365 Exciting Ways to Live : Excitement # 86. Control TV-Viewing Time

 Control TV-Viewing Time

Television: chewing gum for the eyes.

– Frank Lloyd Wright

Have you considered reducing your TV watching time? If not, do it immediately. The visual media are so powerful that it will take away all your precious time. With the latest technology available, there is no limit at all for the number of channels available to watch. The only limitation is our time, which you know is very scarce and precious.

Just imagine your life before the TV came to your room! Didn’t you have more family time and personal time? What happened to all that?

Consider the following:

• All programmes may be interesting, but you have limited time. So, choose in advance, which programmes you are going to watch.
• Spend quality time on TV by watching useful channels. Give a functional bias to your TV-watching portfolio.
• Log your TV-watching time for a week and try to reduce it by 20% to start with.
• Don’t have a TV in your work or study area; it will interfere with your work.

The list is endless. If you are really serious, you can use the TV for a productive purpose.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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Why are you doing what you are doing?

The time I kill is killing me.
Mason Cooley
We have to keep the end result in mind before spending our time on that activity. An activity is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. We have to ask the question: what am I trying to achieve by the activity I am pursuing just now?

Time is a very limited and scarce resource; we don’t have the luxury of squandering away this precious and irreplaceable resource.
When we go to a departmental store, we see a lot of articles very attractively packaged and displayed to attract our attention. We know that our money is a hard earned and scarce. With this mindset, we decide what to buy and what not to buy.
We have to validate every activity we do with the following check list:
•    What exactly I am doing now?
•    Why am I doing what I am doing?
•    What will happen if I don’t do this activity?
•    Is there any other better use for my time just now?
•    Is there any other more effective way of doing this very activity within a shorter period of my time?
This mindset will release a lot of your time for more productive work!
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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