This post is Day 15 of the 2012 edition of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. Learn more and sign up here.
What would you do with five extra hours in your day? Probably make more progress on your life goals, that’s for sure! Yet, this is the amount of time the average American spends watching TV.
You may know that I don’t really watch TV. Sometimes I’ll catch a few shows at my mom’s house, but for the most part, I have no idea what’s going on in TV Land at any given time. I haven’t paid much attention to TV for about six years now, and I attribute much of my productivity and success in my work and life to the fact that I have a lot more time on my hands to pursue my dreams. Today, I challenge you to ditch TV for an entire day. (If you don’t normally watch TV anyway, I challenge you to ditch your non-work use of the internet instead. Yes, no Twitter, Facebook, not even this blog for a whole day.)
Need another reason to step away from the boob tube? Well, black women are probably the ones who are most affected by the negative aspects of watching TV, because as an ethnic/gender group, we watch more TV than any other group in the United States. Yes, as in more TV than the average of 5 hours a day! Which may be explain why too many of us are overweight and unhappy when we should be healthy and fulfilled. Let’s stop letting TV (or mindlessly surfing the internet) take away the time we could be spending on more productive pursuits.
Estimated Time to Complete: 24 hours
Today’s assignment requires you to eliminate a common time-waster so that you have more time to devote to the things that really matter to you. For the next 24 hours, I challenge you to ditch TV or non-work use of the internet. This exercise will help you further redesign your day for maximum productivity.
Here are just a few things you can do with the extra time:
- Catch up on the assignments from the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge
- Read a book
- Listen to uplifting music
- Call or visit with a friend
- Make a home-cooked meal for you and/or your family
- Exercise
- Clean or declutter your living space
- Work on your business
- Get some sleep
Take Action and Reflect: When you’re done with your 24 hours, please share your experience with us in the comments! Was it difficult to go without the boob tube (or playing around on the internetz) for a whole day? What did you do instead? If you blogged about today’s assignment, please post the link in the comments so we can read it!
Want All the 31 Day Reset Exercises in One Place?
The Reset Workbook contains all 31 daily assignments in one place as well as 28 printable worksheets to supplement the material and help you complete the daily exercises. The workbook is 60 pages long and comes in an electronic, ebook format.
For those who may wish to go at their own pace, this workbook allows you to have all the assignments at your fingertips in addition to the opportunity to connect with others who are doing the 31 Day Reset program here on the blog. There are also a few bonuses, like the full version of the Life Mapping Workbook with a video training!
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I used to be a heavy TV watcher but I did realize what a time suck it could be so I now record anything I want to watch and save it until Sunday. I do sometimes like to have the TV on as background noise (usually with CNN or a cooking show playing) but it’s not crucial…I can definitely forgo that for 24 hours!
Now the internet is a whole different story! I spend way too much time on Facebook which leads me to some link which leads me to another link…… So I am going to give up the no-work use of internet for 24 hours. Will post an update back here tomorrow afternoon!
Read my latest blog post…Day 13: Conduct a Time Audit
Although i am a Tv addict this assignment taught me that i can go a day without TV, throughout the day i was somewhat concerned about missing my regular programs but i substituted that with the following.. and i was tempted a few times but i did not fall into the temptation
1.woke up early and watched the sun set
2.played my uplifting song that i stated in the begining of this blog
3.cleaned out two intimidating closets while listening to some reggae and soca music
4.swept the front of the house
5.did my morning devotions….
wow, theres life without TV, glad I experienced this.
I will be completing this assignment tomorrow–Martin Luther King Jr Day–my day off and see how this goes. It will most definately be a challenge, but I think that this will be a great time to make the most of my off day. I am going to try to stay off of the internet as well. Wish me luck!
Alright, I hate to admit this but, I cheated and watched TV for about an hour. I know, I know. My house was so quiet, I had to put on some music…on the TV and I got caught up for an hour watching nothing.
On a brighter note, I got alot accomplished today rather than bring a couch potato and looking at hours of pointless TV and falling asleep. I finished grocery shopping, went to the mall, visited my parents, took my dad to work, cleaned my house, put away laundry, wrote a couple of blog posts, and later tonight I will be reading my book and praying for a great week at work. I would say that today was very productive…I might have to ditch TV for one day, once a week!
Read my latest blog post…Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
I love this activity. I’ve been trying to stay away from the t.v. over the past 6 months. Sometimes I get sucked in, especially when folks are chatting away about the latest episodes of shows. I feel like I’m in the dark. But, then I am reminded that I am using my time to improve myself.
Today, I stayed away from the t.v. and was able to complete one blog post, read a magazine article I’ve been meaning to read, and went to a meeting about living abroad. All in all, very productive!
Read my latest blog post…Speak Like Margaret Thatcher: 5 Public Speaking Tips from the “Iron Lady”
Great!!! I find myself watching less TV too. Instead, I’m doing more writing, planning for the future, and visiting with family and friends..catching up on their lives. But that Internet thing…I’m going to get this under control too. I said I was going to use Hootsuite to update my FB page instead of logging directly in. That is hit and miss too, but I’m determined to make it stick.
I really need to try this. I don’t watch TV except netflix (sometimes) but I find that I’m always online. It is going to be hard the first couple of days, but once when I get used to it, it should be good.
Read my latest blog post…Sunday Prayer: Sacifice