>>14046725Not in physics, but have a PhD in cell bio and laterally moved to a senior scientist/lead software dev for a drug discovery company. I didn't have problems much with workload throughout any of my academic life because I'm pretty disciplined.
Improving your performance has nothing to do with how much or how little you play video games and everything to do with how much work you get done.
I say this because a lot of advice on here, for some reason, is "stop doing X", but they never tell you what to do instead.
What happens if you cut back on video games for a week? Nothing. Because you didn't purposefully fill that time specifically with studying/more work. You just said "okay, these 2 hours, no video games. great!" and then sit there and do what instead?
You need to fill in a schedule with how much work you need to do and when to do it. Then fill in the rest around it.
Focusing on one thing (I gotta stop video games because my academic life is suffering!) is a false-task. It's liking moving rocks back and forth all day from point A to point B, feeling accomplished, when you are supposed to be building a wall.
You need to become disciplined and pencil out a daily schedule for yourself. This will naturally cut down your video game time.
Exercise is the most important, imo. I'm an undisciplined mess if I don't exercise. Pencil that in first.
Pencil in sleep second. You need ~8 hours, uninterrupted. I could get it during grad school most days, you can to.
Nutrition goes hand-in-hand with exercise. One night of cooking can last you half a week or more. What you eat influences your lethargy immensely.
Finally, pencil in work you need to do.
You will find some days you have no free time, but you accomplish everything, and some days you will have hours of free time. I homebrew, read 1 hour daily, garden, video games, and ride motorcycles with my free time. It's not a binary" do I/don't I", it's "how much time do I devote to X"
