Follow Up: 30 Day Challenge – Can you do without TV? July 22, 2008
Posted by Jeff Nabers in : Health, Personal Enjoyment, Personal Productivity , trackback
It’s been 30 days since I put out the challenge to not watch TV for a month. Speak up and share your experience.
Here’s what I found over 7 years ago when I stopped watching TV…
- More time – This is pretty simple. The average American adult watches 5 hours of TV per day. Convert some of that into work or starting a business to increase or replace your income. Convert some of it into personal enjoyment.
- Lower discretionary spending – I am susceptible to materialism. When I allow my brain to be bombarded with advertising, it creates a desire to buy things, and I act on it. Advertising continues to happen because it works. The fact that it works means that the more advertisements I see, the more things I will buy. This increases the amount of work I’ll have to do in my lifetime to support my lifestyle and proportionately decreases the amount of time I’ll spend doing things I enjoy.
- More productive mode – Watching TV is a non-productive activity. It requires no thinking and no physical activity. Getting into this mode makes it hard to get out. No TV means better mental and physical health.
- More sleep – Watching TV at night makes me stay awake for longer. I used to tell myself the TV helped me go to sleep, but a basic comparison taught me otherwise. Without TV, I’m always caught up on sleep.
- Better sleep – Going to sleep without noise actually makes me require less sleep.
- Did I mention more time? I have a clear set of goals for myself. When I have to decide whether or not to do a certain activity, I ask myself Will this move me towards my goals, away from my goals, or neither? Taking an away activity and turning it into a towards activity has a very powerful effect on how quickly I accomplish my goals.
What else do I do with my time?
In a work week, I work more than 40 hours. Sometimes I work a bit on the weekend. This may sound undesirable, but I truly enjoy most of my work.
The trade off is that I have less work weeks – I enjoy my life… now. Instead of deferring having fun (“retirement”) for another 20 years, I do it all the time. I take a 1 to 2 week vacation every 2 to 3 months. I don’t work less than the average worker, but I also don’t work much more. I take 5 times as many vacations simply through converting wasteful activities into personal enjoyment.
Would you stop watching TV altogether if it meant taking an extra 3 – 5 vacations per year?
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Comments»
1. I agree; no brainer. Let’s assume that you watch 2 hours everyday; that equals 18.25 40hr work weeks every year. Many folks watch more than that.
2. I agree. If ads do not influence your decisions then your mind is also strong enough to make you levitate.
3. I agree. When you watch TV then you are informed of what show will be on later in the day or week thereby creating a desire to watch more TV, hence less productive time.
4. I don’t know. I’ve never had a TV in my bedroom during my adult life. Primarily because research convinced my that a bedroom is for sleeping & just a couple of other things.
5. same as #4
6. If every hour spent watching TV was turned in to just time staring at the wall, then I believe your mental health would increase.
It’s a hard habit to break. Cancel the cable subscription for starters.
I’ve been cable free for most of the last 7 years. I also used to have a 57″ big screen TV and it took up so much space that I replaced it with a projector that sits in a closet when not in use for movies.
I agree with your #6 response.