There comes a point in my character's life--such that it is--when I realize that I'm no longer enjoying things as much as I did before. Eventually I "lose touch" with my character and either switch stories (my warrior will give up the blade and become a mage) or start a new character.

This seems to happen to all my characters eventually.

Here are the sure signs that it's time to move on:

• I spend too much time going merchant to merchant, selling items
  
• I start hoarding just to hoard
  
• I start grinding out skills (smithing, alchemy, etc.) instead of letting them progress naturally
  
• I start fast traveling too often
  
• I skip through dialogue
  
• I stop playing for fun and start playing like it's a chore
  
• I no longer have any challenges
  
• I stop dying all the time

The items in bold are the ones I feel do the most damage to my enjoyment but I just can't stop from doing them.

I know that the simple (not so simple) way to prevent this is to just NOT grind skills and such, but I really have a hard time resisting.

I want to be able to make a strong healing potion, but in order to do that (without taking a very long time) I have to spam potions to raise my skill and/or use +alchemy gear. If I want to have multiple enchantments on my weapons or armors, I need to max enchanting. For smithing, I really enjoy being able to improve weapons and armor, but I don't want God items. Sadly, I always find myself spamming daggers or w/e it is, in order to level my skill.

What about you? What are the signs that you're becoming bored? And, how do you prevent these things from happening?

I didn't have ANY of these things.
I begin making new characters because my Role-Playing just breaks. ( No idea how )

This is me all over.
ESPECIALLY merchant stuff... and grinding the crafts.

Backstory and set ideas for a skillset are two things that stop me from doing this.
Another thing is to stop grinding is to ensure that said skillset doesn't include any crafting stuff. If you can't resist grinding - don't touch it!

-HK

EDIT: I never fast travel though

Why should I put this...
Leave Skyrim for amount of time, then come back again.
I know it just a small chance you'll succeed, but even the smallest chance worth to try.

Well, for me, there comes a point when, honestly, there's not much left for your PC to do. As a thief/assassin, my primary char completed the TG & DB, sided with the SCs, and defeated Alduin, as well as going on several Daedric quests and similar. At level 54, with no borders open, it was time to retire until those pesky vamps came around, but then, that turned into my out versus Nocturnal... um, Immortality versus Eternal Servitude, I'll have Immortality please. Now he's (mostly) retired again. Nothing wrong with this, just the nature of RPing... roll up a new char, this time a Knight/Paladin, beat on undead, WHAT?!?! Vampires?!?! Join the DG, drop out of the Companions when it becomes clear that they're unclean, tons of sidequests, adventure looking for undead lairs to root out... level 40something and nearing retirement. Roll up another char... and so on. The trick is in playing different chars, NOT playing like a completionist, and having fun with the RP aspects while not being afraid to retire, or scrap and reroll.

Yep, this is always the hardest part.

I have caught myself doing the smae thing. Especially grinding the crafting skills just to raise the levels. THAT gets boring to me really quickly. Also just doing missions just to level up my skills, instead of paying attention to why I'm doing the quest in the first place. then I do get tired of the character.

So I have decided that from now on, each character will only have ONE crafting skill and will have to find or buy other things he needs.

Well, you don't need to go that extreme, but if you let levels happen naturally, all three (ALCH,ENCH,SMITH) can reasonably be used, without grinding. For instance, a mage can make ONLY jewelry. A thief only invests in what he has to better his selling price, and so on. This is pretty much how my thief/assassin went about it, crafting skins from hunting and "found" ingots into jewelry or weapons to sell, "free" ingredients picked from the wild (or an unsuspecting shopkeeper) sold as potions (or used), curious "what does this do and how" for disenchants, slapping a schlocky 1% Petty Enchant on found weapons, etc. You can't grind without buying materials, or hunting them down laboriously, so don't. Unless you're a mage looking for some worthwhile gloves or something, then you'd WANT to be an Enchanter. Same with spells for a mage. There are a lot of spells that are non-combat levelling, just don't use them when you don't NEED to and you're fine.

That's interesting, i actually start grinding (but just a little) when I'm not bored, I just alternate it with questing. I just found out yesterday on a farm that casting Detect Life and Rally on chickens will raise your alteration and illusion skills

I know I'm burned out when I start jumping on dinner tables and kicking plates and food onto the floor.