This is too funny. I was literally thinking about something like this earlier today.
Specifically, I kind of messed up the game life balance. Let me tell you how, and maybe it will get you closer to the answer you're looking for.
First, welcome to Sindome. You're new to MUDs and MUSHing, so you probably don't realize how fortunate you are to be here. This place really is a gem and is fairly unique in the ~40+ year history of online text gaming. It's not without it's faults and rough edges (shocker, something built by people is imperfect). But, it can be pretty magical.
As you read the BgBB and get involved in the community, you will probably become aware of the challenges of "making things happen". You're already aware of them. Your full time job. Your marriage. No kids yet? A lot of people deal with that factor as well. Or sick family members. Or broken down cars, or, or… life
So you're asking a good question and wanting to understand game life balance coming into it. As opposed to learning everything the hard way.
Making things happen is hard. One of the current themes going on is the challenge for any one person to get their character in a position, within the game, to dominate another character and put them in the vat. (Kill them, take them out of play for a bit.) This is a PVP game. Player versus Player. For a significant portion of the playerbase, that is why they play here. They want to "beat up" and be in violent conflict with other characters. I don't say that judgmentally. Gaming can be a good outlet for that very human desire to feel powerful and more accomplished than other people. And do it in a way that doesn't end one person in jail, and the other person in a hospital. RL.
There is a constant balance going on between allowing your character to be vulnerable, versus keeping them safe. And while people can, and sometimes do choose to remain in their apartments and other safe areas for extended periods of time, there isn't much RP going on there. But, that's a whole other tangent.
I bring this up because it leads into where I messed up recently when it comes to making enough time to play the game. And under-estimating the amount of time required of me.
I took my character out into the world. I had about 45 minutes of RL time before I physically had to be somewhere else. I assumed, it turned out incorrectly, that nothing of consequence would happen in that brief period of time. As it turned out, there was a major event involving my character and roughly half a dozen other characters. And, I had to bow out of it. I had to log off. Because RL was more important to me.
And, I felt bad about that. I've been playing online games since 1993. I know how hard it is to get people together. I know what a monumental task it was to get 6+ people, out of an active player population of ~40 active players, together to make something happen. Not to mention all of the in game assets it took. Vehicles. Weapons. Armor. Communications. Etc. It was MASSIVE under taking.
And at the risk of oversharing here, if I wasn't personally 112 days sober today. And if I hadn't been explicitly told by my sponsor that, "ANYTHING that you put before your sobriety, you will end up losing." I probably would have stayed and played out the situation instead of going to the meeting that I promised a handful of people that I would see them at.
I'll wrap this up with some advice, and a bit of context. I'm in my mid-40s. I'm a single dad and have custody of my kid every other week. I work on a team of ~30 people supporting critical voice communications systems for 50+ Tier 1 hospitals in the US. I work from home. I'm a recovering addict. I probably spend more time than is healthy online.
My advice to you is to start small. Figure out how to engage with the economy in very small increments of time. I hope I'm not revealing too much IC information by talking about crates here.
Deliver a crate. Get an idea for how long that takes. Do it enough times to get an idea of how long it takes on average. Then realize, that can go sideways. Inevitably your character will end up doing more than delivering the crate. They might run into someone at the location that they're delivering to and end up having a conversation. They might mugged for the crate. The mugging might go wrong and they might end up in the vat. Each of those variables takes time.
Go back to my example. I've been playing here for about 7 years. I thought I had 45 minutes to go out and do something "real quick". It didn't turn out that way. I misjudged and ended up wasting a bunch of people's time. I don't say this to say, don't go do things. I'm not saying, always assume the worst case scenario. I'm just saying, this isn't an app game on your phone that you can always put down and pause when RL comes up.
A huge mistake that I made when I started playing is I came in, and knowing nothing about the game or the world or the people playing here, I had the intention of what I wanted to do with my character. I had preconceptions about how people would / should respond to what I thought I was bringing to the table with my character.
Don't do that. Make a character who knows nothing and can't do anything. Then find joy in exploration and simply engaging with the world. Reading the room descriptions. Meeting characters and asking what they're up to. What they're doing. Talk about your own character's frustrations. The boredom of running crates. The seeming impossibilities of making any considerable amount of money. The high cost of apartments, and food, and clothes. As much as you can, exist as your character in the world. Not as the person who wants to come here to play a game. I hope that makes sense.
Learn the phrases, "I will be out of Central." (I'm going to be offline and my character won't be here). "I'm going to get some sleep." (I'm going to be offline for a few hours.) People know what you're saying when you say those things. "I should be back into Central around 8pm." (I'll be back online around 8pm). etc.
Use the @note system. Specifically 1 and 2. IC-Actions and IC-Goals. If you have a meaningful conversation with a character, write a sentence or two as an IC-Action. For example, what you talked about. If you have an inspirations about what you want to do, write an IC-Goal about that. Goals can be aspirational. They don't have to be concrete. Nobody is going to hold it against you if your character doesn't reach a goal.
Also, there's an @note option for Job Searches. Use that one.
With limited RL time due to family, job, etc. My last suggestion is to set a schedule. Especially with your spouse. Make it short at first. "I'm going to spend 60 minutes, twice a week after dinner and before bed playing."
Probably the biggest thing that new players have going against them is being new. And the constant churn of new players. And of characters who pop up, last a week or two, and vanish.
The very best thing you can do for yourself, even if you only end up playing here for a few months, is to establish a consistent schedule. Once people know that they can count on you to be around at a given time, we can involve you in things. Simple tasks.
Other than that, log in once or twice a day to spend some UE. Don't worry about getting the full 3 UE every day. That's a fool's errand. Find maybe 15 minutes. Move around the game. Get signal. Get in the routine of having your character have a routine. Get something to eat. Find their favorite bar, club, restaurant, gym, whatever.
Most importantly, have fun. Check 'help bleed'. Also, 'help crime'. If this game ever starts feeling like a job or an obligation, pay attention to that.
