cultivate a healthier online life

Accomplished the easy way – my laptop screen is broken.

I found a good strategy for this morning was to only turn on my computer as I was just about to begin writing. It prevented me from succumbing to temptation and I didn’t feel as though I had to use any discipline – if the computer’s not on then I can’t be tempted to check facebook or emails enroute to the shower or breakfast. After my writing session I chose to walk up the road to check the mail, rather than immediately leaping onto the net. As a result I realised that I had more to give writing-wise and ended up doing a further 600 words. I have also found that this afternoon I have been quite content to check everything once, rather than floating aimlessly between sites. So far so good…

over the past year or so, but I’ve never really committed to them. I get to a point where I tick them off as done just because I’ve made some very small adjustment to the amount of time I spend online. This is the problem: I am spending more time than I would like online and a lot of it is aimless surfing. For a lot of years we didn’t have a tv and I became accustomed to spending that time online (I know this is just as bad and not a good thing!). So I’m setting myself the initial challenge of limiting myself to a half-hour of internet time during the day and one hour at night.

My first day has been okay. I have gone a little bit over time-wise but I really cut down on repetitive checking of emails/facebook/etc. I used the extra time to make B and I lunches for the next few days as well as cooking a more complicated than usual recipe for dinner. Tonight I am planning to get into bed at 9.30pm to read. Something I plan to do every night, but I inevitably get caught up in something online. My other ‘rule’ is strictly no internet before writing in the morning. I find whenever I give in to the temptation I start off distracted.

Wish me luck!