Find yourself wanting more time in your life? That seems like a common theme amongst people I know. Ask them why they can't or won't do something and more often than not, the answer is "I don't have enough time."
How often do you find yourself wanting to go do something and saying "it'll just be a minute". You go do it and the next thing you know an hour has passed. If you think that doesn't apply to you, keep track of things and how long you "plan" on doing something and then how long it actually takes.
This is one reason I've cut down on Facebook and am trying hard to cut down on my internet searches...even when I'm doing something related to a project. For example, I'll search for a quote about this or that. When the search engine comes up with its answers, there are many, many, many options and that ornery little voice inside of me says "yeah, this is a great quote BUT let's look at the next page - there might be an even better quote. Then at that page the same script is repeated. Eventually I've spent 15-30 minutes searching when i actually found what I'm going to use on the first try. Same with looking for "how to stuff"..."just maybe the next video will be more specific" and with videos it's worse because often you have to watch the whole thing to find out it didn't have what you needed.
When I would say "i'll just check Facebook, it will only take a minute" that was code to my brain for "yippee, a break. now i don't have to work hard on something else and I just know I can trap Terrie into scrolling just a 'little' bit more". One thing leads to another. And you know what? the "attention industry", as its called, does that on purpose.
If you spend 25 minutes a day doing something that is not helping you reach your goals, you will have essentially lost 152 hours in a year. What could you have gotten accomplished in those 152 hours? And I bet that most of us spend much more than 25 minutes doing Facebook, Instagram or engaging in some other mind and time trap.
Just think about this and its impact on your life. If you're happy with it and feel as if you have plenty of time, then that's great. If you're always hoping for more time, this might be one place to start. Do you know how many times a day you check your phone for something? Not only does that take time but it takes your attention away from other things and it takes you longer to get back on track.
The internet and technology are amazing and have brought us more education than we can imagine. But what else has it brought us? Can we balance it all and continue to extract the good stuff while keeping control of our lives?
Am I being prissy with this? Maybe but it's because I've actually started to pay attention to how my phone and the internet affect my quality of life. And based on the results of my experiments, i've made some changes. it's brought me greater happiness. My goal in these posts is to share what I learn with you. You can delete them, pay attention as nice to know or see if they apply to you. They may not apply and I would be very happy if they didn't. I just know i feel so much better without that clutter in my mind. Maybe it's because I'm old and there's more clutter in there...but i don't think so
