I am on my 4th character. This time I an implementing roleplaying restrictions. I have to eat, sleep. I don't use magic, I don't fast travel, etc.

I still find myself rushing through this. I want to join the DB first to get Penitus Occulatus armor since you have encounters with them. So now I am trying to rush through those quests. I guess I could just go find one of these guys and kill them/take their armor, that way I wouldn't be tempted to rush the the DB quests.

Still, even if I had it, I feel like I would get impatient eventually and start rushing things. How do you all avoid doing this, besides willpower?

You could stop following the Journal so much.

One way I found to just play without being rushed was to explore every place I found. Instead of going from Point A to Point B and passing a half dozen caves, four ruins and three towers, actually explore each one of them along the way (get them 'cleared'). If you are like me you will have to trod back to sell loot two or three times before you ever finish the trip.

But, it most certainly does get rid of that 'rush' feeling from just following everything the journal tells you to do.

It helps to have a really really short attention sp

This is how I am level 45 and have hardly ever touched the main quest lines, with the exception of the dark brotherhood. You can't walk 30 seconds in one direction in this game without discovering a new location crawling with monsters and loot. In fact, the single greatest limiting factor in exploring for me is not having room to carry all my loot.

I will try that then. Outside of the Dark Brotherhood, no more journal when I can help it.

I must have the attention span of a grasshopper. I stopped playing Vriddi after 350 hours and she'd only done 1 questline (Companions) and a bit of the MQ.

well its kinda hard not to do things quick, other than simply not doing quests right after you finish the previous

all the questlines are really short so you could either mix them and do 1 quest for this faction, then another for a different faction

or just go out and explore in between or something

I also roleplay a lot. With that I mean go on hunts, collect hides, and sell them or process them in leather (strips), as my character is partly a hunter. Other things I did was add a few things of your own to certain quests, e.g. run around naked and fight only with your fists for Dibella's quest (you need to be physically clooooooose to everyone you encounter during the quest ^^), complete Kyne's trials only on full moons, fulfill Companions and Hircine's quests only as a werewolf, don't kill anyone but your target during Peryite's quest (sneak sneak sneak ^^), and so on and so on.

And like others said, check out everything you encounter during your sprint-free travels. When you roleplay someone traveling in a very hostile environment, you should make sure you're aware of any danger in the vicinity. And that means entering forts and caves etc. You don't want an enemy suddenly ambushing you from behind after all, that would mean instant death under roleplaying circumstances.

It's impossible for me to rush through the game, with the amount of sidetracking that ocurrs. If I want to go dragonsoul collecting, you can bet I will enter any caves/forts along the way, in what should have been a 10 minute trip to a dragon lair, turns into a 2 hr kill fest.

I talk to everyone I run into and take whatever quest I can, then when I am ready to leave a city I check the map and do the closest quest. When I exit that location if I don't need to go to a city I check for the closest quest again. When I can't add any more weight I head to the nearest town. Rinse & repeat.

It can be tough for me as well because I don't like actually 'entering' any area for a couple reasons. I want to be at level 46 (to ensure I get the best possible rewards/items) and I don't like entering random locations for fear of starting or accidentally 'breaking' a quest.

What I do between level 1 and 46 is pretty much exactly what everyone else has described. I go hunting, I'll clear the surface portions of ruins and whatnot but never enter them, I road run around the 9 holds picking ingredients along the way and mining. This can often lead to some interesting encounters with Thalmor or Imperial patrols who are escorting prisoners which I fee obligated to free etc.

When/if you do enter a cave or ruin, take your time and walk through it, enjoy the atmosphere of it, pop out a torch (definitely need one if you have the realistic lighting mod and you're not a Kahjit)

Here comes a crazy idea... take your time.

Getting distracted very easily by all the little things has helped me a lot lol.

If you play on PC, I highly recommend the http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9720 mod - this pops up a marker on any area entered if it belongs to a given quest line. It's one of the BEST mods out there for people who simply play to explore for a while before getting involved in the quest lines.

A big thumbs up for the dungeon quest awareness mod. My first character I pretty much wanted to see what the game had to offer so i fast traveled around and knocked out 3/4ths of the guilds the main quest and a ton of side quests. For my second character I wanted to walk everywhere but was afraid id ruin quests.

That mod makes it so you can walk around in the wild and waltz right in to every cave, tomb and bandit/forsworn stronghold with impunity if it doesn't have anything to do with an outside quest. That right there has done more for me to enjoy my self while taking my time than any other self imposed ristriction ive placed on my self or other mod combined.

I have also found now that I go into areas without specifically being directed by a quest that there are a ton of locations that have mini self contained story lines of their own that I never realized during my first playthrough when I was speeding through quests i picked up in the towns.

This is pretty much exactly what I do. I used to just follow my strat guide from place to place but now I just wander about happily, and my only concern is not accomplishing enough or just being a drifter.

I go to my journal and deactivate every quest, then just go exploring and collecting ingredients for my Alchemy hobby. I even go ahead and explore caves, etc. that I find and don't even worry that it might upset a future quest. I take my sweet time exploring said caves, etc. I enjoy just living in the moment. Sometimes I am happily surprised by a small quest that pops up after I am in one of the said locations, but I still take lots of time to complete it. So, just explore and don't follow quest markers. Stop and smell the mountain flowers.