On Wasting Time

Internet addiction.  Maybe you share the same symptoms.  Maybe it should simply be called shirking duty, laziness, or sloth.  For many people, they get a free moment and check their email.  You wouldn't think that such a thing would take very long, but the fact is, even if you only skim important emails, don't reply, and don't follow links, it could very well take every every spare moment you have.

I am seventeen.  I'm a senior.  I don't have the hectic schedule that many seniors have who are trying to get extra credit and do all these crazy classes and activities.  My year is going by pretty smoothly.  I'm homeschooled, so in theory, my schoolwork could take up as little as a few hours.  Even with my four activities - dance, music, CCD, and piano - that leaves me plenty of time to spare, if you think about it.  Yet I wasn't getting my chore time done and I seemed to always be trying to squeeze something into a day.

The reason wasn't hard to find.  I am not one of those people who wastes my only couple seconds of free time on email: I am one of those people who wastes hours - with email, blogging, especially YouTube, and now Google+.  I don't even have to be doing anything.  I will click every bookmark on my bookmark toolbar at least once without finding anything to do before I decide that I can't do anything online.  Even then, I might try to find something.  I'll click on the YouTube button several times and scan the list of videos searchingly two or three times before I dejectedly give up.

It's not that I'm addicted to the Internet, per se, it's just that I want something interesting and entertaining without a lot of effort on my part - like this post for example instead of a chore or a test on "Ode on a Grecian Urn".  I recently read an article that identified this as one of the bad effects of television.  While television is sometimes beneficial and can be very helpful, it said, a need to be constantly entertained and a lack of long-term satisfaction can develop from overuse of the TV.

Therefore, in addition to other Lenten practices, I decided to limit my Internet time to 2 hours a day.  It has really astonished me.  I suddenly have time to sit in the sun and sew, and the days pass slower without any anxiety or stress about things getting done.  I wasn't sure that 2 hours would be short enough - but it certainly is!  There are plenty of newly uploaded Donald O'Connor videos on YouTube that I haven't watched, even one BlimeyCow.  It just isn't that important to see every little bit of Donald O'Connor's small role in a particular movie.  I'll watch it when I have time.  I'm suddenly choosing my time very wisely to make sure I have time later if I need to use the Internet for something.

When the program schedule got shuffled up, we tried to watch the new stuff but it just didn't capture our attention.  Then we realized that The Mary Tyler Moore Show is on at 8, and the the Dick Van Dyke Show, and then The Bob Newheart Show, and then That Girl - shows that each interest at least some of us.  We don't watch TV, now, until after dinner - freeing up a ton of time in the afternoon!  You wouldn't think that watching the same amount of TV time in a different time slot would make much difference but it certainly does!

And there are lots of other things a person could do to free up time.  Some people like to listen to music on YouTube while they're doing something else.  However, they may not intend to watch the videos, but oftentimes they end up watching them anyway.  And on an average of every three minutes, you have to disrupt what you're doing to pick a new song.  That takes up more time than you realize!  Plus:  Three songs at a three minutes a song average is nine minutes.  Five songs at that average is fifteen minutes.  Ten songs is half-an-hour!  If you were to get distracted for approximately a CD length of songs, you'd waste half-an-hour!

And then there's reading the article in newspaper you've been meaning to read - which probably takes up more time than you realize.  Or organizing your desk - same thing.  Eating while working slows down what you're doing - you might as well take the time to eat and enjoy it.  Even something as simple as walking from your room, putting your coat and shoes on etc., and getting in the car, could take longer than you realize!  Sometimes I'm a few minutes late for that very reason.

So, I didn't mean to take up all my time to describe to you how to not take up all your time (but it seems that I have).  Even so, someone wrote a book on this subject not too long ago and was interviewed on the radio, and everything she said lined up with what I've been discovering.  Start paying more attention to how long the little things take and you might find that you're wasting the time you're looking for.

~Meggy