Everybody has a time thief. Last Friday night I was praying that God would give us basically a big financial break. I started bargaining with Him and said, “We do the best we can with our money, and we manage our time well…” Sometimes God’s answers are immediate and painful. As soon as I said, “We try to manage our time well,” He answered, “Can you really, honestly say that?” In my shame, I had to just quit praying.
My thoughts were heavy as I lay in bed that night thinking about all the ways I waste my time during the day. Oh, I try to be diligent, but I often fall into the “You deserve a break” trap. After installing the firefox extension 8aweek at the beginning of August, I have had to face, in black and white, the reality of how much time I allow the internet to steal from me. If I ever wondered what is keeping me from reaching my goals, I have a pretty good place to start looking now.
Banish the time thief
After a long restless night, I decided that the internet has too much control over my life. I use the internet as my default answer to “I’m bored.” The computer is my mindless, escapist entertainment, and the internet is my greatest time waster. Saturday morning, while Brenton and I were out driving, I announced to him that I am taking a 30 day internet vacation to re-take control over my time.
The first order of banishing the time thief was to set up parameters and exceptions for this vacation. For starters, I needed to access and answer e-mails daily and I want to continue blogging. I also have a website project that I am working on. As much benefit as I would gain from completely cutting out the internet, I had to make a few allowances. The exceptions I gave myself were that I can use the computer for 15 minutes to check email ever day, and I can get on the internet for blogging and writing related projects.
30-day internet vacation
Yesterday was day 1 of my time management project. I spent most of the day writing and cleaning. Without all the constant stream of information coming from the internet, I felt lighter and more creative. I wrote out some plans for my personal life and goals for my business. As I take this one day at a time, I am sure that at some point my 30 day internet vacation will have me on the verge of insanity. Just one day at a time and I can change my life.
Zen habits has a great article on 20 Strategies to Defeat the Urge to Do Useless Tasks, I’ll be printing this one out and posting it on my wall for the next month.
