In 2015, it all came together. Tim Betar, aka TimTheTatman, was able quit his day job and transition to playing video games for a living.
To be fair, he wasnt just playing the gameshe was streaming them, usually for tens of thousands of fans, providing a running commentary of his exploits. His streams began in earnest in 2012, but those first years werent as lucrative, and they required some expert-level time management. (He estimates he was working 70-plus hour weeks between his normal job and his streaming.) After making the switch to gaming full-time, TimTheTatman amassed more and more and more followers across platforms; his meteoric rise timed out perfectly with the meteoric rise of Twitch, the go-to streaming service for gamers and, really, anyone doing anything. He now has millions of followers across platforms.
Theres no guide on how to stream video games for a living, nor is it easy to work from home every day, as many are learning during the COVID-19 crisis. Over the last handful of years, Tim has experienced his own ups and downs as hes establishedand then attempted to maintaina healthy lifestyle while also staring at a screen all day. Mostly, he makes sure to always leave the house in the morning for a Starbucks coffee run.
GQ called up TimTheTatman, whos currently streaming lots of Call of Duty: Warzone, to talk about working from home without losing your mind (relatable!), and how he feels healthier than ever after an on-again, off-again weight-loss journey.
GQ: How did you figure out a healthy structure as you progressed to streaming for hours and hours every day?
TimTheTatman: When I was working a full-time job and doing this on the side, I was basically working like 70 hours a week. I was younger and didnt have a ton of obligations, so it was doable. Once I started streaming full-time, I had to change that. Ive always been a big advocate of streamers taking a couple days off. I always make sure I can take like, two days a week to relax and reset. Not many streamers do that, surprisingly. A lot of them are younger, and play and play and playI get it to an extent, because I used to do that too.
Do you have any sort of working-at-home rituals based around your streaming schedule? I think lots of people are trying to figure out their working-at-home rituals right now.
I have a daily regimen, especially for when I wake up. Before the pandemic happened, I would go to Starbucks and grab my coffee, almost like my own little work commute, even though Im just going to get coffee and then going back home [laughs]. It is pretty easy to sit in your bed all day, but Im a new father, so thats basically impossible for me, since my son wakes me up every day. Ill get up and have my routine with him now.
So you have to force yourself into a routine a bit?
Yeah, totally. When I first started doing this, it was really easy to be like, Im just going to sleep in. Whos gonna tell me otherwise? I was and am my own boss. I really had to force myself into forming habits around my day, which made things a lot better.
Do you have anything that you do to separate your job from your daily life when youre working from home? Theres got to be some sort of mental switch that you flip when you go from streaming for lots of people to relaxing, right?
Before I had this job, I would go to work and come home to play games to relax. So sometimes Ill play games on streams for the majority of the day, and then to wind down, Ill sit back and play some more games at night [laughs]. My audience really loves first-person shooters and battle royales, games that are more fast-paced. They dont like World of Warcraft or similar games as much since theyre more low-key. Sometimes at night, Ill finish streaming for eight hours, and be like, Alright, see ya guys later! Ill put my son to bed, and then play some World of Warcraft. Its kind of hard to explain to my wife and difficult to justify in general.
See original here:
The Real-Life Diet of TimTheTatman, Who's Intermittent Fasting and Trying to Stay Healthy - GQ
