Open Thread

A NYTimes article on "monotasking," that is, actually paying attention to one thing we are doing rather than annihilating our concentration with a barrage of multiple sources of stimulation.

I wrote about this last month, when I reviewed a book called Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. (Don't comment on old post; the site autobans IPs posting in old threads because it thinks they're spammers.)

Been a month and a half, maybe, since I became a proud Twitter Quitter and several aspects of my life have improved. Less distraction = more actual time. Distracted time is crap time -- neither doing one thin nor the other; neither really working, nor really relaxing, either. The attempt to cheat work hours by mixing in zero-calorie non-entertainments (Twitter, Facebook. clickbait articles with pictures of large breasts (gets me every time) just winds up making you feel guilty about not working, and then you cheat your actual downtime by mixing in light crap that you can pretend is sort of work related (like "building your brand on Twitter") when it's really nothing of the sort.

Just leads to a bad habit of wasting work hours by doing low-quality, distracted work, and then "making up for it" by wasting leisure hours by doing low-quality, distracted leisure.

Here's another NYT article that's (sort of) vaguely about the idea of defeating a bad habit by changing your every day environments and patterns. Actually, it's about a woman who lost weight by leaving the city she had grown fat in and moving permanently to a place she had gotten thin in (in fat camp), but I think one can take it more broadly as an endorsement of the idea that bad habits need to be dehabituated.

I guess that's kind of obvious. But I read a good point, somewhere: No one can make any change by willpower. People's reservoirs of willpower are limited. The only way to make changes is to do things as a habit until they become a habit. Then just try to maintain the habit.

I guess that's not such a big distinction but I think there's something to it.

I'm taking an early night. Everyone, have a nice weekend. Go somewhere new!

Cutting TV, the Huge Time-Waster:

L'Elle wrote:

Quitting most TV and being extremely selective with movie viewing has freed up so much time for me. I only waste down time on things that really give me something back like music and art and comedy and dog videos and anything else dog related. I feel much less frenetic and feel more in control of my life.

I responded:

I keep telling myself I'm going to do this but then I don't. I am still watching shows that, in a word, suck: Arrow, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow. Yes, they all suck now. Arrow sucks the worst but they all suck.

Archer isn't good anymore. Still watch it. It feels like *work.*

Survivor I'm starting not to watch. (Score one on that.)

The idea that one should make an inventory of Shows I REALLY Like, Shows I Somewhat Like, and Shows I Don't Really Like But Am Only Now Watching Out of Habit and eliminating category 3 (and honestly, category 2 as well) is a good one.

posted by Ace at 05:25 PM

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