Farming as therapy

Farming for ore and herbs may not be everyone's cup of tea, nor is it the absolute best gold per hour method of making money in WoW but it has one advantage: it doesn't require a lot of neurons. By this I mean that you can do it on auto pilot, while engaging in other activities.

When I get in the farming mood, it becomes therapeutic. Some people consider fishing to be therapeutic but for me it is too static an activity and besides you have to constantly keep an eye on the bobber. Not so with ore and herb farming. The only thing you need to do is check the minimap occasionally.

I'm the type of person who likes to multitask while doing certain activities. For example I usually have to do something while eating: watch a movie, read a blog or an article or read a book. Eating is one of those activities that can be done on auto pilot while engaging in a more meaningful activity. Since time is limited and precious, this makes a lot of sense to me.

I like to apply the same philosophy to World of Warcraft, or other similar games. Here are a few of the things that you, or I, could do while farming:

You could listen to music and sing along, provided you are either home alone or American Idol material or are not ashamed to make a fool of yourself.

Or you could, if you are lucky enough to have dual monitors, watch a movie/show/Youtube/etc on your second monitor.

Or you could engage in discussion with a spouse/friend/family member because you don't need to give too much attention to the farming activity itself.

Or you could eat/drink. I've done this many times and I assure you it's not hard at all.

Or you could listen to a podcast. This, in fact, is my favorite activity while farming. I have a number of podcasts I subscribe to and some of them are 1 hour in length. That's long enough to gather sufficient mats and short enough to not reach total boredom.

Or, if gambling is your drug, you can try a little poker or real money blackjack on your second monitor.

There are probably other activities that you can easily do while farming but I haven't thought of them yet. Suggestions are welcome.

If you are concerned with making full use of your limited time, dual-tasking is probably for you. The time spent in WoW is same as the time spent in real life so why not make use of the same amount of time for both WoW and real life?

Farming is so easy that anyone can do it. If you really want to go crazy, you can even level all the way to 85 doing nothing but farming. There are no high level or complicated strategies involved. There is no brainpower involved. Just get on your mount and make a circuit of your favorite farming area. And the best part about doing something else while farming? No stress. Someone else snatched your node from under your nose? No problem, you can just move on while listening to that great podcast in the background.

So just chillax while farming. It's therapeutic man!