Sim efficiency?/Ludicrous time doing simple things?

[igor140]

Are there any mods/ settings/ tips for making sims more efficient in daily tasks? 

In 30 years of life, the only times i have ever spent more than an hour in the bathroom were the handful of mornings after i ate something suspicious from a street vendor during a night of heavy drinking.  Yet my sims frequently take at least 45 minutes to use the bathroom.

An hour and a half to shower is... insane. 

An hour and a half to eat a fish taco is... also insane. 

This is far and away my biggest frustration with this game: normal daily activities literally take a total of four and a half hours in this game, leaving absolutely no time to prepare for work, invest in personal interests, or social activities. 

This is really frustrating, because there's so much i like about this game, but this one aspect burns me out quickly every time i try to play.

I found a mod that significantly slows down time, but a) it caused some weird glitches, and b) it did not increase my sims' efficiency; they still took 45 in-game-minutes to make a salad, that process was simply spread out over 1 real-time-minute rather than 15 seconds.  in fact, this resulted in sims largely standing around for 10 or 15 seconds at a time when transitioning activities.  so i uninstalled that.

I like the fact that you can now eat while conversing, satisfying more than one need at a time, but it seems to double the time it takes to do anything.  I have literally had "lunches" go on for four hours in this game.

So yeah... any help with this?  Is there an options setting that i'm overlooking?  Or a mod somewhere that decreases the time for these daily activities?

[Playalot]

There is a 'relativity' mod for The Sims 4 at Mod The Sims. I have not used this nor do I know if it is even up-to-date and/maintained by the creator so user beware! It does state that it has been updated for Get Together so it might be what you are looking for. (Of course it might also be the mod you mentioned you uninstalled!)

Link

There aren't any game settings that change how long actions take but the more expensive the item is the less time it takes for the sim to complete the related action. i.e. The most expensive shower is quicker than the cheapest, the most expensive bed fills the energy need quicker than the cheapest and so on. Upgrading also helps.

Stacking actions can help e.g. eat, chat, watch TV/listen to radio all at the same time after work will fill fun, social and hunger. You can also do little things like micro-managing their eating when you are running short on time.

Direct your sim to grab a plate of food, immediately click on the ground a few sims paces away from the fridge and select 'go here'. Watch, as your sim lifts the fork/spoon click on the ground a few sim paces away and select 'go here'. Rinse and repeat, once you have got the hang of this pacing/eating direction your sim will eat a full meal in 1/4 of the time and never sit down. The timing is important as it will stop the idle animations between bites/sips happening and so speed up the time spent eating dramatically.

 I use this trick all the time so getting ready for work really doesn't take long (in total including showering, under a sim hour) and so my sims have much more time for other things.

[CuriousSim]

Here is something a little silly. If you have actions queued, then your Sim will finish them before going to work and the Sim seems to still get there in plenty of time with no ramifications, within reason. However, if you try to slip in one more task, after the "Go to Work" action has popped up, the game will warn you about skipping work. It's either skip work, or go with a dangerously full bladder. Somehow it empties, but occasionally, they come home in pain, which is why I try to get that need taken care of last thing, before work.

[igor140]

playalot:  thanks for the link, but that's the exact mod i tried.  it technically worked: it DID slow down time, but it slows down all actions uniformly, so eating still takes 45 minutes, it's just that the animation is spread out over a full minute rather than 15 seconds. 

curioussim: thanks  for the advice.  i have managed to take advantage of that a few times, but the bigger issue is on my days off, when i need/ want to develop hobbies or social lives.  by the time i get up at 6:00am, eat, shower, pee, and clean up a little, it's 2:00pm.  considering it takes my gardener sim 6+ hrs to "tend garden", that's pretty much her whole day.  i understand the gardening takes a while, but the rest of that stuff should (imo) take no more than 2 hrs, not 8. 

i don't recall having these problems in sims 3.  in fact, in University, i recall waking up 30min before an exam, taking half a shower, eating an apple, and still making it on time. 

anyway, thanks for your responses!

[CuriousSim]

Use aspirations, and reward points to your advantage. There are rewards, that will make your Sim a lot more efficient & manageable. It's a bit tough, if you already have a career, but if you don't, you can use that free time, to build up skills. In a way, aspirations are like a liberal arts education for your Sim. You can learn a wide variety of things, then be rewarded with abilities that make your Sim manage time wiser. When your Sim doesn't have to pee as often, sleep, or interact, you have a lot more free time. You might want to turn off all aging. I play without it, because there isn't enough time in my Sim's day, to live his/her life. By the time he/she is up to speed, he/she is dead. Just turn it off, until your Sim "Graduates" (becomes the well rounded, well rewarded Sim he/she is supposed to be) then turn the aging back on (if you so desire) & let your Sim live its life to the fullest. At least, that's my current approach.

[Blamsart]

I can vouch for the Relativity mod!
I use it constantly. It makes the days last longer for you, but at the very least your sims can do a lot more in a day. And you can change it whenever you want at whatever speed you want (of course too fast can cause some troubles, not that I've encountered any)
The only kink I've had with it, is that the speed of animation doesn't change for elevators. If without the mod, elevators take about 10 sim minutes, then with the mod it'll take 10 sim minutes, and since the minutes slow down it takes more time. But all the other actions and animations aren't affected that way.

[Blamsart]

Oops sorry, hadn't realized this was a Sims 4 thread. That's from my Sims 3 experience...
But I still think the mod would have relatively the same effect for TS4.
(sorry for my mistake!)