Get In The Game is a weekly column by Dan Yarrington, managing partner of Myriad Games in Manchester & Salem, New Hampshire, Treasurer of the Professional Game Store Association, and Editor-in-Chief of GameSalute.com.  This week, Yarrington tells us to focus on play.

Welcome back to Get In The Game, a column that focuses on proactive ways we can improve the games industry.  This week we have a simple lesson.

Take it easy.

As with many self-starting, entrepreneurial types, I’m a Type-A personality.  I love taking on new challenges, overcoming odds, and achieving success.  I don’t mind working from the break of day until the wee hours of the morn.  I’m fueled by a fervent desire to share my passions with the world through my enterprising endeavors.  To me, there’s nothing so invigorating as implementing new processes, refining operations, or forging new connections to create efficiencies.

All too often I realize that I’ve been working far too much, skipping too many game nights, and losing touch with what makes the games industry such a great place to make a living.

Play.

A simple directive, but it bears repeating.

Play.

This game of life and business can be overwhelming.  Between family, day-to-day tasks, and work, it’s hard to justify taking time out to relax and enjoy yourself.  There’s a continual stream of ever-present demands upon your time.  You have 32 hours worth of work to do in any given 24 hour period.  And I think you’re supposed to eat and sleep in there somewhere too.  Especially in this world with constant connectivity through our smart-phones, social networks, and cloud computing, we can work from anywhere.  When you sit down to read a book at home, or check out the newest game you picked up, or watch the latest episode of your favorite series, you may finds yourself tempted by the idea of improved productivity.  If you just worked instead of "wasting time" on these silly, trivial pastimes, you’d be better rewarded.  You might catch up.  You could even get ahead!  How can you pass that up?  Simple.  You must.  You do not have a choice.

If you insist upon working constantly, without separating your personal life from work life, you will lose everything you’re working so hard to achieve.  So how do you balance things out?  How do you make sure you’re not buried by work?  How do you break the cycle and learn to relax regularly?

You make it part of the schedule.  If you’re an overachieving, over-committed idiot like me, you live your life by a schedule.  You revel in moving from project to project, making new lists, finishing action items, and creating new projects to fill in the void created by your accomplishments.  So make play part of your routine.  Schedule weekly game nights -- and stick to them.  Set aside 15 minutes a day to read about new games coming out.  Plan game celebrations for special occasions.  Then get other people involved to keep yourself accountable and make sure you follow through.  Once you have others depending on your involvement, you have a commitment that your Type-A personality can really dig into.  Once you make a pledge to play and have fun, you’ll never look back.  You can do the same thing for sleep, family time, walks, reading, writing, or whatever else you do to relax.  Make these aspects as integral a part of each day as work.  And then, day by day, week by week, you’ll find you work better, worry less, and achieve more.

Workaholism, you’re officially on notice.  Perfectionism, you’re officially overrated.  Understand why you’re working so hard and say so long to the myth of all work and no play.

What are you waiting for?  Get In The Game!

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.