My Sim's Short Attention Span

[RunAmokSims]

I have to say, I am very relieved to know I'm not the only one struggling with these issues.  I thought I was pretty good at Sims games, having played all of them from the original game but they say pride goeth before a fall, and this game is definitely making me re-evaluate some of my ways of doing things.  I tend to emphasize skill building with my Sims.  In the past making a Sim a Bookworm & taking him to the Library was the fastest way to increase most of the skills, and now it seems my time-tested strategy doesn't work any more.  I'm definitely going to turn off autonomy.  "Sim, this is your Watcher speaking.  Prepare to lose your free will.  You WILL obey!" heheh.  And I'll either remove all the sinks or try the Slob trait to see if that cures his obsessive hand-washing.  Never a dull moment with our Sims!  Thanks for the replies, everyone!   

I hate the idea of having to turn off free will.  After all, just look at my user name. I love for my Sims to run amok.

The hand washing bothers me too. I know it's a good thing in real life but I never looked at TS as real life.

I'm also not fond of altering play style. I'm not talking about  things like family player v. YA player.  It's more a core thing like reaching goals instead of a more pure sandbox.

[Dellena]

Re: Hand washing - get handiness up and upgrade the toilet with the Bidet and the sink that they use with the Auto Soap Dispenser and you'll find that you'll need fewer showers because those two upgrades give you hygiene.

[Joria]

My Sims only do the handwashing thing after the toilet or after gardening.  Otherwise, they just do what I've queued, (usually), or go do something like dance or play on the pc.  I don't have autonomy off either.

[ManiSims]

Re: Hand washing - get handiness up and upgrade the toilet with the Bidet and the sink that they use with the Auto Soap Dispenser and you'll find that you'll need fewer showers because those two upgrades give you hygiene.

Thanks! I'll try the upgrades. My Sims also only wash their hands after using the toilet, but it does get a bit frustrating when they're running late for work or school or whatever and I want them to quickly take a shower before leaving, but instead they're standing there washing their hands. 

[Stormi71]

My sims seem to have have selective attention spans, as in when they need to go to work, that is when they'll conveniently keep using the computer, or playing the guitar etc, then I realise they are missing work.
Mostly my sims don't seem to have a short attention span, though. The only thing that really annoys me now is that there is a nooboo in my household, and when he cries, I click for my sim to feed it or whatever, but then she doesn't because every other sim has stopped what they are doing to go and attend to the baby! My sim that was trying to do the "maintain focus for two hours on video game" task kept getting up to attend to this baby which isn't even hers.
I also found my sims will stay on task, like cooking a meal, but then someone always has to come and chat to them and it ends up taking them two hours to make that salad because they stop to talk.

[ManiSims]

I also found my sims will stay on task, like cooking a meal, but then someone always has to come and chat to them and it ends up taking them two hours to make that salad because they stop to talk.

Yeah, that's the one thing I dislike about multitasking: chatting seems to take priority so it takes forever for something else to be done.