I conducted an experiment this summer. I’ve never gone without television for more than a week or two. There’s too many programs I enjoy and watch regularly for me to completely give it up. So, for two months this summer, I completely fasted from tv.
My experiment was wildly successful. I didn’t realize I could do this, nor did I even care to try. It began as an unintentional absence. Soon after realizing I hadn’t vegged out watching anything for a few weeks, I decided to totally give it up for a while. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
While I was very successful at avoiding everything that tv had to offer, I created a void. There was downtime that I needed to fill. I quickly learned how unimportant one medium became and grabbed on to my other favorite medium: the Internet.
I’ve probably spent an average of 10-14 hours a day in front of my computer for these past two months. However, during the first month, it was much easier to not be in front of the computer since I was working full-time and socially as an IT administrator. I also had many people to visit after hours and kept myself busy most nights.
In the middle of July, I flew back home to an unscheduled second half of the summer. So my free time suddenly increased threefold. With my desire to watch television nearly deceased, I spent much time browsing the world wide web. And it’s just as easy to treat this medium as television and waste hours reading unimportant crap: mostly trivial or subjective content but nonetheless mildly entertaining.
I admit to being quite obsessed with being online when I should be doing one of many things. As was so famously portrayed in What about Bob, I guess sometimes we have to take baby steps.
The most important change I should discipline myself with is time management. I could have done this years ago, knowing very well that I waste a lot of time. I have no regrets about this, but I also realize that I’m going nowhere fast. If certain things really were important to me, I’d do anything to make them happen. I see this in a few of my other friends, which is very inspiring.
I guess life doesn’t get any easier than this. I work for myself, I call my own hours, I travel when I desire and to wherever I want, and I can make the most of everything I do. I’m lucky to be in my position and unless I further myself in the areas I want so badly, I might lose this again to another extensive round of monotonous drudgery. I have the opportunity to do and be anything I want right now. Wake up, Micah!
It’s way too easy to spend hours on the internet when your day doesn’t have a lot of structure. I discovered this when I was freelancing for a couple of months. I could never quite figure out how to effectively plan my day so that I wasn’t surfing mindlessly or rushing to meet a deadline because I had spent so much time doing nothing. So if you figure out the secret to productivity, please let me know!
I don’t think there’s just one good answer for the secret to productivity. Everyone’s vices are different, even if just slightly, so to give a "this is the final solution to your problem" answer would be foolish.
I look for several things to get me going:
1. a clean space (clutter leads to distraction)
2. comfort (i work better when i’m not sitting in 85-90 degree weather)
3. motivation (this actually comes from shutting out your vices)
4. keeping it fresh (when something becomes boring, it’s usually because it’s been in my mind too much)
The magic of keeping these as my priorities becomes the real challenge. There’s soo much I want to do during my day!