The Amazing Effects of a Weekend Without Television

Something strange happened this weekend. My roommates both  went to the beach, leaving me with the apartment entirely to myself for  the first time all year. After dinner I settled into the couch and  turned on the television. A depressed, lethargic feeling came over me as  I prepared to sacrifice the next couple hours to the plasma screen  gods. At that moment I decided to do a little experiment: no television for the entire weekend. I  did this because I plan to live alone when our lease expires in July. I  don’t own a television and I don’t plan to buy one (in fact I never  plan to buy one) so living alone will mean many solitary hours without  television for entertainment. I needed to know if I could handle it.  Part of me was worried that the hours of isolation would drive me insane  with boredom. It did — for the first fifteen minutes. Out of necessity I  found alternative ways to keep myself busy. These are some of the things  I accomplished that I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have done otherwise.  

1. Overhauled Site Design – Most of you regular  readers have probably noticed that the PickTheBrain design has seen some  major improvements. I changed the top right subscribe box, create a new  favicon, pimped out the sidebar headings, created new styles for the  sidebar links, blockquotes, and footer, and fixed a dozen other little  things that had been bothering me. I also created an entirely new home page and an introductory video.
2. Got a VA Driver’s License – This is something I’ve needed to do for months. I finally bit the bullet and went to the DMV first thing Saturday morning.
3. Entered the Next Internet Millionaire Contest –  This is something that I’d planned on doing before, but I could’ve  easily been persuaded to put it off. In addition to making the video (vote for me!) I also wrote a blog post explaining why I decided to do it.
4. Optimized Site Monetization – I spent a few hours  tweaking the color and position of the GoogleAds running on this site,  added a new unit to the sidebar, and switched out the unit at the bottom  of each post to a couple of book recommendations from Amazon. It  remains to be seen how well the changes will work, but experimentation is the key to optimization.
5. Read – I finally finished reading Animal Farm by  George Orwell which took me an embarrassing amount of time considering  the size of the book. I also started Barak Obama’s first book, Dreams  from My Father. By the way, Obama is a tremendous writer and it’s likely  I’ll write a post about him in the future.
6. Wrote – In addition to this post and the post on Next Internet Millionaire, I also wrote guest posts for Tim Ferriss’ blog and for Daily Blog Tips that will hopefully be published next week. Usually I’m fortunate to muster one post on Sunday evening.
7. Relaxed – I spent several hours at the pool and  also took a few long walks around the neighborhood. Although I would  have gone to the pool regardless, it’s likely much of that time would  have been lost to TV.

I could keep going but you get the point. These are all  things I’ve wanted to do but could never find the time for. This  experiment shows that television consumes an amazing amount time.  Eliminating it probably increased my productivity 1000%. The most amazing part is that I haven’t missed television at  all. After I built some momentum I haven’t felt the slightest  temptation to regress. I’m more energetic, I’ve been in a great mood,  and getting things done has left me with a feeling of accomplishment. I  look forward to making this a permanent change. Unfortunately, that will have to wait a few weeks. Once my  roommates come back the TV will once again be perpetually turned on and I  doubt I’ll be able to avoid it. We’re so used to living with television  that we don’t realize the impact it has on our lives. For many people,  turning on the TV is the default action after sitting down. It’s a  constant presence — during meals and even when we aren’t paying  attention it’s still there in the background. A weekend without  television made me realize the impact it has on my behavior, mood, and  outlook on life. 

 I recommend a weekend without television to everyone. You’ll be amazed  what you’re capable of when you stop being a passive observer and become  the star of your own life. We’ve been the victims of the most ruthless  thief of time for far too long.