Thoughtful & Efficient Engagement With Sim Leagues?

[Renomitsu 934]

Is this a stock photo? You're darned right it is.

 

"I Don't Have Much Free Time. How Do I Maximize My Sim League Experience?"

 

I wish I had a clever intro for you, good reader. But I want to cut to the point: with limited free time, what strategies work to make sim leagues and their vibrant communities enjoyable?

 

1) Be intentional about WHEN you engage with sim leagues.

I know that the busier I am with work, the less I want to do it. It's tempting to try to alt-tab to or pop the app open for Discord depending on whether I'm sitting at my laptop or trying to escape to my phone while I'm in the hospital or in clinic. As a result, it's not uncommon for me to ditch my phone in the team room while at work, or just close out of Discord entirely if I know I have work to do remotely.

 

Whether you're an adult with a job or a student with a particularly busy schedule, it's important to set expectations for when you can access sim leagues. I'm firmly of the opinion that adults are just big kids with more responsibility – and as much as I'd like to goof off at work, I know constantly distracting myself with sim leagues will make me more anxious about the work I already have to do (to say nothing of incoming calls or consults I'll eventually need to make). The quick dopamine burst I get from interacting with sim communities for a few seconds during the day is nothing compared to the dread I feel if I fall behind what I need to do, whether that's at home or in a clinical setting. If I get my work done, I feel infinitely freer knowing that the time I spend on sim leagues is mine to enjoy without anyone else suffering.

 

2) Know your boundaries – don't be afraid to set league servers to MUTE when you need to get a lot of work done.

Access to recreational activities is often the largest driver of whether they're used or not. In my case, seeing the little white tab next to a league that's currently active almost feels mandatory to check (for those of you in a ton of servers that might not be the case). And I know I'm not great at completely ignoring the big red dot on Discord on desktop or push notifications on my phone when I get a chance to check the screen during the day. So what do I do? I turn all of it off.

 

At the end of the day, whether I respond to a PM, locker room message, or main server message in 1 minute or 1 day won't change the course of my experience in a league – or at least it hasn't thus far. I do like being prompt in responding to DMs (as it avoids any likelihood of me forgetting about said message, as I've done a handful of times). I've actually extended my mutes to just about everything in sim leagues, though I still do get a good chance to respond to them when I'm off work. While that means I haven't been seen as much around sim leagues – even on my 'off' days – it means I have a much healthier relationship with how and whom I choose to engage sim leagues and users. Not everything has to be on my terms, but it's awfully helpful when I can feel a semblance of control.

 

As I said in my last bullet, adults are just big kids with more responsibility. Nothing about age necessarily makes you more mature, even if you get more chances to express your maturity and grow from your experiences. When I taught 4^th grade math and science a half-dozen years ago or so, I learned the importance of setting expectations with my students. I do the very same for myself and it's helped my relationship with and enjoyment of sim leagues immensely. It helps me understand the gravity of my actions and the opportunity cost I pay if I violate the expectations I set.

 

3) Find a single day (or a primary day + backup day later in the week) to get all of your updating done.

This might be the most helpful bit of advice. My schedule is a little more amorphous than it was during my schooling, primarily because I don't know 1) which day each week I'll have off and 2) modifiers like clinic half-days, medical education, cross-coverage of admissions, or 24 hour shifts until perhaps a month or so before they happen (and it's not always easy to remember perfectly without a calendar). Having a singular day during the week when you do your updates is nice, but not always perfect if there are time-sensitive, non-weekly tasks (it also applies to leagues that have rolling update approval like the VHL!). If you know you'll always have a given day 'off' each week where you can get your tasks done, a single day can be enough. But if you have a schedule that shifts from week to week like me, sometimes it's nice just to have a backup day to make sure you can get your updates in. For me, writing point tasks happens on Saturday. As a matter of fact, I've got several lengthy articles stored up because I knowingly dedicate a specific amount of time on a specific day to writing them.

 

If I don't have Saturday off (as is the case this week), I default to Sunday. Since I have several articles going at once, I can usually get weekly claims done in about 15 minutes by doing sim attendances (as applicable), press conferences, and job pay as needed. Similarly, I have a specific time each day (while working days) to check sim leagues who update with weekly point tasks that are time-limited to the same week – for example, EFL's weekly games or VHL Fantasy at the start of each season. Sometimes this check is 10 seconds long, but I always allocate a very limited amount of time to them (5 minutes at maximum). Does that mean my answers are always the best-researched and perfect? Well, no. I don't get many VHL or EFL predictions correct. But it does mean I tend to earn even more than most capped earners, as many don't participate in extras (or occasionally forget practice facility – oops!).

 

But really, these three points are more or less the same. Set boundaries and expectations for yourself and it's pretty hard to go wrong once you get into a routine.

 

4) Keep people in the loop; communication is key.

There are few users GMs like more than those that are responsible, high earners, and good communicators – or at least that's what I've garnered from GMing in the EFL. For example – I drafted Frostbeard's defensive back and J.Dragon's running back to the Minnesota Frontier early on in my tenure. The former of the two went inactive within a couple of seasons to pursue real-life aspirations, and the latter said "hey, this is the month I'm going to stop being active." Getting communication early on in that period helped me glean their true draft value, and both understood that their role would be reduced in Minnesota (though I still stand firm that Frostbeard's defensive back deserved DRotY – 5 INTs is no joke at safety!).

 

I've tried to be as clear as possible with my intentions, both with Aloe Dear this offseason, as a GM, and with any role that I've taken. When being hired as a mod, for example, I was exceedingly clear with Fong that my set end date coincided with entering residency. For Historian in EFL, I wanted to be clear about what I set out to accomplish with respect to seasonal & career records, and I wanted to be transparent about limited activity with regards to awards committee over there, too. Giving others a baseline understanding of what to expect from you helps them make informed decisions about hires for jobs; if you stick with the baseline you set, it's difficult to be disappointed with the work you do. If you exceed expectations with regards to activity and contribution, great! Everyone's happy. Eventually, as is the case in the real world, your track record starts to speak for itself. If you stick to your plans, others understand they can take you at your word even if life happens.

 

5) Make your off-time productive! Multiclaiming is your friend.

This has been a real lifesaver for me. I would not be active in sim leagues anymore if I had to make a new 500 word article every single week (sometimes you just wanna write 2,000 words, amirite?). Some people consider writing articles to be a drag; it's not for everyone and nobody should be judged for avoiding writing media. But for me, getting words out on the page is infinitely easier than expending creative energy on graphics – especially since I'd want to hold myself to a given standard and would burn out of making graphics comparatively quickly (all the more power to you if you can regularly make quality graphics).

 

As I said above, setting aside a specific time of the week for updating and getting point tasks written is key. I just sit down for about 45 minutes or so to write each week, and that's made it very easy for me to stockpile media. This doesn't really apply to students on summer break or anyone with a ton of free time (again, this applies to people struggling with work hours and other obligations), though it can be helpful for making your time on sim leagues more productive if that's your goal. Even if I stopped working on sim league material permanently and could only dedicate 10 minutes a week, I'd still be able to claim 6-point PTs for a while at the very least.

 

6) If it feels like a chore, don't do it.

Sim leagues are meant to be fun – at least from my perspective, they should never feel like an obligation or a job unless that's what you want (or you really don't want to hand off your precious sim league to someone else as an individual in a position of authority). GMing in the EFL – which I truly did enjoy many aspects of – began to feel like a chore a handful of seasons in, though I still do see it as a job with a ton of positive aspects. But after a certain point, I stopped having fun with GMing. It wasn't my team's fault, as I had a lot of really nice users in my locker room; I don't think it was entirely my fault, though I should certainly shoulder some of the blame; and I don't think it was the league leadership or the users at large that were responsible. But it was eating into how I experienced other parts of the league: I didn't really pay attention to my players' success (individual statistics or team success), updating felt like an duty rather than a recreational activity, and I always worried about what decision I made that might hurt my team's long-term success.

 

Some of that is expected and even in the job description. But I felt less and less inclined to do the other parts of sim leagues that kept me initially motivated to take the job in the first place. That's not the case for other GMs, commissioners, moderators, etc. – that was specific to my experience. And when I realized that was the case, I made it clear that I intended to step down. I continue to appreciate all of the fun sim leagues have to offer all the more tangibly when I made it less of an obligation.

This bullet point might mean that you take a break for a week… or a month… or a few years until you find yourself in the right mental space to really enjoy doing it again. I did as much with the VHL between my first and second, as well as between my second and third players. It's also part of the reason why I retired my first EFL players when I did. That doesn't mean do everything you want on a whim (as tempting as that is) – I still tried to give my GMs a heads-up well in advance of retiring my players, usually a couple of seasons. Occasionally that luxury of far-in-advance notice isn't possible, especially when real life crops up. And I'd like to think that's okay, too.

 

[2,101 Words; Claimable for 4 Weeks; Claim 1 of 4 for Week Ending 7/25/21 (7/24/21 in EFL)]

[Renomitsu 934]

Claim 2 of 4 for Week Ending 8/8/21 (8/7/21 in EFL)

[Gustav 6,416]

100% agreed with all of this. Being at work full-time lately I've been busy for a while now and don't see life slowing down with a fairly involved semester ahead of me and (possibly) trying to make myself look as good as possible for some grad programs. 

 

The big thing that can sum up quite a bit of this article and my sim league philosophy in general (not that the other points aren't relevant) is this point:

On 7/19/2021 at 8:59 PM, Renomitsu said:

If it feels like a chore, don't do it.

 

I still haven't missed a week of maxing out since the first week or two I was in this league, and I consider myself a decently-involved GM--especially now that I actually have a reason to care about whether or not we're winning games. But I felt a bit leagued-out a couple months ago and lost interest in the PBE. Do I feel bad that I was a first-rounder and a decent earner for a while and now haven't logged on in a month? Kinda. But do I want to force myself to do a set of tasks every week for the next year or two? Hell no, I'm not as dumb as I look. I'm not entirely "leagued-out" in the EFL yet, but I also haven't truly cared about what's going on there the past season or two and likely won't be recreating for a while. I love my sim leagues, and I wish I could say I love being a good member in all of them, but it just truly isn't sustainable if I want to actually do things with my life. Lately I've really only paid attention to VHL goings-on, and not having to bounce around between a few different sites (as well as probably having a team that's actually competitive) has brought back some of the super-deep appreciation to this league that I had as a new member. So yes, don't do things you don't want to do--it might make the things you do want to do a good deal more enjoyable.

[Birdman 59]

Review: I don't know if I'm even allowed to review something of this magnitude of awesomeness, but I will try my best to do it justice. First off I love the layout almost as much as the content. The nice corporate art style photo at the beginning is right at home with a power point and it sets the stage perfectly. The sections are distinct and the topics don't cross over each other which is clear and concise. The meat of the article hits home for me as a newer user/player. When I first started I was driven away by my lack of focus which caused me to be stressed about getting point tasks done. However, now that I've returned, a much clearer approach like this has helped me a lot even with my schooling going on. This is definitely a solid 9.5/10 for me and I will certainly be taking some of this advice with me.

[Renomitsu 934]

Thanks for the feedback, friends! This was an article I felt very strongly about writing now with a huge shift in priorities in my life, but it's still incredibly important to me to be a part of this community.

 

Claim 3 of 4 for Week Ending 8/22/21 (8/21/21 in EFL)

[Note my article from this week is just being used for the Theme Week bonus; I'll claim it as a point task later]

[McWolf 3,115]

months?

[Renomitsu 934]

Claim 4 of 4 for Week Ending 8/29/21 (8/28/21 in EFL)