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Everyone has different sets of circumstances in life, ranging from being a high school kid with no commitments and nothing but time, right through to your family man, who works a 9-5 and has a wife and kids.

I, personally, am still studying at university and find myself with lots of free time in general. Therefore, I make the most of it and game, watch anime and jump on forums/ do anime research whenever I feel like it. That being said, it is not so simple for everyone. Taking all this into consideration, sometimes it would be rather difficult for some anime fans to get their weekly dose.

So while some people, like myself, have no set structure to how and when we watch anime, I would like to know how anime fans with more to deal with in life make sure that they can still watch anime, whether they need to organise specific times and days during the week to accomplish this or whether it is adjusted into a set structure and/or routine as part of your daily life.

Last year I was pretty good with my Anime watching. This season however I'm atrocious, very much behind on every currently-airing show except Black Rock Shooter.

I try and get through two episodes per day on the weekdays, and six-to-ten episodes per day on the weekend. But I'm struggling pretty badly at doing even that much, whereas that schedule is nothing to what I was pulling in Summer and early Autumn 2011 (Northern hemisphere seasons). I remember when I was putting away sixty to seventy episodes a week, every week. Then Minecraft happened, then Skyrim, then Megavideo and Megaupload went down and then, well, yeah.

I try and watch at night, as after work I'm too eager to unwind to seriously watch something. But if I leave it too late (after 2100hrs) I'm trying to relax before bed and don't need anything psyching me up.

Hope I'm not coming across as an old man here . . .

In the weekends I try to pace myself over the course of the day rather than watching everything at once. I'm not good at marathoning Anime, I feel I need constant breaks to reflect on what I've watched. So I'll watch two or three episodes, go do something else for a few hours and then come back and watch another small batch. That seems to kind of work.

I usually just have to squeeze it in sometime when I'm not working. It also doesn't help that there are so many good shows I'm watching this season (14). I almost never get to watch them the day they actually come out. Instead I just pick a day where I don't have to go to work the next day and stay up until 5am watching all my shows. Laughing

I do have trouble figuring out what episode of what show I'm on though when I am watching a lot of things and what day I should start looking for it. I use the comment section in my Seen Some list for that stuff though.

I have a full time job, but I'm single without children so theoretically I have a fair amount of free time to devote to anime (I'll get to why I use the word theoretically in a bit). I honestly don't know how you married people with kids find the time, especially if your spouse/significant other isn't in to anime, too.

My big limiting factor, and this is going to sound beyond pathetic, is that I am finding it very hard to stay up past 9-9:30 pm these days. This is a relatively new phenomenon with me and I'm not sure what's behind it. I'm only 46 (turning 47 at the end of April) so it seems kind of early to be having grandpa hours, but there you have it. I'm really lucky if I can knock off three eppies in a week night (and that includes Friday nights) - two is much more likely and even only one is not unheard of. I am following 15 currently airing shows and find that no problem, especially since they tend to cluster around the weekend. But I'm also trying to slay a ridiculously huge DVD/BD backlog and that's going much slower than I like.

I can usually polish off a streaming episode on workout mornings (Tuesdays and Thursdays when I actually go; on weekends I can go to the gym in the afternoon) and up to two streaming episodes on non-work-out days (I do stream older shows on Crunchyroll, for example).

Saturday and Sunday mornings are my favourite and most productive anime-slaying time slots. Oddly enough, during the week, I crave a good chunk of time to watch anime in a solid block, but when the weekend comes and i actually do have a chance to do it, I very rarely go on a massive marathon bender. I guess I can only absorb so much anime at once.

There other limiting factor on my weekend anime viewing is the weather. If it is a nice sunny day, I just can't stay inside all day. Bizarrely, I've been bitching to people at work about the wonderfully mild winter Toronto has been having because I'm out and about on weekends far more than I normally would be.

i'm in the same boat as the OP, uni student with plenty of free time, its great for flexibility in when to watch stuff

i don't really have any set schedule for when i watch stuff, i do tend to keep up to date on all ongoing series no matter how many it is, this season its 14 but last it was 22 and i'm expecting next season to be similar to that as well
After i've caught up on any ongoing series i tend to go searching around for anything else to watch if i feel like it, but with so much free time i tend to only watch anything that isn't ongoing if i marathon it, just watching a couple of episodes and then coming back to it isn't really something i do much anymore

Well, I'm going on 23 and my last semester at uni, but I find because I do so much gaming on my PS3, 3DS and my computer (especially my computer, which will be exponentially worse when my pre-ordered copy of Diablo III LIMITED EDITION COLLECTORS EDITION arrives) and I find that I can lose a lot of anime watching to the gaming side of things. Thankfully I don't have a girlfriend, and even if I go and spend a weekend at a friends place, I end up gaming and watching anime anyway Razz

Although lately I've found that I'm not mixing gaming and anime viewing as well as I used to. Sometimes I'll game up to one week non-stop and the week after will be a pure anime week (which could mean up to 200-250 episodes a week if I'm willing to sacrifice everything else)...

And no guys, you don't sound like old men or women, you're not pathetic etc etc... It's about lifestyle and how things twist and turn to your advantage or disadvantage... That's why I was interested in a discussion about this. I'll be working full time in the second half of this year and in about 5-7 years I'll be married have kids (if everything goes as planned), so I was just wondering how easy or hard it would be to balance everything Very Happy

I'm a 21, single, non-student that works 12 hours a week at the most. I have no problem finding time to watch anime. My only hang up stopping me from watching anime every free second I have is my shitty internet service. If I had a better ISP I'd be watching streaming stuff every second I wasn't watching DVD/BDs (or sports-related stuff).

I've actually always been curious about how the people with tough hours and/or families deal with watching anime. I'm very interested to hear from the family people and what exactly their watching habits are and how much their circumstances come into play. I think it's obvious that if you have more on your plate you'd watch less anime, but are watching less because of your responsibilities, or are you not watching much simply because you don't watch that much in general?

For someone like me who can and will swoosh through 12-20 episodes a day given the opportunity would have trouble adapting to a two or three episode day restriction. But for someone who doesn't watch much anime anyways, that'd be no problem, so their responsibilities aren't really affecting anything.

Blood- wrote:

My big limiting factor, and this is going to sound beyond pathetic, is that I am finding it very hard to stay up past 9-9:30 pm these days.

Ha! You are not alone. I only just turned 40 last year, and I don't have trouble staying up if I have things to *do*... but when I sit down to watch anime (or TV in general), I have to be sure to stay sitting upright. As soon as I decide I'd be more comfortable laying down on the couch, I'm asleep within minutes. Doesn't matter if it's 9:00 PM or 10:00 AM... as soon as I go horizontal, I'm *out*. It's messed up.

Regarding the original question: Since my anime viewing is still largely based on physical DVD rentals, I take advantage of anything with a tolerable dub by putting it in while I'm doing other things... cooking dinner, washing dishes, etc. The multi-tasking works out especially well for shows in the sports/competition/tournament genre (Yu Yu Hakusho, Hikaru no Go, Kaleido Star, etc) where the storyline is straightforward and predictable enough that you don't really need to be staring at the screen the entire time.

I also work full time (alternating work schedule, about 40 hours at office one week, 50 the next, etc.). I'm not supposed to stream stuff at work (no internet radio or nothin') and don't like to watch streaming video at home so the majority of my anime viewing is done at my office during lunch hour, using fansubs on USB drives. Depending on how interesting the show(s) I'm watching are, I get through 1-3 episodes in a sitting several times a week.

Every now and then I will bring a series I have on DVD and pop it in my laptop, but generally even if I have own series on DVD, I'll still use fansubs because they're just easier to work with and look better.

I don't watch fansubs at home very often anymore, though there are exceptions. I usually save them for when I'm on lunch break at work with nothing better to do. At home most of my free time is spent on gaming or doing other things that wouldn't fit into the 45-60 minute lunch break at work (such as cooking, exercising, working on the house, watching anime on bluray, or watching movies, anime or otherwise).

Single with an 8-5 job, so my evenings are mostly free. I usually have something on whenever I'm making/eating meals, but beyond that it mostly comes down to whether I feel like watching something.

I just watch as much as I want to. I've done it like that since I began watching. My schedules have always been flexible enough to find the time that I need, so it is more of a question of do I feel like watching anime, which in turn is dependant mostly on is there anything good to watch.

My anime viewing has waned and getting in 3 new episodes a week is a challenge within itself. Not only has my 360 taken over as my form of entertainment, but the Narcolepsy Effect others are now victims of is the other.

I noticed about a year ago I started falling asleep while watching anime and I also blamed my creeping up in the years as a potential reason. Then it dawned on me: it only happens when I watch anime, but a very specific type of anime: The Gaggle of Girls.

From Aria to Lucky Star, I doze within episodes now. Any other type of anime, and nothing. Not even a yawn. It can't be a coincidence, especially since I'm not tired with any other event, such as playing games.

This was confirmed when, about 6 months ago, I started falling asleep while watching a stream. Before this, having any light on meant a sleepless night for me.

Now, I can't sleep unless there's a stream going on! I'm sure the creators of Gosick, Hanasaku Iroha, and My Ordinary Life are loving the shared revenues my nightly process affords them, as these three are the few 20+ episodic series left to stream (otherwise, they end before the night's done).

This is why I'm frowning with them freezing during streaming. The freeze wakes me up!

Yep, things are all weird now thanks to anime and the Gaggle of Girls.

Realize this isn't a complaint. Twisted Evil

Judging from my backlog- I don't manage at all.

Judging from life- every day is new adventure. After clinics, laboratories and student's organisations I must learn a lot, so I usually take anime episodes as a break between parts. (Good motivation). Sometimes when I find something really interesting I sacrifice one night (Last time- for sake of Berserk manga, English volumes from Eclipse till now.) I must take care to not plan anything and just let the things flow (but not go wild).

When I was in junior high/high school, most of my free time consisted of watching anime. Since college and after college, my anime watching habits have dwindled down to mostly non existent. I work too much and I have an insane social life filled with too many friends demanding my attention and other various side projects (my life is SO hard Rolling Eyes

).

I am now trying to get back into watching anime, and I am glad for the break, because I now appreciate it again. For awhile, I was burnt out and didn't like anything because everything felt like it was recycling the same old plot, and I would only watch something if my bff said it was amazing.

I am still very busy, but I plan on having at least one anime watching free night to myself with my phone off and my lights off so I can pretend I am not home when people come knocking on my door. I plan on being very selective, and I no longer have the desire to watch everything like I did when I was younger.

Last edited by Aylinn on Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:55 pm; edited 2 times in total

I don't even try. Most of the time I'm disorganized, so I watch whenever I feel like it. However, now that my interest is on the wane, I think of taking a break from watching anime.

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