get off the internet

I know, being on this site, writing about it, kind of ironic, but I do want to get off the internet more. I live in an awesome, beautiful part of Japan, and I do get out quite a bit, but this past weekend, I swear, I barely left the house, which is unlike me. I already spend Mon-Fri sitting at a desk, in front of a computer, I really don’t need to be doing that on my weekends off. With things like StumbleUpon and youtube, it has become so hard, though. I guess StumbleUpon should be the first to go.

Getting online and finding out useful information and inspiration, like this site, is good, but if I’m blogging about it and not acting on it, then what am I really accomplishing in the end?

But I don’t have to be on it all the time. I’ve found a lot of great stuff online, and the key is to stick to that instead of messing around with nonsense. Getting rid of my MySpace did wonders! See ‘stop procrastinating’ as the real goal…

While at work, I need to focus on my work and less on staying up to date on the internet.

within a week of my original entry (a week spent in bed with the flu and my laptop), I’ve decided that I need to spend my time on the internet more wisely. . . perhaps and hopefully in tandem with reducing what time is spent here so that I am at the very least balanced with the time I spend outside and with friends in the flesh. but I think there is so much potential floating around out here in quasi connectedness that it would ultimately be a shame to just close the door completely.

Now I’m getting sucked into last.fm again. Oh, well. ;-)

I think I’ve also figured out how to do this. I managed to be off the Internet for over a week when we went on the cruise, and didn’t miss much. So I’ve decided to take the following steps:

• Turn the ‘I’m online!’ indicator on my MySpace on. That way I can’t shamelessly screw around on there all day. I work from home, and this will help reduce the temptation.

• Work in my office, and play on the computer elsewhere. It’s a laptop, after all. I’m going to try and be pretty strict about this. I’m like a little kid and it’s hard for me to stay focused, so instead of punishing myself (which only serves to distress me) I’ll just substitute the goofing around with productivity.

• Limit the email checking to three times a day. Holy shit, is that going to be hard! But that little red envelope for Gmail lets you refresh without doing a full sign-in, and allows you to see the subject of the email to decide whether you want to actually read it right then. I am going to utilize this feature so that I don’t drop everything to read some corny forward or advertisement.

Wish me luck. Whew.

I need to move this up in my Things, because it is a serious usurper of time. I can lose two hours on the Internet doing god knows what on Gmail, and the mother of all time-wasters: MySpace. There’s a million other things to be doing—what with selling my condo, taking care of my puppy, running my business, studying for the GRE, spending time with my girlfriend, doing schoolwork, ad infinitum. And dicking around on the Internet isn’t one of them.

I think I spend far too much time on the net, just chatting and surfing the net aimelessly..such a waste of time!

Even though my internet useage is limited [IMing takes up ALOT of it, one chat website I go to, this site now, and occasionally Myspace or curious browsing], I can’t seem to pull myself away, though I have plenty of better things to do.
I’ll try to accomplish my things, above all…
... if I can get off the internet, that is.

All my plans could be derailed by my nemesis, the internet. I have look for a job and oter things for which the internet should be useful but with so much time on my hands it is easy to get stuck on PR or YouTube intead of doing.
I must set ground rules of some kind this week, a timer system, something so I don’t waste two hours on te internet before I even get out of my pajamas.

For the next 2 months I will not:
- use the internet as my source of entertainment. I wil read books, sew, work on projects instead.

-I will not log onto my computer unless I already have a list or idea of how I want to spend my day.

- I will take my computer to the park or on the roof
- I will not log onto my computer after 10:00pm