[mosselman]

That doesn’t sound healthy man. Unless that other thing you should’ve been doing is giving CPR or something then stop feeling guilty.

“Productivity” is not the end goal, you are allowed to play games in life. In fact, shouldn’t work be about enabling you to enjoy life?

[Twisol]

Weirdly, playing games is typically something I the feel least guilty doing, precisely because it's a distraction from the other stuff I'd otherwise not be doing. There's just a lot of stuff I want to do, that I struggle to do, and so I feel guilty about not making progress on that stuff. Then, whenever I try to do something else, I feel too guilty to do that something else.

It's a real self-reinforcing negative feedback loop. I agree that it's not healthy. It's just hard to break out of.

[coldfoundry]

I deal with the exact same mental model. I think for me, while actively gaming I do have fun. It’s only after the fact I look back on the time wasted gaming and think “wow, I really should have worked on that project I want to build instead of playing a game”. It’s also hard to rationalize time spent gaming when you have nothing to show for it afterwards.

If you ever figure out the solution to this negative thought-loop, let me know please!