Weekend Luddite

[gratefuldeb67]

Hi Reinhard
I think it would be great to have more fun on the weekend, and sitting endlessly on the computer seems to be losing it's charm...
Richard has also been on video games for, sometimes 8 hours on a weekend day...
I don't want to be a big meanie to him, but I think that there are tons of better ways to spend our daytime weekend time...

How did you get yourself to become less computer habituated?
Were your rules enough to do it?
What would you do on a day which might not be the best weather and used easily as an excuse to putter on the comp?

If you have time, I'd love to hear about what you chose to do to be proactive here?
I can think of tons of activities to do other than surf for hours.. For some reason, this seems to be a really hard thing to tackle though...
Funny...
I grew up when there were no computers.. We spent our time doing other stuff... But strangely enough, I am hard pressed to remember a time like that now! We are so accustomed to having the comp...
It's a blessing and a curse!

Happy Valentines and look forward to your feedback
Peace and Love,
Deb

[reinhard]

Hi Deb,

My weekend luddite rules were enough to do it for me. Keep in mind that in my case the only device I'm barring is the computer (narrowly defined): I'm allowed to watch netflix movies, for example, though I'm sure that technically the dvd player contains something that could be described as a computer. I haven't had time to play video games in ages... (though I do have a bunch of old consoles in the basement: from atari 2600 to colecovision to playstation 2), so that was never an issue.

But for a kid I imagine it wouldn't be so easy. When my daughter gets a few years older I imagine I'll develop some more wisdom (or resignation!) on the subject. Let us know what you and Richard wind up doing.

Reinhard

[Big Phil]

Hi Deb,
I have a son who is only 19 months old, so computer and TV usage isn't really a problem as he is generally more interested in bins, plastic bags, toilets, everything he shouldn't be touching, basically. The best thing I can suggest is get you and your son out of the house early! It is offense against sloth rather than defence (making up rules). Get Richard down to the park, riverbank, museum, zoo, play cafe whatever, as early as possible. It is much harder to sloth around when you are out of the house and the time flies by so fast that, even if he plays computer games later in the day, there just isn't enough time left in the day to play on the computer for too many hours. The same applies to yourself if that is a concern.
Being outside in the morning is great for you, always cheers me up, burns calories and (I reckon) makes you smarter. I know it is colder and snowier where you are but my advice is - wear appropriate clothes and get out amongst it! It really is surprising how much weather you can adapt to if you make it regular. If nothing else is open a weekend urban ranger in the morning, even just 15 to 30 minutes of strolling, will do wonders.
Hope that helps,
All the best,

Phil

[gratefuldeb67]

Oh my goodness!!!
"Ask and ye shall receive" or "Be careful for what you wish for, you just might get it" are two appropriate proverbs for what just happened..
I wanted to Luddite, and well, the Universe provided!
As of about two hours ago, my comp got infected and froze up..
I tried to download Trend Micro Housecall, but after getting to the startup page, the whole thing just froze...
Ahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate the fact that the only Trojans I see these days are on my computer!!!!!
(Badumbum crash!)
Rahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(vulgar gratuitous cursing in the background)

So, just like the time when I wished that I was Urban Rangering more and then I ran out of shift fluid for my car and couldn't drive, I guess I got what I asked for again this weekend..

But next week Richard and I will be home from school all week.. I have to get this fixed! I could see ludditing for a few hours a day, but not a whole week! (How pathetic is my computer/posting addiction? .... Really)

So I'm at the library again folks till this is fixed and I'm not liking it!
But I do like the huge selection of books all over.. This is a great place..
I just pray that the lady who mumbles to herself while she plays online solitaire, and the guy who has forgotten what a shower is don't come sit on either sides of me! LOL....

Much love to all and be well!
Peace,
Deb

[gratefuldeb67]

Hey Reinhard and everyone!
I'm gonna try Weekend Luddite out..
My personal rules will be:

No Internet surfing, and endlessly checking emails, or IM'ming during the hours of 10:30 till 4:00... I might even apply this during the week as well, if I am finding it easy to do on the weekends... But I want to start small, so I'll just start with weekends and see how it goes..

I will allow myself to use the computer though, for either recording music, as I'm going to try to put up my original songs and some covers, onto a new page I created on myspace.com.......
That's pleasurable for me, and not mindless surfing so I think it's worthwhile! Any business oriented stuff will have to be done during weekday hours..

I haven't been taking good care of my home or myself the past month, and I think sitting around for a long time is really getting me depressed~
So, I'll let you all know how it goes on my daily thread, and I'm also going to start up my 21 days on habit for diet and exercise again!
I need a recharge to my resolve and a boost to my mood!

Consistently letting myself down is taking it's toll, and though I have been having a really rough week with my Fathers hospitalization, letting myself be a slug and slipping up on my NoS and exercise is just compounding the problems, not helping them..It's no surprise that my stomach is starting to bulge out again and I'm sure I've gained some weight this past week...
This is stopping immediately!

So here I go!
Wish me luck
I'm feeling good already, just having made a promise here!
Peace and Love,
Deb

[reinhard]

Good luck, Deb! You're right to start small. It's harder than you think -- but the payoff is big, even limited to weekends.

Sorry to hear about your, Dad.

Best wishes you you all,

Reinhard

[gratefuldeb67]

Well, this didn't work out for me, but I am really being much more conscious to get the heck out of the computer chair when I could be out and living life!
So, there you go.. I had to try though~
LOL..

Peace and Love,
Deb

[Sinnie]

Deb, I totally know what you mean. I myself am attempting to do the same thing. I've noticed just HOW MUCH time i've been spending in my room, either surfing the net or flipping channels on the tv.

[ThomsonsPier]

Just to really annoy you all, I'll state that I have managed to be a weekend and evening luddite for a couple of months now, simply because I haven't had the time to sit in front of my PC.

This is vaguely irritating, as I want to put some new music on my MP3 player...

[gratefuldeb67]

Cynthia, no big deal on the pity party.. This is just expressing yourself and you have my blessings to write as much as you want on my thread..
I think there's just something about being "internal" too much, as opposed to going out and tuning into nature, and just getting out of your head!
The Urban Ranger seems to be helping me a lot in this respect, even though I've just begun that. So, actually, indirectly, it's also helping minimize the comp time, and sedentary stuff.. Do you walk at all?
I highly recommend it! Especially now that weather is on our side

Sorry about the lonely feelings.. I wish I was in a hot relationship too!!!
Being alone can sometimes suck big time!!!!
Oh well!
It could be worse... I just rented the movie "Mr Wrong" with Ellen Degeneres and Bill Pullman...
Well it wasn't really that great, but he did do a good job of playing a guy you just wouldn't want to end up with, and that was funny
I know this doesn't seem like much consolation, but don't forget your own relationship with yourself, and remember to value yourself too~
This is really your primary relationship!

Thompson Pier
You pissed me off!!!!!
LOL

Just kidding

Glad it's working for you, minus the MP3 annoyance..
I guess as long as I can get these Everday systems to work, on any level, even if not perfectly, I'm still improving my life

So I am already preparing for an S-stravaganza, and hope you all have a great weekend!
Yabbadabbadoooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peace and Love,
Deb

[reinhard]

Having a small child definitely makes weekend luddite easier -- by making everything else much harder . It's an enormous help that she has figured out how to say "computer" (actually she calls it tv, very presciently convergent) and wants to bang away at the keyboard like mad every time she sees me touch it.

[gratefuldeb67]

That is so cute Reinhard!
Thanks for your well wishes for my Dad

Have a lovely weekend with cutie

Peace and Love,
Deb

[hlidskjalf]

Count me in.

I spend far too much time sitting in front of a computer. Even though I am generally doing things that are at least semi-productive (no games or activity's not suitable for children) it is a huge time sink. My computer is on 24/7 so my approach will be set "off" times. I'll start with Friday as I go to sleep until I awake Monday morning. Or maybe after breakfast. If I don't post it worked.

[reinhard]

Assuming it worked?

I'm glad weekend luddite is catching on.

I've found it very useful. So much so that I'm expanding it to weekday mornings (I tried evenings but that was a dismal failure). I've been doing mornings since the end of August and although it was very tough at first, I think I've got it down now. This is a huge win since morning are my most mentally alert time and I have a have about an hour's precious privacy. Evenings are my dumbest most distracted time so there not worth fighting for.

There are two tricks that seem to be making weekend morning luddite work:

1) ridiculous "fence around the law" strictness: no touching the computer for any reason. It was amazing all the "legitimate" excuses I came up with and how quickly that one necessary thing I had to lookup turned into a hundred unnecessary ones

2) preparation the night before so I wouldn't be tempted the next morning. If there's something I need to lookup, do it then. Print it out. If there's music or an audiobook I know I'll want to listen to, transfer it to the ipod then. Preparation both helps the strictness in point #1 and is helped by it. There's no better teacher than forgetting to prepare and then forcing yourself to do without it the next morning.

I was inspired to take up this new strictness when we had some pretty strictly observant Jewish friends stay over for the Sabbath. I got to see real fence around the law in action, and I was impressed. Stuff that seems nitpicking and onerous and even a little ridiculous from a distance makes a lot of sense up close. Because if you don't draw hard somewhat arbitrary lines somewhere, before you know it, you've been overrun by excuses. It's actually sort of fun in a way. It gives you a feeling of power, resisting way out in advance. And as I mention on the no-s site, it really does make things easier -- there's no constant agonizing as to whether *this* exception is worth it. If it doesn't involve risk to life or limb -- it isn't.

I'm going to apply this stricter sense of fence around the law to regular weekend luddite as well. I'd gotten in the habit of allowing certain activities (like looking up directions or listening to itunes) but with a little preparation I can comfortably cut those out I think. It's not that I've been screwing up a lot or in damaging ways with weekend luddite -- but there were enough violations for slippery slope formation and even more importantly the nagging "is this worth making an exception for?" was reducing my enjoyment of weekend luddite.

Violations will be duly reported in my daily checkin (have one to report already).

Reinhard

[Eatin' Free]

I can see this being a very helpful way for me to deal with some of my "time" issues--too much of my time is spent on the computer at home and at work, and TV, which had been very regulated for a while, has been allowed to become my stress-reliever; used to be it was second only to food, now it's in first place, since food is becoming more regulated!

Going to ponder these things for a while, and see what comes up as a way of incorporating this into my life. Another aspect of this, in addition to simply freeing up time, is reducing the amount of informational input to which I am exposed. I've started leaving the radio off in the car when I drive back and forth to work, and I'm finding I'm in a better mood overall, just from that one small change. Quiet is becoming more important to me.

Doing a little bit of the urban ranger, shovelglove is yet to come, No-S is getting there, and now the weekend luddite. Feel like I'm headed toward an overall state of well-being that I've desired for years. Thanks, Reinhard, for all of this.

Peace, Valerie

[brownstudy]

My current work schedule and taking an online course means that the weekends are the only time I have to do my schoolwork or catch up on office work.

What I may institute, though, is the idea that when 6 pm rolls around, the computer goes off, as if it were a workday. Alternatively, I've been using a timer rather successfully (I'm on Windows and use a freeware thing called Instant Boss I found at donationcoder.com).

I think there is something about the hum of the monitor and the whirr of the fan that makes me think, "The engine's running, must drive, MUST DRIVE." When it's shut off, it's just another piece of furniture for the cat to lay on.

[ThomsonsPier]

I think there is something about the hum of the monitor and the whirr of the fan that makes me think, "The engine's running, must drive, MUST DRIVE." When it's shut off, it's just another piece of furniture for the cat to lay on.

I know this feeling. I've lost track of the number of times I've switched on to print something off the newfangledinterwebs and found myself still wasting time an hour later.

I don't have a cat, though.

[hlidskjalf]

I tried a different approach last weekend. Rather than give up technology I tried using just the Linux console. So you can check email, look at some text-friendly web pages but overall are relatively limited. It also has the advantage of being somewhat educational in itself.

[navin]

When it's shut off, it's just another piece of furniture for the cat to lay on.

So how in the world did you train that cat to lay on it when it's off? They seem to like my computer only when it's on and I'm trying to use it.

[hamish]

Whilst I don't have anything to add as far as solutions/systems to moderating your internet use, the 'Weekend Luddite' idea seems a reasonable starting point, but if you try doing what I did the other day, it might be enough to "scare" you into action.

I simply decided to work out how much time I'd spent online last year.

Make a guestimate of how many hours per day on average you spend on the net, just thinking back over the last week will probably give you a figure that's close enough, if you wanted to be really accurate you could time yourself & note it down, I'm too lazy to bother with that , anyway multiply that daily average by 365, & from that you can work out how many days/weeks/months you've spent in the last year in front of your PC.

In my case, I reckon I spend around 4.5 hrs a day on average on the net. This is possibly a conservative guess, it could be more, as on weekends it's not unusual for me to chew up entire days, 10 - 12+ hrs, in mostly aimless browsing.

So unless my maths is completely hopeless, that adds up to 1643 hours per annum, which could be expressed as

68 entire days!

or 9.8 weeks!

or even 2.26 months solid in front of the computer

Even worse, if I look at it as a percentage of my waking hours, I'm assuming I spend 16.5 hours out of every 24 awake, it works out that I spend approximately 27% of my waking "usefull" hours on the computer, possibly even be as high as 1/3rd.

Now I know where all my spare time went, well I kind of knew anyway, but putting it into figures like that was really quite confronting and highlighted how much time I've been squandering. It really made me want to cut back and reclaim most of that lost time to do things that I've been neglecting.

What a reasonable level of use is, I haven't decided, but even just halving it gives me an entire month of 24hr days back.

[reinhard]

Hamish,

That is pretty disturbing... I'm sure I'd be in similar shape if it weren't for weekend luddite.

If you want another way to quantify this a bit, you can download the google web history plugin for firefox. It gives you a "heatmap" little calendar or how many google searches you did each day each month. Just a fraction of total web activity, but still pretty strikingly problematic.

They probably have no incentive to provide the same kind of heatmap calendar for total number of sites visited or hours of browsing activity, but they do have the information. That would be a useful heat map... maybe I should appeal to their "don't be evil" mandate and put in a humble request for this.

If not, it could be a fun and virtuous project for someone to write a new firefox plugin to track this. Maybe it even exists already... I'll have to poke around a bit. The time you spend coding it would be more than compensated for by the hours of wasted aimless browsing it will save you .

Reinhard

[hamish]

Well, I've decided to try a variation on your Weekend Luddite idea, which is; no net use at home during daylight hours, 7 days a week, and a 10:30 curfew everynight. I'll allow myself to use at work because my work environment is inherently self limiting. I think that should be both simple enough and generous enough that I can adhere to it.

I think these boundaries should address the main negatives I've had from excess internet use, namely sleep deprivation and wasted weekends, the loss of sleep (5-6hrs has almost been the norm on weeknights) which in itself being partially responsible for lost weekends. Catching up on sleep often means half the day is gone most Saturdays & Sundays by the time I get up.

I'm also hoping that not having such open ended useage will make what time I do spend on the internet more focused & considered.

Lest anyone think my life is a total disaster, I have maintained the habit of going to the Gym 3-4 times a week for the last 4 years. May only be 40min sessions, but I've kept it up & take some pride in that.

[hamish]

Well, 11 days in and only 2 minor failures to adhere to my 'allotted' hours, but overall all good.

Most noticeable benefit is I'm getting a lot more sleep from going to bed at a more reasonable hour, so that's a real plus.

However it has hi-lighted other issues, chiefly that I need to organise that extra time I now have better. I am getting a bit more done, but often spend time paralysed with indecision about 'what to do now'. Probably need to apply a few other 'systems' as i progress

[roseha]

Hi everyone

I have a feeling this a big problem for me too, as Deb says, who would have dreamed of this when we were growing up? I bought my first computer 11 years ago, what did I do before then? Cable TV? Radio?

I do think it's a hard habit to control especially because you just lose track of time. TV shows begin and end, radio generally repeats. The internet is so...endless for better or worse.

I work 2 pm to 10 which is not bad but I proofread (which I don't mind, I have photography as my interest) but then when I come home I want to have internet time...and it does play into a lack of sleep.

so I think I should try to be a WL in the late evenings...Thanks for the idea Reinhard...I think it's hard sometimes, though, I even got T-Mobile Dash so I could look at some internet when I go away...

[hamish]

Well, I've been doing my 'Net Curfew' for over 2 months now, & have gone from 1 to 2 failures a week to about 1 a fortnight now, and I'm finding it increasingly easy to switch off when the clock hits 10:30. However, I will need to keep recording my compliance for quite a while longer, as it still isn't automatic yet, and feels like a very hard habit to break, almost an addiction, as i sometimes almost crave going on line, but as time passes, I'm finding it easier.

Benefits... well, I'm getting at least an extra hour a night sleep on average, and also getting more household chores done, plus I feel like I'm spending much much less time on line. So overall, I'd judge it as very successfull so far. I feel I've made a significant improvement to the way I live.

A big thanks to Reinhard for the idea

[reinhard]

Excellent! Congratulations. Another benefit I find (in my weekend luddite version) is that not only do I spend less time online, but the time I do spend online is more productive -- it has to be. It's another example of how if you want to do something better, start by giving yourself less time to do it (like shovelglove's 14 minutes).

You're right that it is tough, though. If you look at my habitcal, you'll notice that weekend luddite has been the single hardest habit I'm tracking for me to stick with. My compliance hasn't been terrible (2 failures in the 3 months I've been habitcaling), it's been enough to yield real benefits, but it could still stand some improvement.

Reinhard

[Chris Graeme]

Here's one for the weekend luddites:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 112607.php

Chris
www.conditioningresearch.com

[reinhard]

This is great!

And what's best (for practicing weekend luddites) is that "shorter frequent breaks" (aka weekends) are more helpful than fewer, longer ones.

Reinhard

[hamish]

Ok, confession time, I slipped back into my bad old habits a couple of months ago, starting when I was off work for a week sick with a flu. I thought I would be able to control my usage without sticking to some sort of strict timetable. Didn't work, failed miserably.

So I've started again on a modified version of my original system. I found the 10:30pm cutoff every night a bit too strict, and possibly a part of the reason for the failure.

The new plan is to have the 10:30 cutoff on "school nights" ie. Sun to Thurs, and a somewhat later time on fri & sat nights. I'm often out on fri & sat nights, so I'm trying a 1:30 cutoff for them which would give a bit of time online after I get home. You could call them Special days, like in the No S diet I'm not sure what to do about sat sun daytime, maybe a 10:30am till sundown rule might work, but it is making it more complex.

Anyway, the worknights are the most important to get right and I'll concentrate on them first, and try and figure out some workable weekend rules as I go.

[kccc]

I have found a proactive approach to "too much computer time" (not that you'd know it at the moment, lol!).

Read a post on a blog that I like (will look up the URL in a moment and share) that describes three levels of fun.

1) Challenging fun (like learning, engaging in a sport - think "flow")
2) Accommodating, or social fun - you don't necessarily get to choose all the activity, but you get the pleasure of company.
3) Relaxing, or passive fun. Computers, tv, that kind of thing.

#1 and #2 are most rewarding, but take more energy. We tend to sink into #3 when our energy levels are low - and a certain amount is okay. But if we're doing too much... we don't feel good.

So, to cut my computer time, I'm looking for more fun in areas 1 & 2. And if I don't have enough energy... well, that's it's own problem, right?

URL: http://www.happiness-project.com/happin ... types.html