Lifespan….

There is at least one regular poster who syncs the seasons in game with real life (can’t remember who). I wouldn’t enjoy that. Sometimes in the dead of winter, it’s nice to pretend it’s sunny and warm. I wouldn’t want to be stuck in winter in my game, too. But mostly I would just get tired of being in the same season for so long. I also don’t see the point.

I was playing with aging on long lifespan for a while, and it was nice to not feel rushed to get things done. But man, it got boring when my adults ran out of things to do. They got to the top of their careers almost immediately (they had degrees) and they had hobbies but they mastered those, too. And sometimes it would make sense to add another hobby or interest. But it was tiring to keep remembering them all and I just wasn’t inspired anymore to play them. I wish there was an option between normal and long lifespans. Normal can feel like a rush to get things done and I don’t take part in as many social events. And it could feel like by the time my sim reached the top of their career, they were an elder and just about dead. But I don’t use a mod for lifespan yet.

Whichever lifespan is chosen, the young adult + adult lifespan is disproportionately short compared to the younger life stages. I always have my sims drink a potion of youth so their kids have time to grow up (and maybe have grandkids for them they’ll live to meet.) My ideal time to do this is when they’ve reached the end of Adulthood, they reset back to beginning of Adult and I make them look middle-aged. I feel this is the missing age group.

I could never play with aging permanently off or in sync with real life. I want to see them through the generations.

I play on custom settings using MCCC. I like to play with longer lifespans because I really enjoy making long and intricate stories with my sims and even default long feels too short for me. I use story progression, too, and I feel like ageing off makes my world feel stagnant. I love watching my town have their own life and family and grow old and pass on. I love seeing the family trees they create, too.

Seasons: 2 weeks each
I've left pregnancy alone at 3 days.
Babies: 4 days
Toddlers: 42 days
Children: 56 days
Teen: 56 days
Young Adult: 112 days
Adult: 196 days
Elder: 112 days

I do pause ageing from time to time if I need to spend more time on a certain storyline. Babies are short because there's just not much to do with them until they age up. If they ever remake that life stage, I'll definitely add more time to it.

Most of the time I'll keep aging turned off, and seasons set to the longest time span. From time to time I'll turn on aging, set to longest setting, for everyone just to move the progress along. This way infants will age up, toddlers age up, and so on. If I am playing anyone in college I'll turn to age off for everyone.

I play on long lifespan and think it works the best for me. I feel like I get more fun stuff done in the game or I'm able to better tell a story.

I'm certain I'd get bored with a real life length Sims game. I've always played on Short life because I'm too anxious to see how the next generation and the next and so on will turn out. Its just been very recent that I can make myself play on normal life span. RL would be too much for me.

I've never in my life yet played with aging on, but for the longest time I would spend ages making a Sim and building a house, start playing for like, 3 Sim days and get bored anyway. I don't know why, but I have COMPLETELY gone the other way now. I still take some time over a Sim and house, but I am much more of a 'player' now, so I am almost certainly going to start playing with aging at normal. I don't know if I'll be able to bear it when animals die though. It's too sad when even animals that are just pixels die!! :D

I also have aging off for other households, so I can play rotationally.

I usually just play with aging off. I age babies up after 3 days because they cry too much. For toddlers, I age them up when they max all skills or when I get bored. I age up kids after they receive an A, I’m not really focused on aspirations, unless it plays into their storyline. Teens age up with an A as well.
As far as seasons go, I usually run spring and summer on 28 days, because I tend to send my sims fishing a lot.
Fall and winter lasts anywhere between 7 and 14 days. It really just depends on my mood lol.

I play on long and I get impatient playing on that setting, but its the only way I feel like I can tell a proper story. I just let the season change and don't pay too much attention to them.

After giving a try on different lifespans I found out that the best way to play for me it is using Normal Lifespan and, whenever I want more days within the age, also using the Potion of Youth. Usually I only stop using potions when my Sims complete an aspiration (I like them to die at the end of their lives with something like 5-7 traits).

Seasons usually takes 14 days because it isn't so long as 28 neither so short as 7 days.

Edit: it takes a while until you snowball sufficient (considering you're playing rotational) to see Sims around town doing all sort of unexpected things based on acquired skills, traits and items.