proof of brain

If you’re like me, it is incredibly easy to spend way too much time on the computer. You can get on at 8 and suddenly it’s 10:30, sometimes even later. But if you think about it, it’s not surprising given the endless activities that you can partake in on a computer. Blogging, video games, facebook, youtube, stumbleupon, twitter, digg, and delicious all are incredibly efficient time wasters.

But the fact of the matter is, although there are many activity “branches” as mentioned above from a computer, a computer is just 1 branch in the big picture of life. Here are some things that you can do to make sure that you aren’t just living your life through your internet profile.

Devote at least half an hour to my pet.

Maybe it’s just the pet lover in me, but I feel terrible ignoring my puppy to stare at a screen. As a matter of fact, I think that my dog has started to see my computer as evil. I wouldn’t be surprised if I came home one day to see a couple of bite marks through it! So what I do is play with her ball a couple times a day. Just getting up and coming back with a new perspective can help a lot.

Find a hobby

The important part about this one is that  the hobby has absolutely nothing to do with computers. I play lots of poker, at least once a week sometimes 3 or 4 times if there is no school. I’ve found that it is a great hobby. For one, it’s actually a lot cheaper than lots of other things, because we play only 5 dollar games. That’s cheaper than a movie ticket. Secondly, it kinda keeps me sharp. You have to be following patterns and thinking of odds. Other hobbies could be cars, drawing, reading, hunting, fishing, or one of these.

Track my web surfing time

It’s easy to get carried away surfing the web. ESPECIALLY when stumbling. So I installed TimeTracker, so I can track the amount of time I spend surfing every day. That shows the the ugly truth, so I can be more aware of my time.

Plan my day out the night before

This is one of the best ways for me. Basically, when you get into bed, get out a notebook and write down all the things you want to accomplish tomorrow. At first, you will find that the majority of the things your write down have to do with a computer. This is of course, not what you want. Try and think of other things that you want or need to do, such as replace a light bulb, take a jog, get a haircut, go christmas shopping, finish homework, clean your room. There is always plenty to do.

Remember this quote

This quote is on the wall of the locker room at my high school. I think that it was mostly meant for athletics, but it can certainly be applied to anything in life.

The reason that most people fail instead of succeed is that they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.

Join a sports team

No matter what the season, I make sure that I am on some sort of sports team. This is huge for me for so many reasons, one of them of course being keeping myself off of the computer.

Having devotion to a team, and consenquences for not attending, makes it so you can’t just blow off something to stay on the computer longer, because if you do, you know that your team mates will not be happy.

You don’t necesarilly have to join a team. You could, for example, get a group to go skiing with every saturday. Or have running partner to run with every morning. Whatever it is, as long as there is somebody else counting on you, it will work.

Run

I’m not saying this because I think you’re fat and unhealthy. I’m saying this because running is the best time manager I know.

Why you ask?

What if I told you that you can spend 30 minutes on your computer today and that was it? You would probably think that was way too little.

Now what if I told you that you have to run for 30 minutes today?

What I’m trying to say is that if you were to go out and run for 30 minutes right now, you would quickly see that 30 minutes is a lot longer than you had thought before, and you will likely start to spend your time more wisely.

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