As you may be aware by now, I have gotten back into Livestreaming on Twitch, over the last month or so. Mostly I have been playing a new, modded character in “Starfield”, but I’ve played some other games, as well. And for the most part, I’ve only played on the weekends, with rare exceptions.
There is a problem with this, though. When I was streaming heavily, about five years ago, I mostly did so overnight on the weekends. The set-up was more elaborate, and I mostly played a few different MMORPGs, because that was what I was into at the time. Now I’m playing on my Xbox Series X, and am unwilling to pay a subscription to an extra service, just so I can turn on all of the pretty bells and whistles I had on my old setup.
But that’s neither here nor there.
The problem is the stream schedule. I’ve been streaming during the morning hours, 9am to Noon Pacific, because I don’t want to disturb my wife’s sleep overnight. But this has led to a new problem: If I’m streaming during the mornings, by the time I’m done, I’m too tired to go do anything with the family, as we’ve gotten used to doing the last few years.
So either I stream overnight and keep waking my wife up, or stream during the day and ignore my family. Neither is a good choice. So, what should I do? Give up on streaming? Tell my wife to wear earplugs and a sleep mask? Tell the family to assume I’m dead on the weekends?
Or, I could just drop back ten yards and punt.
This is what I have in mind: I can’t really change my streaming schedule on Saturdays, because I work all night before that, and the earliest I can get online is about 9am. But on Sundays I can start earlier, maybe even as early as 6am Pacific. That would leave me plenty of time to spend with my wife and two dogs (our fur-kids) from 9am-ish onwards. Since I work Nights, I usually go to bed around 2pm on weekends, giving me plenty of time to spend with them on Sundays.
Or I could just not stream on one of those weekend days? Most likely Sunday, but I’d prefer to keep playing all through the weekend. Clearly things are up in the air, so to speak.
If I could do what works best for all concerned, I would buy a new computer, and stream from it in my office overnight on weekends, like I used to do. But that’s a bit out of my budget right now, and will be for, oh, probably forever. Or I could try streaming overnight in the living room (where I’m streaming now), and maybe my wife gets used to the sound of my talking all night? Or maybe I save up and buy another Xbox, hook it up in the bedroom, and stream from there (my wife can’t sleep on our bed anymore, it’s too uncomfortable for her, and beds are too expensive).
The point being, streaming overnight would leave me tired in the mornings, but still available to do stuff with my family on the weekends. But making that happen would require spending money I don’t have, or seriously inconveniencing my wife, likely leaving her too tired to do anything in the morning, anyway.
No bueno.
So I’m thinking of changing up the schedule some, trying out new times and maybe even days for streaming. Some of the potential schedules include:
- Saturdays 9am-Noon and Sundays 6am-9am Pacific
- Saturdays 9am-Noon Pacific
- Saturdays 9am-Noon and Mondays 6am-9am Pacific
- Saturdays and Sundays 9pm-Midnight Pacific
- Saturdays and Sundays 9pm-Midnight, Sundays and Mondays 6am-9am Pacific (Not bloody likely!)
The point is, I have options. I want to keep streaming on weekends, and I know consistency of schedule is important for building and maintaining a community. I also know that there just aren’t a lot of people watching “Starfield” streams on weekend mornings, so returning to night streaming would probably work better for me. If I could stream early in the night, before my wife goes to “bed” (her recliner), that would let her rest normally at night, I could get other things done while she sleeps, and we would have the mornings together like we used to.
To be fair, I really like the idea of going back to night streaming, but I would have to be disciplined about it. Midnight would have to be a hard limit, so as to not inconvenience my sweetie more than I already would be. Also, we’ve gotten used to watching a movie or TV show on the weekend evenings, so we’d likely have to move this to the mornings, but it is still doable.
I think I need to chat with my wife this morning about changing things up soon.
UPDATE: My Sweetie prefers that I continue on my current 9am-Noon schedule, Saturdays and Sundays, as she’s concerned that streaming in the evenings would keep her up too late. Fair enough. So I expect I’ll be doing the 9-to-Noon thing for a while, although I might try doing so streaming overnight, from my old laptop (like I used to). It won’t be “Starfield”, that’s for damn sure (my 7 year old laptop just isn’t up to that!), but maybe some “Balatro”, “Brotato”, or other such games. We’ll have to see about that.
