Time Management Help

[QuinceOfClubs]

My Sims tend to live very busy lives, but in all honesty, they don't. I guess I'm just awful at time management, because my Sims are constantly busy and have no time for relationships with their family! My married Sims hardly interact and my child spends almost no time with her grandmother, simply because when one has free time, the other is busy cleaning, working, or taking care of the four cats.

How can I work around this and get a decent time management set up? I want my Sims to live successfully but I also want them to have healthy relationships with their spouses, sisters, parents, and cats. I need a way to keep them all on a decent schedule so they have time to get to know each other... Any ideas?

[ArianaJade]

I tend to play a lot of dynasty/legacy style games and I usually have the same problems. The easiest way is to cut down on the amount of unnecessary stuff each sim is doing. Get a maid for the cleaning if you can afford it, or a Bonehilda if you have Supernatural. I don't bother with my sim children doing homework very often, and if it's not a dynasty game I only accept opportunities I actually want to do.

Then, I save up for a moodlet manager or a motive mobile with happiness points so my sims can spend time socialising or having fun with the time they'd normally spend looking after their needs. Motive mobiles are probably better if you have Generations because you can take toddlers and kids in them as well.

I also try and get sims socialising while building skills or doing other useful things, so playing chess together for example. Killing two birds with one stone then!

And it's easier to socialise a little bit each day with sims you want to have a good relationship than let it decline and have to set aside ages to build it right back up from nothing.

[Vinyl]

I find a good way to help build and improve relationships in the household is to make sure there's limited activities to do, and that the activities are all group ones.  So instead of VR headsets and computers they'll have high-end televisions and game consoles.  Instead of a chess set go for a domino table.  Anything where more sims can join is better.

Maids or Bonehildas are great.  Personally I love giving families butlers if they can afford it.  Having a 24/7 live-in maid who will cook for the kids and help tend the babies frees up a lot of time.  If your sims can't afford regular help, consider cancelling the paper so they don't have to waste time recycling it everyday, or reducing the garden so they don't have to spend hours tending it (or eliminate it altogether if they don't really need one).  If your family has babies/toddlers consider having babysitters over while the parents are home.  They'll stay for a very long time and basically watch the kids while the parents can interact with each other.

Personally I also like to eliminate time-wasting niceties if I find my sims spend too much time getting through their daily routine.  Many of my homes have no sinks, because my sims would always block each other at the sink, waste time waiting for it, then waste time wandering off to the farthest sink possible to wash the dishes or their hands.  Many of my homes have double wide arches instead of doors and are either bungalows or have multiple staircases to prevent time lost to traffic jams.  Heck, I've even placed extra front doors if the family had enough sims trying to leave at the same time for carpools and school to cause jams!

A huge help is high-quality items.  Buying the best possible bed is usually my first priority since it saves hours of sleep each night.  A toilet that never breaks cuts down on wasted sim hours yelling at the ceiling.  A high-end stove doesn't speed up cooking, but it can prevent fires and burnt food.  Sometimes I'll give my sims a food processor and no stove then let them eat fruit parfait and autumn salads for really speedy yet satisfying meals. 

One more option is to give the family a utility sim if they've got the household space for another member.  Max Skills from the swap shop is renowned for being a butler supreme, but you can also make your own sim with traits like natural cook, neat, nurturing, handy, etc.  This sim will do the house cleaning, cooking, baby tending, and repairs.  They'll free up the rest of the family's time for lots of play and interaction.  I have a nanny sim I made when I first started playing who joined almost all of my early households because I had the same time issues as you. 

Lastly, the one lifetime reward that pays for itself over and over again is steel bladder.  The other motive managing rewards are great (hardly hungry, dirt defiant, etc) but it's amazing how much more time sims have when they don't have to keep stopping their activities to find a bathroom!

(PS - love your username.  I've suddenly feel compelled to slow roast some quinces and play cards)

[empow14]

Well, there would of course also be the possibility to use the testing cheats - you could then, holding down shift while doing so, click and drag the relationship bars in the desired direction. I used this once in a household of 4 roommates which all had different careers, but which I wanted to be close friends. You could also build up the relationship in a more natural way, but then use the cheat to prevent it from falling again.

Other things I found to be useful (and that were not yet mentioned by others in this thread), are:

- precook a meal when you have time, then put the leftovers in the fridge and when the first sim is hungry, gather the whole household together and let them all eat. It doesn't matter if not everyone is hungry, just don't let them eat up, the important thing is, once you do that, they're all going to get hungry again at about the same time.

- I make sure all beds in the house give the same amount of energy, so everyone needs the same hours of sleeping. I usually let one sim who doesn't need to go anywhere (work, school, etc.) wake up a little earlier and prepare food, and use the bathroom, so they don't block it when the others wake up

- I also try to give my sims who have to go to school/work kind of a natural daily rhythm, i.e. I don't let them sleep as soon as they come home, because then they get up in the middle of the night and get tired when they have to go to their duties. I try to put everyone to bed at the same time, and let the ones that don't need that much energy simply sleep a little longer. This way they don't miss each other's wake time.

[Joria]

Or......you could use tce and the magic mail box and set their needs to static.  They can they stay up all night, never have to eat, wash or pee, and have plenty of time to do what they need to do AND build relationships.   My all time favorite cheat.

[azokka361]

If you have seasons, I usually use the holidays as family bonding days--they all go to the festival and do the various activities together. It's a nice distraction from work and skilling.

[Dextra2]

If you have the fridge that come at the top of the cooking career, have your level 10 cook make a TON of meals. (About enough meals to last three generations or more.) It's handy, and frees up time time from having others cooking. Plus, all the fridges share the sae meals, so you'll be able to keep as many as you need.

[RainBeau]

If you don't want to use cheats, you can keep the relationship from going down by using the LTR Long-Distance Friend.

[QuinceOfClubs]

Thanks you guys! These are all really helpful tips and hopefully my Sims will stop leading such busy lives.

ArianaJade - I have Generations, so I should have the motive mobile. Can you tell me where they are located?

[Zyffyr]

The Motivemobile is a Lifetime Reward, it is pretty close to the bottom of that list.

Also, if you have Supernatural you can have one of your sims do a little Alchemy and a little Gardening. At Alchemy 6 you can learn to make Potent Invigorating Elixers (1 Wolfsbane and 1 Spotlight Mushroom). One of those potions will keep a Sim's Energy Bar maxed for 24 hours. A couple hours a day from one sim and the entire household gets an extra 6-8 hours to do whatever...

[RainBeau]

Pam's article on the Surrounded by Family lifetime wish is very helpful for time management in the Sims, especially for large families.

[Korva]

I'm a terrible slavedriver as well. The days in this game are so short, and many actions take so much time to carry out. Do you have Supernatural? Not only is Bonehilda a great help, Alchemy with its (Potent) Invigorating Elixirs is as well, and skilled witches can deal with most other needs. They're definitely my favourite kind of Sim to play. Note that charms and elixirs can't be used on children, though.

What also helps a lot is to avoid rabbit hole jobs. The pay is abysmal for most of them compared to what you can make on your own, especially at lower levels, and they are frankly boring because they prevent you from actually playing your Sim. University Life makes it a little more bearable with degrees giving higher entry levels and wages, but I still dislike rabbit hole careers immensely.

Also, if you have University Life, you can send texts to other Sims via the smartphone. The effect isn't great, but it's very quick to do.

You could try having one or two evenings per week set aside for social activities. Say, Friday is for family bonding and Saturday is for throwing parties.