The Daily Grind: How do you structure your limited play time?

My current schedule sticks me at about 12hrs. a week. Normally, the shorter sessions are used for farming and dailies. Things like that, anytime I get anything close to 2 hrs. at a time I try to jump in Expert Dungeons, as I'm playing Rift at the moment. But on occasion as was the case last night, I over do it and end up half asleep before the run is finished. The group I was with last night handled it pretty fair, no ill will and simply replaced me.

Im 25 so im not forced to play 1 day a week or anything like that but still I only play mmo game like 2-3h a day and then it can be just to chatt away with my corp or clan mates (I play L2 and Eve ) or I try do get 1-4 lvls or doing 5-10 missions. reason I only play 2-3h a days is I got other games I wanna play on like my nds or psp.

Wake up. Morning routine. Normally have 30 min before I have to leave for work so I log on Eve before servers go down and change skills and start up the different factories I have going.
Go to work.
Once home I log on and try to level as much as possible on my Rift character or which ever beta I might be in.
Sleep.

I average about 5 hours a week at this point. Between new baby, staying (happily) married, a dog that needs copious exercise, and keeping myself in shape (3-4 days a week at the gym). Those 5 hours can quickly diminish to 1 or 2 some weeks.

Mind you this is coming from someone who used to raid 6 hours a night 4 days a week.

Its hard to fit it in but now that baby is sleeping more and ive been able to get to the gym in the mornings before work im finding its more beneficial to sleep, make it to the gym and play for 30-45 minutes before i goto work.

For the most part this really only works if your baby decides to sleep more.. Sleep is far to precious to lose when it only comes in 2-4 hours stints...

Sorry for the lack of tips / schedule i didnt realize my game time was as deminished as it is lol... Thats not a bad thing! It takes a lot of time to have a happy life (unless you dont have to work and moneys no object that is..)...

I guess my advise is make sure your priorities are in line and gaming comes second to everything else thats here for a limited amount of time (namely you!). I wont say it isnt hard at times when all i want to do is sit down and veg for 4-5 hours on game xyz.. But I always remember that theres another blockbuster right around the corner that i can look forward too :)

If I have to structure it, I'd rather not play. Structure to me creates a work-like feel that is completely opposite of my original desire to play a game.

I don't TBH because I'm terrible at that sort of thing. D: That and for some reason knowing that my time is super-limited makes me not want to play...I could never log in before work or if I had an appointment later in the day. So really I only ever play when I have no other obligations (or at least, none that can't be put off...*cough*).

Nice to see daily grind is devoting a page to the gamers who would like to spend hours gaming but only have a few to spend.

As long as I played gmaes on my own, all went well as I took playtime when I had time. Gaming time always have the lowest priority, so I cannot put a structure in it. It just depends what happens RL.
Once I started playing EvE in 2003, a lot of problems arose. Now there was a game who asks cooperation, forces people to work together. I forced some structural time in my RL-schedule for this game and this was not well appreciated by my wife. I loved the game, was well integrated in the corp live but accumulated a pile of frustations on both sides (VL and RL)
At the end I quit EvE because gaming will always be in my case pure entertainment and cannot be forced to get a structural place in my live. Although I love a good MMORPG as Entropia or EvE, I always be there just a tourist. I still walk or fly around there but only as a loner.

I am the opposite, when I had more time to play I would structure and plan what I would be doing that night.

Now that I have much less time, my gaming time is really my "unwind time" so I do no structuring at all. I log in and do whatever I feel at the time.

The nice thing is that now with modern MMOs, there isn't crap to do but grind quests or run thru a dungeon, so the decision is much easier. Or is that a nice thing hmm...

I work at my desk at home nearly all day, so usually I'll keep something running in the background and then tab over to it now and then. Usually I'll do some crafting or gathering like this - work for 10 minutes, play for a few, etc. Every couple of hours I'll take a break and mooch around the house a bit, then come back and do a quest or kill a few mobs, then back to the alt-tab crafting etc.

WURM was great for that, esp. the cooking, as long as I kept a sharp eye on the time so as not to burn anything. :D

I tend not to play if I have other things happening that day. Which is most days. I have a rare two days off sometimes where I can devote several hours on one of the days to just sitting and gaming, but that is infrequent. My limitation is due primarily to a full time job with irregular working hours, or sometimes long hours. Holidays are not sacred, either; while everyone else is sitting in their pajamas watching TV or whatever people do on holidays, I am generally putting on work clothes. I find I cannot really enjoy gaming if I have other things on my mind or other obligations looming, so, like another poster said above, I simply don't log in if that is the case. I am not the type of person who can focus on a raid -- much less enjoy it, especially when it consists mostly of wiping for 2 hours -- when I know I have to wake up at 5:30am the following morning. Some people can do that; not me!

In addition to that, I also find myself branching out more, of late. I find I am spending more time playing single player MMOs, or re-playing old console games, or even messing around with old school emulators. I have started reading again; I have started writing more (unrelated to gaming, at any rate).

Far and away, though, the majority of my free time that isn't already taken up by errands, meals, and things like laundry, is spent with friends at a bar or at a restaurant, or just getting together to watch a movie and have drinks. I'm 31, single, with no kids or family -- so my friends are my social life. That can easily suck up several hours, and usually more.

My tip? Gaming, especially MMO gaming, is a GREAT way to save money! It's probably the cheapest form of an entertaining timesink that a person could ever invest in. So for those of you with loose wallets, subbing to an MMO is probably the best $15 dollars you could spend on entertainment. ;) Every hour you spend glued to that screen is an hour you aren't out spending money on drinks, dinner, lunches, daytrips, or impulse buys ... I don't advise gaming to the exclusion of all else -- but it is a good tactic to save money and still keep entertained when times are tough, financially.