Reset Your Life Day 21: Ditch TV for 24 Hours

This post is Day 21 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. Learn more and sign up for the program 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.

Everyone knows that I don’t watch TV. Well, I don’t have any type of cable. Sometimes I catch The Office on Hulu, 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.

Day 21: Ditch TV for 24 Hours

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 take away the time we could be spending on more productive pursuits.

Here are just a few things you can do with the extra time:

When you’re done, please share your experience with us in the comments! Was it difficult to go without the boob tube for a whole day? What did you do instead?

Note: If you blogged about today’s assignment, please post the link in the comments so we can read it!
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29 comments

  1. A few years ago this would have been the most difficult task for me. About four years ago my church did a fast where you give up something (besides food)for seven days. I was so shocked I went seven full days without tv! Now I don’t watch a lot of tv, but my tv is always on. Just out of habit when I walk in from work, the tv is the first thing I turn on. Even if I’m listening to music or reading my tv is on, but muted. Two years ago when I started transitioning to natural hair, youtube videos took the place of tv. I’m going to extend this challenge to atleast three days. I will use this time to complete the challenge because my 31 days were up on July 15.

  2. So I officially turned off the TV at 9pm (woulda been 8 but I wanted to watch “Watchdog” (consumer affairs show in UK)). So no TV until 9 pm tomorrow.

    Anyway I am going to be out for the first few hours of tomorrow, so won’t be missing TV anyway. I might read my marketing books in the library while I wait for my nephews hair to get braided. I will probably spend the rest of the day making a start on project de-clutter(like I shoulda done the past 2 days!)

    Actually I think it’s also a good day for editing the contract for my tuition business.

  3. I am not a TV person but I tend to spend too much time on FaceBook, so that is what I eliminated from my day. I was amazed at how much extra time I then had! I photographed a piece of artwork. I also researched ideas for my next art project and ordered art supplies. Although this was a personal pursuit (not related to my business), it was productive because it supports something I love to do. This has shown me that I can limit my FaceBook time (can’t totally eliminate it because it is the main way that I stay in touch with persons who are important in my life.) But I can set a time limit and use my time better, to either work on something that needs to be done, or if I feel too tired, the logical thing will be to go to bed, which will enable me to have more energy to do things the next day.

  4. I am not attached to TV like that, I went two days. Truthfully if it had been Grey’s Anatomy night, I would not have survived. I’m a news junkie so I read my stories online. I occasionally go on an electronics fast {tv, phone, computer}, but I must have my iPod.

  5. I don’t have a TV, I spend my time catching up with loved ones. The weeked the lil one and I have ‘family time’ we make things together, or go skating. The lil one can choose the activities on the Saturday including what we eat :)

  6. i already dont watch much tv (outside of football), so i will opt to ditch twitter, blogs, gchat, skype for 24 hrs. will probably be one of the most peaceful days ever!! :)
    i started having bbm/data-free days last year and will implement on a monthly basis at least this year.

  9. This is currently a breeze for me. I’m not watching TV as a part of a fast for the month of January. In my non-TV time, I pray and I read scripture. I also clean my house and do laundry, which there always seems to be so much of.

  11. I don’t watch a lot of TV so to make this a bit more challenging I also included Facebook. So, today I will not watch TV or log on to Facebook (blocked it from my browser). Instead, I’m going to catch up on my blog postings and on the reset challenge. I also have to clean out my room so I will be doing that as well today. Wish me luck!

  12. I don’t watch a lot of tv, I can’t afford cable right now. I catch tv when I visit my friends but because our schedulesa re so different I can’t even catch them sometimes. So this was easy!! I’m getting a roomate next week and she needs cable so it may be different then. :-)

  14. I’m ditching TV on 12/22/2010. Part of my day was spent working. The rest of my day will be spent reviewing a few new albums (Keri Hilson, for one) and cleaning my house, preparing for my favorite grandma to arrive for Christmas! Woot woot!

    • I actually did this and didn’t really think much of it! I sometimes catch up on TV while at work, but I choose to listen to music this day. I realized that I waste SO much time sitting in front of the television, doing too much of nothing.

  16. I just looked at the assignment for today. I know I cannot do this. I am absolutely addicted to television. It is usually on from the time I wake up until I go to sleep. I will try this tomorrow, but I can’t make any promises. lol

  17. This is going to be relatively easy for me. There are plenty of days that roll by and I realize I didn’t cut the tv on all. I’ll listen to some music and do writing before bed instead of having the tv on in the background.

  18. This is going to be rough for me – I’m extremely addicted to TV (I live alone and have two televisions and two DVRs to give you an idea). But, I think I can do this, especially since I have a ton of errands and Christmas shopping to get done. I think I’ll save the challenge for Thursday! =)

    • LOL at you deferring this exercise to Thursday! I can’t say I’ve ever heard of one person with so many TVs in their possession – with the DVRs, it’s like 4 TVs right. I was wondering when do you even have time to watch it all?

  19. I think I can do this. I have weaned myself off all the Real Housewives shows, I could care less about the Basketball & Football Wives. I have a short TV roster, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Criminal Minds, CSI Miami, & Desperate Housewives. I like music better anyway. I’ll try this tonight. I need to get my unwanted items together for pick up next week =)

  20. This will be a breeze. I hardly watch TV anyway. Besides my daily dose of “Quien Tiene La Razon?”, which actually helps be in becoming more fluent in spanish, I rarely check out whats on the tube. Thumbs up to the other Reseters :)

  21. Ha! This is going to be the easiest tast to date! I don’t own a tv either and my life has been much more productive because of it. I have quite a few things to do today so I’ll be sure to update when the day is done.

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