Budget gaming time around responsibilities.
Gaming time is best budgeted as a share of genuinely free hours rather than as an absolute target, because the constraint is everything else competing for the same block. Taking a percentage of free time gives the weekly allowance, dividing by your typical session length converts it into sessions you can plan around, and dividing the backlog by the allowance shows how long the pile really takes at a sustainable pace.
Weekly allowance
Weekly gaming hours = free hours x gaming share
Backlog horizon
Sessions = weekly hours / session length; weeks to clear = backlog hours / weekly hours
Start from 168, subtract sleep, work or study, commuting, chores and fixed commitments. Most working adults land between fifteen and thirty, which is far less than the day feels like it contains.
Because it grows faster than the allowance. If your weekly budget is six hours and you add a forty-hour game every month, the pile expands regardless of how much you play.