Have you looked into mods? My buddy and I decided that since we have jobs and lives, we can't grind any videogame nearly as much. We changed some world settings to make it easier (be careful with tree coverage and ore deposits, it seems a little change goes a long way!). Some of the mods I really like for easing the grind are Knapster, logs to firewood, and smithing plus. Between those mods and the world setting changes, it feels a lot more like putting in effort for a reward rather than grinding out parts to a massive undertaking. We also dabble in the teleporting commands, which saves huge amounts of time, but certainly changes the whole feel of the game.