I was playing The Sims last week and this is what reminded me how badly I needed to do create this video and blog post.

Or their performance starts tanking until itвЂ™s better for their job for them to be at home resting than it is for them to be there.ДЄND THERE IT IS. (ThatвЂ™s one of the weird things they do.) Or theyвЂ™ll come home. If theyвЂ™re already at work and their needs become too low, theyвЂ™ll literally fall asleep on the floor. ItвЂ™s like the literal definition of вЂњcannot evenвЂќ-ing. If your little sim doesnвЂ™t get enough sleep, they just wonвЂ™t go to work. When it gets to a point where a simвЂ™s need is too low, they just wonвЂ™t function as normal. But they DONвЂ™T need productivity.ДЇor me, realizing that was just kind of like boom, mind blown. And they need social interaction to function. Note that in The Sims, a sim needs fun to function. We pay attention to things like productivity and revenue, and energy, but in a totally different way from literal physical energy. A set thatвЂ™s not accurate in terms of what we need to function. They still do some pretty crazy ishвЂ¦)Д«ut in our own lives, when weвЂ™re stuck in workaholism, self-care shame, and the whole hustle mindset, we pay attention to a TOTALLY different set of needs. To do the bare minimum and be вЂњa productive member of society.вЂќДЄnd remember: the whole point of The Sims is that itвЂ™s supposed to simulate real life. Those are the areas of sims needs to maintain to just like, basically function. If you donвЂ™t play, over in the corner, each character has a measure of how fulfilled each of the important areas of their lives are:ДЄnd the six needs that are crucial for every sim are: So what really taught me everything I needed to know about self-care was that needs panel. ItвЂ™s now easier for me to slip back into work, even unimportant work, than it is for me to slip into something totally, totally fun like Netflix or video games. I could open up a fullscreen game and not accidentally slip back into work when IвЂ™m supposed to be resting.ДЄt first, I thought that IвЂ™d get super, super addicted to it again. That way, when I was looking for something to do on my computer, I had more options other than work. When I talked about how I had a hard time unplugging from work, she suggested that I just make it easier for myself to do something else on my computer, like play video games and relax. And so itвЂ™s never been on the main computer that I use for work.Д«ut recently I started playing for a little every day, and at the suggestion of my therapist, so I donвЂ™t feel guilty about it. I played The Sims very sporadically since IвЂ™ve graduated college, mostly because I knew how addicted to it I always get. A post shared by Work Brighter on at 1:07pm PDT HereвЂ™s how I figured it out:

Play the sims game