What truly inane activities do you waste time on?

[trashman]

glad to see your back up and running and ok.

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[Anonymous]

internet addicts buy really good surge protectors. lol! i don’t let storms keep me from the internet. however, storms around here aren’t very common. glad that storm isn’t so bad in your area. a good rainstorm can be fun…but a hurricane would just be scary.

I read a lot of world news. I’ve been glued to the middle east since January. I had to turn off the Japan quake because I was getting emotionally distressed. i had to just send in a donation and part ways with that. I’m keeping up with Syria, but it’s disturbing. People, except for me I guess, glossed over the election war in Ivory coast related to the Arab Spring. I’m watching the Euro zone trouble. this troubled global economy is bad for everyone.. especially for the drying up funds for the African famine.. whew… and don’t even get me started about US politics and scary politicians looking to stealthily move us towards a Christian republic (not in name of course..but policies) and effectively a caste system (again not in name) in which the poor and working class lose access to health care and education.

so yeah… too much time spent on facebook, BBC, CNN, and this site

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[billd]

Forums

Internet/Internet news

Making choices or decisions

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[trashman]

I think it does not matter ware you look in the world to day it is all a sign that the world as we, no it is self destructing . no one knows how long this process will take . the only difference is how you view the end and its coming, and view its arrival it all depends on what you believe . no I am not trying to start up another religions conversation . my point is that every one believes what these times are saying or not saying . what ever it is all we can do is watch it unfold, and do what we personally believe. that’s it no great debate. just wondering out loud so to speak. the only thing I see is a lot of global activity, and no one seems to be left out. every thing from weather to the worlds financial markets.its effects are being felt world wide. it is all very interesting?

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[Anonymous]

Went from antenna to satellite about 8 years ago when our friends on the gulf coast were in the eye of Hurricane Ivan – got addicted to CNN – they are masters at finding and exploiting disasters. Gave up television cold turkey about 4 years ago. Best decision we ever made. Stopped accepting newspapers of any kind at the door, never buy them. I do read headlines online to stay abreast of a few things, but have no interest in being manipulated by the media and getting sucked in. I hardly saw anything about the Japan earthquake although I did look at photos online at the NY Times – they were sobering and a good reminder that life is precious and can end at any time, makes you think about what is really important in your life. All of these events are transitory, non-permanent, as is life.

I had an argument with my southern friend (who is now a retired newspaper journalist) some years ago, she was very insulted when I said all the media does is report BAD news, and they manipulate us no end. But it’s the truth. BAD news sells newspapers (or attracts us to news websites). GOOD news rarely does. How many water cooler conversations center around good news versus bad news? Misery loves company.

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[Anonymous]

This post presents evidence of the opposite, but I’m actually a pretty positive cheerful spirited person in general. I am very fascinated about the world around me. I feel like it is necessary to understand the politics as it will affect my life. I believe that freedom is a right, but one that people need to constantly maintain so it will slip away. Must learn from history. Trashman, i believe that it is all connected as well. We are all meshed with each other and share the human experience. I try to understand this and learn the most I can about the world. My problem comes in that I could accomplish my goal in a much more focused and less time consuming manner. I could spend 10 minutes a day versus hours long new trances.

no-dopamine, I don’t really watch TV either. I’ve been without cable for 6 years. I currently haven’t had my converter box plugged and cannot watch TV at all for the last year. Unfortunately, most of the garbage one could experience on TV floats in the internet. I usually learn more on computer surfing trances than mindlessly watching garbage TV, but all-consuming hours long computer trance marathons are not healthy either. I do understand your point about media. and I do get disgusted when I see people profiting via devastation and tragedy. Many of those media corporations and even journalists are scummy and opportunistic. However, that happens to be my outlet for information, so I read it with a conscious BS filter and cross-reference. Do I get trapped and manipulated? absolutely, but I do hope that my BS filter decreases the intensity. I have stopped news and media for times in my life and I felt very isolated and ignorant of my world at those times.

I wish I could just travel all the time! Experience the world with my own senses!

Bild, I am with you with wasting time with making decisions. It adds up. every 30 minutes I spent undecided about what I want to do, what do I want to eat, which color to choose from, whether i want to call someone or not, arguing with myself about bedtimes. lots of time not really living life! I wonder how much of my day is spend doing this. an hour minimum. There are times in which I enjoy trivial indecisiveness. If I am sitting around in a mental turmoil about what I should eat for lunch and the great pains to go to the grocery store, life is generally pretty good. When I do this, I often don’t have very serious paralyzing problems in my life. bright side to everything, i guess? lol.

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[Anonymous]

I am totally addicted to Youtube and Twitter. They are very distracting activities when I should be job searching or doing something else productive.

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[Anonymous]

error correction on last post “or it will slip away”. “news” instead of new. i hate making the small type of errors which change meanings!

i have stubbornly boycotted twitter and you-tube in order to save just a little piece of productivity

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[billd]

sugar – it’s a HUGE and I mean REALLY HUGE part of my days – making choices or decisions. Even last night I spent a couple of hours trying to decide how to organize a few tools and books in my shop. today I’ll do it again. What do I want to eat? 30 minutes deciding, and 10 to eat it.

Deciding WHAT to do or how to start it is causing me to get nothing done – it’s killing me at home and worse, at work! My productivity its practically nill lately.

Oddly enough, it’s gotten worse in the last few months – yes, I can FEEL it has.

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[Anonymous]

billd, i feel you on the dont know what to do or where to start. I wind up doing nothing but googleing whomevers name happens to be in my head at the moment and reading all about their lives from pro wrestlers tp Dr. Phil. Then letting that just turn into more and more reserch on people and places i have visited. I squander so much time and so many oppritunities its unreal. I hope i can get some things under control soon.

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[Anonymous]

sugargremlin: I hear you, and I do the same from time to time. This past week, any information about the late Jack Layton captivated me. I try to ask the question: how does this make me feel and what does it contribute to my long-term wellbeing? Jack was inspiring, it was worthwhile although it did suck a lot of time and energy away. Much of what I look up and read doesn’t really fall into that category. But I have the same weaknesses as others here, just trying to eliminate as many of the opportunities to timewaste as much as I can, starting with getting off the computer now and going to work!

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[Anonymous]

Wow. I’ve never heard other people share the same kinda stuff. This cite is the first time I’ve really seen anyone share about the daily implications of ADD. I have no diagnosis, but am seriously wondering if I might have ADD and relate to the hyperfocus thing. Last night as soon as DH came home, he had a cranky look on face and said something wrong, so I decided to unburry my piano and set it up in another room. Of course w/o asking for his help to even move the darn thing. It was covered in music. I cooked diner and had a cup of coffee and spent 7 hours unburrying and moving piano bc I am sposed to start teaching private music lessons again next week. Not safe for small children to be near towering boxes in spare room, must move piano to dining room. While reading a book on “organizing” week by week, a book on “where women create” (the inspiration for the piano move-a-thon, and cleaning and preparing place for piano and music cabinet to go. Oh, and cleanign up the supper dishes. Totally ignored everyone bc of really odd focusing on this “monumental” task. Is coffee related to kicking me into a hyperfocus session?? I had 2 cups and have been wasting time on the internet this AM while knitting and making copies and doing dishes at the same time. Hmmmm.

Oh, ps. When My MIL to be met me, she asked my DH if I had ever been medicated for this? For what? Chronic disorganization, difficulty following conversation at times, unless I can interrupt to clarify details, jumping from activity to activity and a great strength of creativity? Why would I need meds for THAT? I was really shocked why my best friend (we ended up marring brothers, so my MIL is her MIL) said she had wondered the same thing over the years, but just figures that I am who I am. I was blown away, totally shocked.

Then I started doing an internet search about 2 years ago, did NOT find this cite, and everything I ran across stated that bc I am not normally hyperactive (I have my moments, but I think my dad lovingly ‘trianed’ it out of me) that nothing applied to me.

I’ve never been hyperactive, but it does seem to take a great deal of effort to sit still and listen. I remember getting in trouble a lot for doodleing while teachers were lectureing and I think that’s why I started taking notes. BC they didn’t yank your pens and paper away when you were parroting part of what they said on paper. Hmmm. And yes, I’ve just wasted an hour and 34 minutes on the computer, according tothe chronological timer on my watch, without which the people in my life would likely go insane. Grin.

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[powcat]

WGREEN: so true! and so sad how this happens; how hard it is to control.

I feel for all you guys! everything you say resonates with me.

NO DOPAMINE: I saw you post in the high-five thread about a 15-minute timer? timesheets? is there a website or something you use? hook me up please! timers seem to be key to life… but sad that I constantly have to jolt myself out of activities/mind states in order to switch up and start something new.

and I totally agree with you about going to sleep! it seems boring; it’s the hardest thing to turn off the computer at night to be quiet and still. what I started doing is I will leave the radio on very quietly on a timer (so it turns off on its own) or I will put on a video online (one I’ve seen before, or something like the Daily show, that won’t be too exciting and I can nod off to it). this has been helpful. when my boyfriend is there, I don’t have to do that, though.

I’m very into the internet. I constantly have it on, almost always have TV shows on – sometimes it does help me focus as I go along doing daily activities, sometimes I will sit and start watching the shows, and then hours go by. lots of needless research, lots of looking for music and making playlists and organizing my music. organizing my photos. planning! lists!

what helps sometimes is to visualize blocks of time as a physical thing, like a box. like, I ONLY have from 12-2 to have lunch; at 2pm it will be time to do laundry, get groceries, etc.

how do people follow schedules? I love making up schedules and lists, budgets, but how do you stick to it?

meds help with more regular sleep though, for sure. before meds I would stay up half the night regularly and then sleep half the day. you miss your life that way!!

about news: I find I kind of avoid most of it altogether. does anybody else do that? I just feel exhausted once I start reading about world issues. if it’s something big, I will go and read about it. I also listen to the radio now, which requires less energy; sort of passive knowledge. but other than that, I don’t go out of my way to follow daily events. kind of makes me feel dumb sometimes when talking to friends.

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[Anonymous]

Well, I have totally wasted the day on the computer with trash tv on in the background. I feel like I am really slipping away. I have also been self medicating…..trying not to beat myself up but I feel pathetic.

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[Lucky77]

Stumbleupon!

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[Author]

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