Pro poker observations so far - work ethic

So I've been unemployed for the last month or so now.  It's unimportant how that happened or why I don't have a job, so let's just move past that.  :-)  I don't know how organized I can make this, but I have some general themes I wanted to get written down.  Here's the first observation:

Maintaining a Solid Work Ethic is Tough

If I play poker again, I'm going to give it 100%.  I'll just wake up, play super long sessions, dedicate myself 100% to poker.  Fuck everything else.  I'll grind 80+ hours per week if I have to - after all, it's poker and I love poker.  Plus I'm better than all of these other guys, or most of them.  At least I know that if I play my game, I'll win overall if I get the hours in.  So work ethic is really going to be my key to success.

Yeah, that paragraph makes sense.  And I 100% agree that it makes sense to give it your all and I should be doing that.  Am I?  Not even close.

As it turns out, it's pretty fucking hard to make sure you are optimizing your time for poker when you have ZERO responsibilities, a wife with no job also that you love hanging out with, and you live in the entertainment/sex/sin/vice capital of the entire world.  Yeah, it's tough.

Since the day I officially wrapped up at my job (5/24) I've played 120 hours of poker that I tracked in my results spreadsheet.  Plus probably another 10 or 15 online.  It's been about 3.5 weeks, so that currently puts me at just under 40 hours of poker per week.

Not horrible, but I'm clearly not dedicating myself 100% to poker.  Nor can I or should I, really.  When I was making a boatload of cash it was easy for me to push all other house work, paying bills, etc to Beth.  Now that I'm an unemployed loser I need to pick up the slack and do some of that work myself.  That all takes time.

Beth just had a foot surgery too, so some of the time I would have been playing was taken up by staying around here to take care of Beth.  But that's certainly not what's keeping my hours down.  It's mostly just laziness and having fun enjoying unemployment.

Then even when you are dedicated, a lot of things take time away from the table.  Driving to/from the casino.  Being on the waiting list.  Taking breaks away from the table while you're there.  Eating.  Everything ticks away from the total time you need to be playing serious poker at the table.

These numbers aren't actually as bad as I feared, so that's nice.  And I do think I can step it up more in the coming weeks.  But it's interesting to me how difficult it is to really get the hours in.

I knew it was going to be difficult to balance everything.  One thing that's helped me is that early on, I recognized that I would be pulled in different directions and I wouldn't be able to maintain the perfect schedule.  Instead, I'm trying to just go with the flow, play as well as I can when I play, and just do my best.  If I end up going out and playing $2/$4 limit after some shots and drinks, I'm going to play that $2/$4 game as good as I fucking can.  And I have been, and the results have been good.  So even if the hours are short, I'm trying to maintain a professional attitude and play as well as possible as often as possible.