Here’s the problem with trying to do community service for the amount of time I wasted last week: I wasted too much. I had things I wanted accomplished, personal and trivial and professional and chores too, but instead I ended up pushing the “refresh” button on a lot of websites.
The blog-type sites–ones that update with new content like 50 times a day–these sites are the root of my undoing this week. The NY Times Arts section, Salon, Slate, TV Tattle (a compendium of TV-related links): these sites publish articles only once a day, so you only have to check in once and know you’re not missing anything.
But other sites like Jezebel.com and TV Guide Online, for example, they’re constantly publishing content throughout a day. And I’m really such an information junkie–I like knowing behind the scenes details, interviews, book reviews, inside scoops, episode commentaries, funny stories and weird statistics, just plain old anything–and fervent procrastinator, I can’t resist clicking “refresh” “refresh” “refresh.”
Clearly, I have a bit of a problem. That’s why this blog exists after all.
But last week felt like I was binging on reading material. Hey, I know it’s not feasting on Ben & Jerry’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but by the end of the week, it left me with a dull and icky feeling all the same.
I think the reason this happens is that I work from home. I have no co-workers, no watercooler, no place to duck in for lunch and get coffee. And believe me, while there are pros to this arrangement (make my own hours, sleep in late, avoiding rush hour commutes, and not having to squeeze grocery shopping and laundry in on weekends when its most annoying and crowded), the major con is definitely the lack of face-to-face interaction with other people.
So I guess, if I must psycho-analyze myself, my daily visits to about 10-15 sites a day, help fill in that people gap. And it was more overboard than usual because it was really rainy last week and I barely left my apartment during the day.
Which is why this can’t continue, because winter’s around the corner, and we’ll have sweater weather until like May. I need to nip this in the bud; I need to have a more steely resolve. I’m not really going to accomplish the yoga and the cooking and the fiction writing and my day job if I don’t.
So for this week, at least, I’m going to have to ban the “refresh” sites, which are like four (TVSquad, TV Guide Online, Jezebel and occasionally Gawker). Wow, that’s a lot, now that I think of it. Wish me luck.
Hopes/predictions for next week: I think you have an idea.
And just for fun, here are some of my recent Google searches:
-”ann packer interview clausen”: The one good thing I did this weekend, read a “The Dive From Clausen’s Pier” in a day and a half. A bit slow and imperfect in parts, but the characters and their lives feel so real. (And the book gives me hope because it took the author ten years and nine drafts to write!) The main character has to figure out the following: “How much do we owe the people we love? Is it a sign of strength or weakness to walk away from someone in need?”
-”blinking cursor screen”: A work-related Google image search for an article about computer breakdowns. It took me a few minutes before I remembered why I had would ever look that up. Never did find a good image.
-”christie crack’d”: A crossword puzzle cheat/hint. I was stuck on a puzzle and the clue was “Author Christie’s ______ ‘Crack’d”. Google helped me out. (Answer: The Mirror)
-”recombinant bovine growth hormones”: For a fact-checking assignment of a book about living green. rBGH is a growth hormone that influences the amount of milk produced by dairy cows. Basically, it’s not good for either cows or milk-drinking humans (it’s banned in Canada and the EU, but not here). It made me glad I drink soy milk!
