Posted ByFrankFinding a balance between playing Minecraft, and still managing an organized work life can be hard. I’m going to explore some helpful time management skills that you’ll find will cross over into work and maybe even your personal life.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve lost track of time and spent hours building and often felt I didn’t have much to show for it. After all, what’s not to like about a world where you can create and defy the laws of physics?!
Having a set amount of time allocated to Minecraft and having a dedicated server can help, most players won’t stick to their own schedule, however, it makes you aware of just how much time you spend playing.
So we’ll take a look at some smart time-saving techniques in the game of Minecraft including playing day vs. night and the best way to plan out everything that you want to get done each time you play.
Often it can be some time before I’ve gotten back to playing whether it’s just after work, or soccer and I’ve forgotten what I was doing in the game last time I was on. It can sometimes be days between each session and you may have forgotten the strategy you came up with last time.
It’s worth making a “to-do” list. This might sound blatantly obvious, but trust me, try it. Keeping a mental inventory of your goals and what you were working on, will save you heaps of time later on. Moreover, using alts such as drilledalts is beneficial no matter how proficient you are in the game.
The day/ night cycle in Minecraft can be really frustrating especially when you’re right in the middle of building something, or you finally found some material you really needed. The day/night cycles are relatively the same in length, however, the dangers you face at night, creepers, zombies, are still prevalent for a significant portion of ‘dawn’ so you have to be really careful.
Being brave and playing at night or in the early morning may get you ahead in the short term, but we all know it’s just a matter of time before you miss something because you can’t see properly and then lose it all and have to start over!
A gradual build-up to your goals is wise. It’s easy to get ahead of yourself once you think you’ve got the hang of the game and start trying to race ahead and before you know it, you’ll have complicated things for yourself, and won’t be able to keep track of each task.
Multi-tasking is an illusion, what you are actually doing is switching between tasks, giving one more attention than the other, it happens so fast we’re not even aware it’s taking place, and that’s when mistakes are made.
A good example is speaking on the phone whilst writing an email when a colleague passes your desk to ask a question. You may have answered their question however your email to your boss made absolutely no sense, and the person on the phone got tired of waiting and hung up!
So keep it simple. Focus on one task at a time, jot down what you were doing just before you stop playing. Write down what you need next, and list a few goals. It will make a world of difference, and shave HOURS even DAYS off your time spent foraging around aimlessly in the world of Minecraft confused and afraid of those creepers!
I hope these tips have helped. Remember these basic time management skills are very useful at work as well! Taking time out for two minutes, a small fraction of the time you may spend on all the work piling up, just to reorganize yourself, create a shortlist of what you need to get done and what must be done first, can save you so much time.
Not to mention the sense of calm you’ll feel when your tasks are written down so it’s clear what you need to get done. You can track how far you’ve come and cross things off as you go, without constantly stop-starting, checking the clock, and entering a state of panic which is when you are least productive.
Our level of performance declines the higher the stress level. The best state of mind to be in is “restful alertness”. Being mindful of the task at hand is the key to a clear perspective, fewer errors, and better productivity and performance.
This is the case whether you are working on a team project, or building some unimaginably awesome architecture in Minecraft.