What's your worst habit and what's your plan to mess it up?

[Anonymous]

Mine is procrastination, but it’s heavily influenced by distraction caused by sitting at the computer first thing in the morning. I’m self-employed, so I don’t have a fixed time to get to work in the morning, and sometimes I can sit for several hours before my butt gets sore enough to motivate me to get up. It’s totally messing up any good plans I have for doing stuff.

So, my husband and I agreed that, for the next 5 days (starting tomorrow, of course), we will both stay OFF the computer until noon. And I’m going to try to get to work by 8:30 am each morning and be productive until lunch. Will report back each day here to make it public (embarrassment is a powerful motivator for me)

Susan

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[Carrie]

Oh oh oh oh oh!! Can I join too!! This is EXACTLY my problem! PC first thing in the morning KILLS ME! Embarrassment isnt a motivator to me only because im so used to the failure. I kind of expect it now. Seems nothing works for me. BUT I Will DO THiS!

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[Anonymous]

Anybody can join, the idea is to pick one thing that feeds your habit and NOT do it when you would usually do it.

Nice hat, BTW!

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[Anonymous]

The computer is a major problem for me as well but I suppose it is a factor in why we spend so much time here. Lol. Right now im posting on my smartphone in hopes that it is too irritating to be compulsive. I need times in which I must turn off compy. In order not to lose sleep. Im going to think about my goal here or ill be vague and not succeed!

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[nellie]

Oh crap just remembered the financial update goal from the other thread again and it’s Monday better do that

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[Carrie]

So I copied your idea sugar and I’m on my android! I just had to check the forum! But its harded to get sucked in when everything takes twice as long to do. I dont have patience for that hahaha no pc yet! Woooo

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[Bill]

Guilty as charged.

I use Rick’s advice — Do ONE thing. What I do is pick one thing that I think I can accomplish in the day and FOCUS on it. That helps me put distractions in their place. In the past, I tended to focus on TOO LARGE a project and often felt overwhelmed. Now I break it down into one day chunks.

But I think you’re wise in putting off the computer until noon. I know that I’m freshest in the morning (even without the medication) and somehow, the way I start the day determines how productive the day will be. If I start with email and social media, I won’t get nearly as much done as if I dive right into what I want to accomplish. There will be lots of interruptions later!

Great post!

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[Anonymous]

We can use the forums to police this! It’s just noon on the East Coast, and no_dopamine hasn’t posted yet! Congrats–we’ll be vatchin you.

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[Anonymous]

7:05 pm Eastern Standard Time here (north of Toronto). I kind of feel like a toddler who has been told that he/she can’t have a cookie, but who looks at the cookie jar and thinks “hmmm, I’ll just look, I won’t touch”. I know that the next step is “I’ll just have a little piece, that won’t count as a whole cookie”, and so on…. 🙄

It turned out to be a very busy day for me, I had to be on the computer first thing but I didn’t come on here, just answered some business email and then got off to work. I had to drop off a video at the library that was due back today, so I didn’t get into work until about 9:30. But I did start work at 8:30, just at home.

So I think it was a successful attempt. I agree with Bill, I have to have a plan for the day, even though sometimes I do get derailed, at least it wasn’t by the computer today.

Here’s hoping I can do it again tomorrow!

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[Anonymous]

carrie, i don’t have much patience for internet surfing on the droid, either. My compy is a nice 20in screen and I can have a screen full of tabs! on Droidy (i named it), i pretty much check the weather, both my emails accounts, facebook, and this forum…then done.

compy is going to sleep tonight at 11pm. My goal is to pick times at night for compy to sleepytime because the sleep I lose with compulsive internet surfing is affecting my life! and makes my ADD symptoms worse! It would be awesome to limit it when I wake up too, but that is way way too much to begin with.

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[Anonymous]

Ok, day 2 of my internet withdrawal challenge, and I managed to get to work by 9 am this morning, and I was productive for the whole day, left work at 6 and didn’t go on the internet until now (11:20 pm, and I’m going to bed now).

I did answer one email first thing in the morning, from a friend down south who was worried that I hadn’t gotten a reply from her about something important. But I stayed away from surfing for the most part. That one email did interfere with my schedule for getting to work by 8:30 am, though, so I have to watch that.

I am finding that when I am tired, when I need a bit of a break from work, that I will get on the internet and try to stimulate myself by surfing, I will look at things that I wouldn’t normally go out of my way to look at, it’s as if I am extremely bored. For example, I only read newspapers online, I will go to the main page and see if there’s any headlines that I’m interested in, and then click on them. But if it gets out of hand, I start reading the stories that I would never bother with, because I am bored. And if there are photos, well, I usually can’t help clicking to see them!

So this challenge is helping me to understand more about my internet addiction and how to start breaking that habit. Will post again after day 3.

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[Carrie]

Great job! I failed. I was sucked in.. I thought “Oh I will just check the forums… thats it!” That lead to youtube, and facebook and surfing…. Didnt get anything done and got ready yet once again about 15mins before I had to go to work. Tomorrow I WONT even check the forums! I will just stay right away from it! I have to get my kids ready for their stay at my Grandmas anyway!

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[Anonymous]

Day 3: today was the toddler-and-the-cookie-jar syndrome. I woke up early enough (1/2 hr early) to do a morning meditation practice (half hour), take a shower, eat a quick breakfast and get to work on time. I stayed in bed the first half hour to make up for staying up until midnight last night. Was pokey taking my meds (I am not a morning person), looked at my business email, clicked on a newspaper website and opened a few tabs with headlines. Normal distractions, but this time I paid more attention to the little voice saying “you should be getting in the shower now, save those news stories to read while you’re eating your breakfast”, which I did.

But I didn’t get out of the house until 8:40 am, and with road construction, didn’t get to work until 9:00 am. Then at 9:30, I got a call from my doctor’s office saying they had a cancellation and would I like to come in at 10:10 am instead of a week Friday. Save the Friday for goofing off early, I thought!

Since we decided yesterday I was only working a half day today, I gave up on the day and went to the doc’s office. We spent the afternoon cutting down a diseased cherry tree in the back yard and cutting it up and bundling it for the yard waste collection tomorrow (pickup for yard waste is every two weeks so it was the day to do it).

So I did get to work relatively early, but it was not a productive day work-wise. However we really needed to get that tree down.

I think I need to continue this, to stay off the computer in the morning, and adjust my goal to get to work at 9:00 am. My husband would say “keep it at 8:30 am”, because he knows how I find stuff to do, to distract me, from getting anywhere on time (I’m either very early or late). Intentions are good, I’m getting there, but so prone to relapse! Damn internet!

At least I got off Facebook over a year ago. We watched the movie The Social Network tonight, and I am so glad I got off that hamster wheel.

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[Anonymous]

computer going sleepytime at 11pm tonight. Doing this has been helpful. Am I so addicted that I surf on the mobile? yes, unfortunately. however, I eventually get frustrated or my battery dies.

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[Carrie]

I made it without the internet (even on my phone) until noon. However… The Xbox was there! I dont think its any better for me to leave this vortex to enter that one! hahaha Today Is my first day of 8 off!! I am going to play the xbox! hahaha

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[Author]

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