So I was reading an article on a website I like, the99percent.com, and I’ve decided to try and do a little experiment. It’s crazy how much time we actually spend on the internet. We’re productive, we’re working… we’re getting things done. Are we though? Are we just extending a 5 minute task into an hour, due to our attention spans or inability to just DO it? The current times we live in make it so hard to imagine life without technology. Life unplugged. Could we really just knock out a huge list of things we needed to do in a small amount of time, as opposed to our whole “work” day? I think we can. I’ve lived it.
In my few weeks of being an early riser, I would accomplish things in two hours, before 10 am, that would normally take me the whole day had I gotten up later. SO…. let’s begin. Before you have a heart attack and think that I’m completely giving up all technology, I would like to say that this is a well thought out plan (mimicking the article I read) to see how well I fare when I set my own rules and boundaries. My job is to network, yes, but I’m going to set times and tasks in which to do so. I’m going to try this for a week.
I have a lot going on right now, between decorating and us moving into our house in Tampa, networking and finding clients, renting out one of my dad’s properties in Orlando, as well as sifting through various parts of my life to simplify it, so this COULD very well be the perfect week to do it. Does anybody remember TV turn off week in elementary school? I have no idea if this was only school specific, but in the 90’s, television was the main culprit in young children, much before the internet truly got its grubby little paws on the attention span of 15 and under. We were forced to not watch TV all week, and do activities listed in a packet that we received. It was actually pretty fun. I’m an avid reader so it didn’t bother me too much. I never spent hours in front of the television anyway…I was light years ahead and already online 
I’m going to try my very best to only allow myself online between the times of 10 AM to 6 PM. In that time, I won’t waste time on facebook. I can only check it once during that period unless it’s work related…because let’s face it- facebook is possibly one of THE biggest time sinks of this generation. It’s so incredibly easy to waste away an hour or two on there. For what? What did I accomplish? I could be working on writing or finding clients. I can only check my email once every hour. THIS is going to be the tricky one. Thanks to the handy dandy iPhone, my gmail gets pushed through every few minutes and appears before my very eyes without so much as lifting a finger. Email is pretty much my life support and I’m always messing around in it. Checking my email tons of times in an hour isn’t going to Jedi mind trick anything into my inbox. Therefore, I will limit myself. Every hour, on the hour.
I’m also going to force myself to update this once every day, during the hours I listed above. This will also be quite the task because I’m used to just writing whenever I want to. Generally I write at night (like right now… it’s 10:30 PM) or way early in the morning when I get a head start (7 am). I figure I can accomplish everything I need to do within that time span. Using the computer and internet really hogs up a lot of internal energy and brain power regardless of whether we realize it or not. So let’s try this experiment for a week. I have time to spend cooking yummy things, going to the gym, organizing stuff, and just relaxing and getting a good night’s sleep.
If you see a time stamp on a post outside of those time limits, feel free to email me and yell at me. Just make sure I’ve had my coffee first…. If you do not hear from me at ALL in the next few days, then please send help. Fast. I may be incapacitated due to lack of internet use and mindless web surfing.
As always, you can reach me at:
My website email address- selena.vidya@esvienne.com
Twitter- twitter.com/esvienne
