I wish I had more time.
I find myself saying this quite often. You would think this meant that I am using the 24 hours I have been blessed with properly, but that’s not the case. You’ll see why after reading this.
Check out the screenshot (from about 2 weeks ago) of my web browser.
From the top left corner going clockwise: Twitter, Facebook, GMail, ING Direct, Ohio University, Facebook (Again), CNN and ESPN. This means I check my bank account quite often. I think sometimes I believe watching each cent will make them grow. Hasn’t worked for me yet, but I digress . . .
Each time I open my web browser, I am greeted with these 8 big squares and the events that unfold are quite predictable. I check out Facebook (why do you think it shows up twice) and probably realize it’s someone’s birthday. I go to their wall to say “Happy Birthday” and then I realize they have put a few pictures up and I check those out and leave a few comments, then I respond to previous comments on my wall etc. Before I know it, 20 minutes are gone. Even a “safe site” like CNN chews a chunk of my time unexpectedly. I find myself going from looking at the top news of the day to watching a video about a barking man, which then leads me to other videos and on and on it goes.
Here’s another screenshot from my phone and the time wasters are there again: Echofon (Twitter for the iPhone), Facebook and Email.
These screenshots mean one thing: I am begging to be interrupted. The blue Facebook icon is telling me someone wants to friend me, my email notification is singing melodies in my ears and the orange glow from the ING Direct logo is beckoning me to click it.
In the end, I had clear out my history and then I made my phone icons less accessible by moving them away from the home page. In addition, I don’t open my email box for a few hours when I am at my desk and I turn off the sound on my phone for a few hours while at the office. All these are tiny changes, but now it takes more than 1 second for me to visit Twitter and I can usually stop myself before I do. This doesn’t mean I don’t tweet or facebook anymore, but now I do those things when I am ready to go on a break as opposed to responding to every single notification or stimulus. I am fast learning that as good as connecting to people is, it is more important to not let connections become more important than doing the real work. Any good thing can become bad if overdone.
Next time you find yourself wishing you had more time, have you asked yourself if there are small time-wasters that are eating away at your time currently. What about wishing you had more money? Have you asked yourself if you have plugged the money sinks you currently have? It might be time for a good ol’ self-examination.
PS. If you checked out the video of the barking man, did you find yourself also checking out other videos?
It was great going through this article. I can relate to everything you say. I have to work a lot on my computer and hence I am always online. I want to be accessible to my friends/family/boss online since I dont get to meet with them as often as I would like. I find gchat/messengers more helpful and less of a distraction for staying connected (if you keep it to mute). Short instant message from a friend generated for you is less distracting than reading bulk of general status msgs or tweets and reacting to them. It eats away bulk of my time once i get on it. Social networking sites are great and has helped me get in touch with friends I never thought I’d hear from again but it has too much going on. As you said ” Any good thing can become bad if overdone ” and even after having this realization I struggle to come up with ways to cut down on it. I have tried from ‘blocking’ my wall to deleting my account but its of no use. Small tips you suggested might actually be useful. I dont want to completely remove myself from it so will practice ‘self restrain’ from now on, lets see how long that works
All the best
PS:reading the blog and writing all this killed my 10 minutes! but i multi tasked and looked up that ‘barking man’ video while i was doing this. you see the pattern here, its like having internet ‘ADD’ jumping from one link to another. From FB to blog to video to related videos. . . . i am still far from ‘self restrain’ that i had decided to practice, but its getting there hopefully
Ha @ internet ADD. I don’t think it can be avoided because it’s designed to make you not focus. It’s like flipping through channels on TV except we aren’t controlling it ourselves. We just have to remember to be proactive in dealing with the interruptions
Well written article Dami. I really enjoyed reading it and I can relate to everything. Internet is really addicting – as I write, I should be finishing up a research project but I’m respondong to your blog piece…haha. I think what it all comes down too is self control and just getting the work done. I mean, what did we all do when there was no twitter or facebook? Seriously, I can’t even remember what I did. Anyway, I have had my facebook account deactivated for like almost 2 months now…I had too get off b/c I found myself getting too addicted to it (as sad as that sounds)…haha. But I think I have realized how to control my internet addictions. Slowly but surely, I’m getting there
LOL
Thanks. That’s the beauty of human nature, we can relate to each others experiences through written/spoken word. I did deactivate my facebook account once and then I realized I just had to learn to not click the blue icon as often as I did. Glad deactivation is working for you though
Came to check you out from the Naija blog awards. Well done.