I frequently write about goals I have, I find this a productive way to think things through. Usually I’ll write about my fitness or writing goals. On this entry I’m going to try to plan out a better way to use my spare time by limiting my internet time each night.
For the last two days I started a book that I like on my commute ride home. On both nights once I got home instead of continuing to read, I turned on my computer and passed several hours in youtube-facebook-la la land before going to sleep. Eventually I’ll get back to going to the gym some evenings, but I keep putting that off. With vacation coming up in three weeks I might as well put it off until I get back from that. So now I’ve been in the habit of dorking around on the computer when I get home. I did not always have the internet in my apartment, and believe I got it less than two years ago. Looking at my book log I think I did do more serious reading before I got the internet. My focus was on that, reading literature, and writing instead of obsessively checking the various online sites I take part in. So basically my goal is to read more, and waste less time on the computer on my spare time.
I am in favor of facebook and social media. Over the past few years of belonging to facebook, I reacquainted myself with so many people from my past. I have friends from when I lived in Baltimore on there which I moved away from at age 15. I have a brigade of people from my high school in Toledo. I have my skate friends from Toledo, a few college friends and professors, people from the Barnes & Noble I worked with, people from my Kent State library school and a few professors there too, and a lot of colleagues at Queens Library. It really is something to have this network of people to possibly connect with. Over the years I’ve had several reunions of people visiting NYC and being aware of it from facebook events or personal emails. I think this has value, but I also think I could read the posts of everyone on there in twenty minutes a night, instead of checking it multiple or to be more honest a ton of times each day.
Youtube is the other site I spend too much time on. This has value to watch famous skateboard parts, and for music. One can spend a lot of time on youtube, one search leads to another, and before you know it an hour passed without you realizing it. Again I don’t think I should ban youtube from my life, but limit it as much as possible.
Okay I will keep my internet service, but I have a plan. I get 45 minutes on the internet a night. The exception is on the two nights a week when I write my blog entries. My schedule for blog entries are Wednesday night and Sunday night. So on those nights I’ll let myself be on the computer longer. Of those 45 minutes of computer time most nights I’ll use half of it to check up on facebook. But I’m going to use facebook differently. Usually I post a status update once a day on facebook, everyday I put something. Instead of always focusing on myself in facebook, I’m going to comment more on other people’s updates. I think that’s the point of social media is to share with friends, not to always promote yourself.
Limiting myself to 45 minutes on the computer may lead me to reading more. If I could read an hour a night I’d be happy. I’ve noticed too many times after toying around on the computer I would go to sleep without reading anything.
This is a realistic goal, and not as far fetched as most of my aspirations.
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