Today was utterly unproductive, and I'm so annoyed at myself for that that I'm going to take some drastic measures to get back on track.
But first, the good stuff. I woke up early enough to clean up around the kitchen and get myself dolled up before Chandlord arrived for a 'tea party', which oddly enough consisted mostly of ordering vegetarian Chinese food. We had been discussing a tea party for awhile, but I almost cancelled on her yesterday because I didn't want to cook or have to buy groceries for a tea party, so we compromised and said we would still hang out but that we would order food instead. This turned out to be ideal, even if I did feel a little old at the beginning when Chandlord showed up and we sat at my kitchen table drinking tea like my mom and her friend Carol used to do when I was little (although they were drinking endless cups of black coffee instead). It's a little surreal that I'm now only a year or two younger than my mother was when that started. Also, fun fact: Carol and I share a birthday.
And now that you have your dose of my childhood reminisces and my endless moaning about impending old age in one short paragraph, I'll continue to the rest of the day. Vidya's friend Kathy came over too, which was fun; I would probably try to poach Kathy and make her my friend instead of Vidya's if I wasn't so lazy and hermit-y. We picked up the food, ate, and watched the first half of a 4hr miniseries version of "North and South", which is like a more ridiculous "Pride and Prejudice" set in a mill town during the Industrial Revolution. The hero has the brooding stare down to a science -- so much so that it just made me want to find a guy who is really good at staring intently, even if in real life it would probably be super creepy and not at all attractive. Also, it may be harder to have a brooding stare when one is wearing the ubiquitous Northern California hoodie instead of a top hat. Sigh.
After they left at 3pm, I should have written, intended to write, was just on the verge of writing -- and then I completely, utterly, irrevocably failed. I spent the first hour reading about a lot of aspects of the Industrial Revolution on Wikipedia (no surprise there), then took a long nap, then had a snack, then spent some time on the internet, then made dinner (and actually cooked - chicken, green beans, sweet potato fries), then cleaned the kitchen, then wasted a whole boatload of time while watching the Stanford/Wake Forest game (complete blowout, so rather uninteresting). I finally ended up writing in my journal in an attempt to root out the source of my procrastination, and didn't really come up with much (other than that I sometimes get scared of my own potential success, which is nonsensical).
But I did make a decision to go on an internet crash diet: no internet usage for a week. There are some exceptions, as there have to be since my entire life is tied to the internet (starting with the job that currently pays me, but extending to the management of all my assets and debts, as well as some writing/planning stuff that I keep "in the cloud" on Google Docs).
But the plan is:
1) banned activities:
- no Twitter/Facebook (I already removed the apps from my phone - this has to apply to my beautiful soul-sucking Android device as well)
- no online news sites/gossip blogs (so if something truly momentous in the world happens, call me; I removed my headline news widget from my phone too)
2) restricted activities:
- <30mins of personal email time per day (which should be more than sufficient, since I don't respond to any of the email I get anyway)
- no Wikipedia unless *directly* related to a research question for my writing
3) unlimited activities:
- online financial tracking/bill pay
- any required assignments for my freelance magazine class (starts on Wednesday!)
- online calendar (which is where I keep all details about what I'm doing and when)
- anything I have to do for the day job (but don't just use work as a time to cheat on all this)
- writing this blog - I won't leave you hanging, since I'm sure you're eager to see what kind of nervous breakdown I have around Day 3
There are probably things I'm forgetting that I'll have to figure out as I go along. But considering that I almost didn't do this because the thought of disconnecting from Twitter sent me into a cold sweat, I realized that I *needed* to do this before I get assimilated any deeper into the hive and lose all hope of ever being steadily productive.
And on that mindblowing decision, I'm going to bed. Let's see how tomorrow goes. I'm predicting 5000 words minimum (or at least one book read) in the absence of all distraction. Goodnight!
Daily word count: -576 (-28.8% of goal)
Productive time: 2hrs
RescueTime productivity rating: 0.01 (global average: 0.29)
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