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It’s been 3 days since I stopped watching television, well almost. I found myself sneaking down after working at night for about an hour’s worth of tv. It satisfied my cravings, and I’ve found that it’s actually pretty easy. Overall though, I’m saving a ton of time and accomplishing a lot. Each night I watch less and less tv.

Tips:

• Reward yourself by working at night. Have a beer, do something fun while working, realize what you’ve accomplished
• Look at your tasks and realize how quickly they’re going away
• Realize that because you’re working, you’re eliminating stress that would otherwise occur when you did something the last minute
• Notice that the tasks you accomplish while watching tv go quicker than you thought.

If you want some inspiration, read a couple of these definitions. They tend to sound a little familiar.

• Procrastination – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination – Find some reasons behind procrastination.
• Time management- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management – Is it really time management that’s lacking or is it also task management?
• Parkinson’s Law – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_law – Managing tasks may eliminate the ability to always have more work. Something that dawned on me was that I will always have tasks, might as well tackle them now and have fresh tasks than worry about the ones I have.

  Best!
  

After finding out how much television I was watching (10-15 hours a week), I had to break the habit. Even though I knew it was a bad habit, I would fight it every night. I found myself struggling with the idea of relaxing to tv or working. Working again after a full day just didn’t sound like fun. In addition to watching tv, I picked up the habit of snacking on foods. So, this was a double edged habit. Once I broke the tv habit, the snacking habit disappeared as well. Not sure how much weight I’ll lose because of it.

How did I break the habit? Well, I had to distance myself from the tv. I chose a room in the house without a television and created a mini office. This is day 2 in my “man pit,” and I must say, I’m starting to enjoy it. It’s perfectly quiet and I have nothing else to do in this room but work. So, I found tv abstinence to be the best policy.

Other techniques I’ve heard of, good and bad:
-Put the tv’s away. This I found almost impossible with a family. A lot of push back there.
-Turn the tv’s off and read a book. This was actually actually a lot easier than I thought. Now, the kids like to sit down and read a book.
-Fake that the cable is out. I tried this, it doesn’t go over well with the family. I ended up becoming the roadblock or issue in fixing the tv.

Best