Daily Archives: January 7, 2022
Time Thieves
In our so-called ‘Age of Distraction’, it feels almost impossible to stop getting distracted. The world around us – and the usual suspects of our phones, emails, and other technologies – seem to be vying for our attention. And doing all in their power to stop us focusing.
Just like a thief, time thieves are sneaky, secretive and take what is valuable to us without us knowing.
If we want to get our time, attention and energy back for the things we find important, we need to start by looking at our relationship with our phones. These are the biggest ‘Time Thieves’ around. Other Time Thieves might include one or more of the following:
- YouTube
- Social Media
- Television
- Video Games
For me, my phone with it’s various games, apps, and the ever present Facebook is the worst offender. This is closely followed by YouTube, google, and mindless television. What do your personal Time Thieves look like?
Making Time Thieves Work For Me
There are lots of articles all over the internet on how to deal with distractions, some are more useful than others. I’m not going to bore you with them here. Instead I’m going to talk about what has actually been working for me:
- Games On My Phone
There’s this silly little game on my phone called Township. I somehow got totally entangled in it to the point of ridiculousness. Then I had this brilliant idea that I couldn’t play it unless I was on my treadmill. Perfect! I haven’t missed a single day of exercise for 2 months.
- Mindless Television
At some point during the lockdown, I got hooked on Court TV… Really? Yes! I have no clue why I find it so interesting, but I really do enjoy watching the trials live. It has an added bonus of keeping me grounded in the here and now because it’s actual people, live in the moment. And what I’ve discovered is that it’s way easier for me to wash dishes, get the laundry put away, and do little household chores if I am also watching a trial unfold.
If Court TV doesn’t have anything going on that interests me, sometimes I can find other fun stuff like Storm Chasers, The Great British Baking Show, or documentary shows about natural disasters, plane crashes, ships that sank in a spectacular way. It takes the boredom out of the more tedious activities that nag at me to get done.
More recently, I’ve been using Facebook to help me get the Prosperity Project posts wrangled and uploaded. I made a deal with myself that I could stay off of Facebook all the way up to and until I get something finished and scheduled on the website.
When I had to go out to my car and scrape all the ice off the windshield and warm it up, I told myself that this would be a perfect time to scroll through Facebook. The whole ordeal of sitting in a cold car while it warmed up was made more palatable with the addition of checking out all the “new” stuff my “friends” were talking about.
- Arts and Crafts
It occurs to me that it’s possible that art is one of my favorite distractors. I don’t think it’s a Time Thief, but I do think that I use it to totally disappear from the here and now and slide into a whole other world. What’s great about it is that I can make a bunch of cool stuff to give away as gifts, or put online for sale as a way to make a little bit of extra cash. Plus it’s fun and rewarding, much better than scrolling through my news apps or sitting and staring at a stupid television show.
Knitting gives my hands something to do when I find myself snacking all night long. Munching on junk food isn’t necessarily a time thief, but it isn’t good for me either, and I find that knitting effectively interrupts my need to keep putting stuff in my mouth.
Now It’s Your Turn
What are your most familiar Time Thieves? When and where are you most bored and uncomfortable? How do you cope with it? What if you just sat with it and faced it? How can you use your personal Time Thieves to your advantage? What are your triggers? When are you most likely to let those Time Thieves in?
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