overcome my addiction to the Internet

Over the past 6 months, I feel like I’ve really come to terms with the Internet in a healthy way. I don’t feel like I get chained to my desk against my will. I have other hobbies. I hang out with people. I do stuff. And when I don’t have ‘net access – well, I get a bit ancy, but it’s not the end of the world.

Bottom line is, I spend far less time on my computer than I used too.

The three-times-a-day rule seems to be working, though I sometimes spend too much time during those three times.

Yesterday, I did something that was long overdue: I cleared out my RSS feeds, eliminating all the garbage and stuff that elicits eye rolls rather than adding anything positive to my day.

My new RSS rule is that I have to keep up with everything in my allocated internet time. If I don’t have time for my feeds, I need to clean them out again.

I was doing a bit better with this one, but then fell back into old habits again. Recently, I reorganised the ‘office’ part of my apartment and one of the changes was to allow storage of my MacBook (so it won’t be on and in use constantly).

The new rule is that I log on three times a day and I’m only on the computer if I have something specific I need to be doing. This prevents random surfing.

Also, having a nice desk space will encourage me to do other things.

Hopefully, this works!

The two jobs kept me from my surfing habit, but the money I made from the second job bought me a MacBook and the MacBook was a true enabler: lately I’ve been spending more time online than ever.

The irony: so much of my life is ‘online’ that it’s hard to completely go ‘offline.’ My plan for this weekend was to go offline. I wrote letters, cleaned, did non-computery things, but there are many things I’m behind on that require me to be online (like, for example, updating my goals on 43 Things!)

I guess my true addiction is blogs, websites, RSS feeds in Google reader. I can spend hours just reading feeds and forums (and don’t get me started on the perils of Facebook and Flickr).

I think I need to set a time limit for my blog/feed/networking site useage. Perhaps set a one hour time limit, and after my time is up, I have to do something else that doesn’t involved these time-sucks.

It really is like an addiction, but I’m determined to beat this.

It was working for a while but I’ve been seeking distraction more and more again, recently.

This is my last day of home cable internet. Comcast jacking up the prices was my trigger for pulling the plug on the whole thing. When I move, I won’t be getting any type of cable or internet connection at all. It will be an adjustment – but it’s an experiment well worth doing.

I am also addicted..but lately i have just been imagining life BEFORE INTERNET. i don’t remember it because i was small, but what i mean is like 50 years ago…people found other pastimes..and that’s inspirational.

dialup would make home internet use intolerably slow … and that’s a good thing, in many ways. on the other hand, it would be virtually unusable, and i’m not sure i want to go that far.

i’m not sure i want to get rid of my personal internet account altogether … that would tie me too closely to my job, i think. but, hm. it’s an idea.

is DSL cheaper/slower than cable modem? i currently have cable modem and they’re raising the rates. that’s another reason for my considering this measure.

Was generally depressed and dragged out this weekend. Did some websurfing binges. I’m not giving up on managing it though.

a friend suggested this, and it’s a great idea. break up my reading of blogs into groups: one group of blogs on monday, one on tuesday, etc. It lessens the temptation to hit Refresh several times a day, since it makes it far less likely that the current weekday’s blogs will have been updated.