chess.com is quite the good deterrent from playing lots of chess.
@BraveNewWorld78 you need to focus on your other life goals and find joy in them - you need to spend time doing other things so your brain can correlate joy and distraction and so on with other things than chess too! As soon as you find joy in other things too or even solve some of your problems in life you are distracting yourself from this "addiction" will decrease. Also: You might not have only a chess addiction, but also an internet addiction, which many people nowadays "suffer" from. I would advise you to stop playing online for now and play mastergames on the chessboard or against others OTB. You won't ever play as many games OTB as online, because online it is possible to play 24/7 one game after another. You don't need to give up on chess, just be aware of other things being able to make you happy too.
Think of your favourite chocolate. You don't want to eat that one over and over again, because as much as you like it, one day you can't see it anymore. You need variety.
I got an idea: get bored by playing
@randommoverbot.
I agree with the other comment, playing on
chess.com should take your fire to play away
Meh think yoyboi is on to something...😀
Treat this problem as any other addiction. Hypnosis CDs helped me stop smoking. I recommend this.
Thank you, guys. This really helps!!!