No news web sites. No unnecessary web surfing.
The results so far?
Here are a few things I’ve started to notice from my media fast:
#1 Productivity has nearly doubled, but I have a lot of work
I roughly doubled my productivity. I’ll give myself a few more days to see if this wasn’t just a fluke. But what used to take me all morning and half and half an afternoon now took me only 3 hours.
I’d say that’s pretty good. Was I mindlessly surfing that much?
But this sudden jump in productivity made me realize I do have a lot of work. I’ll need to address that issue pronto!
#2 Is my critical thinking kicking it up a notch?
I do love politics and political news. As one my regular commentators to this blog Corinne Edwards said she couldn’t live without MSNBC, I was starting to feel the same way.
You see, I like election coverage. From headline news I know who’s winning the primaries. But without reading all the commentary, it feels like I don’t have anyone to tell me what to think anymore.
I may have to start thinking for myself. Perish the thought.
Seriously though. I get this same feeling I used to get in college. I used to read primary sources so I could come up with my own conclusions before reading others’. But with news, I find myself looking to see what others say before I make up my mind.
Media fast day #1 is showing me that I can come up with my own opinion about Barack Obama’s victory sans three columnists telling me what I should think about it and all the major implications thereof.
#3 Playing toy animals with a 4-year-old is quite fun
Cutting out some TV, I instead played animals with my daughter. I mean WOW! That kid does a spot on imitation of me and her teachers at school. She thinks I’m a zebra.
I thought I should be the lion, but nope…zebra.. There you have it. In the animal kingdom, I’m a zebra. Her teacher, however, got to be a tiger. My daughter was a small tiger.
I think I preferred it when my daughter was on a Star Wars kick and I got to be the Emperor.
#4 Lost is a cool show
I picked up the first season of Lost on DVD. I took in 45 minutes of TV this evening and watched an episode. Cool show.
I’ll tell you though. It pained me to listen to Daniel Dae Kim’s Korean. I’m sure most Americans don’t know, but I certainly hear the difference in his Korean and Kim Yunjin’s. No matter though. I liked Daniel Dae Kim in Crusade, so I won’t hold his Korean ability against him too much.
#5 Somewhere out there is LeBron James still getting disrespected?
Of course, my protest continues! Because I am not reading any sports pages, I have no idea whether or not LeBron is getting any respect. I assume he is not. But this media fast continues until LeBron James is shown some respect.
Those are my thoughts for today. I’ll keep you posted on this media fast and you can read more on how it is affecting my work and my life.
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I’m about to tell you something that I am not proud of. Are you sitting down? Here goes:
I am a junkie.
An information junkie. Troubled by a lack of production recently, I decided to track my internet usage. And lo and behold (though don’t tell this to my current employer) I spend WAY too much time looking at news sites. I then go crawling through to other sites and next thing you know, I’ve been reading news sites for over an hour.
And what was the result? I simply read six different people’s opinions about whether Roger Clemens was telling the truth about steroids—nary a one of them defending ol’ Roger.
So, what can I do about it?
Well, I’ve decided to take the advice of one Tim Ferriss, writer of the Four Hour Workweek. Tim spoke at South by Southwest last year at the same time I did. And let me say, this is one of my favorite books of non-fiction. I’ve been re-reading it recently, and he has an entire chapter on a low-information diet.
Tim recommends cultivating “selective ignorance.” This means acquiring information that is “actionable” and being ignorant of the rest (or simply ask knowledgeable people on a subject).
Like me, Tim really doesn’t buy into the whole time management concept, as much as he says that “time management” is a process of eliminating wasteful activities. I quite agree.
So, I have decided to battle my own demons here. In the past, I turned off my internet connection when I worked. This is a great method. But it’s time I battle this head-on.
To that end, I am going on a one-week media fast. According to Tim Ferriss, a media fast means:
1. No news web sites (so long WSJ, MSNBC, Slate, please not Fark.com too)
2. No newspapers, magazines, audio books, or talk radio.
3. No television, except one hour of pleasure viewing each night.
4. No reading except for Tim’s book and one hour of fiction.
5. No web surfing unless it’s necessary to complete a task for that day.
I shutter just thinking of these. How will I find out about the Hillary-Obama showdown? How will I know about what happened to Roger Clemens? In Ferriss’ book, he recommends taking 5 minutes to read some headlines and asking people what’s going on. As for me, part of my job is writing an educational program based on the news, hence I tend to go to sites in order to confirm some information only to find myself NEVER getting off.
So, I will limit my news intake to only that which my job requires: listening to a 4-minute headline news broadcast and reading tow Korea-related news articles. And that’ll be that.
But some will be easy. I don’t really watch TV unless you count the half-hour of Power Rangers I should endure in the evenings with my daughter. There’s nothing I love more than watching the Japanese version of Power Rangers with Korean dubbing over the top!
But I do read a lot of fiction. Tim and I will agree to disagree on the role of fiction. He finds it’s good to put you to sleep, but I find fiction triggers the creative process.
I will document how my media fast is going. And you will see if it boosts my productivity any more than it is now.
Shouldn’t I be fasting in protest of something?
As I am about to end this post, it occurs to me that shouldn’t I be fasting in protest of something? I think personal development is great cause in and of itself. And going on a media fast to increase productivity is great.
But I mean, think about it. All the other great fasters fasted for a great cause. Every time I read in the news about someone fasting, it is in protest of something. So, I think I’ll come up with a noble cause to go along with my media fast.
I guess I could say this is about protesting the media. But I kind of like the media. Why don’t I use my last few minutes before fasting to get on a news site and find a cause worthy of my media fast.
Let’s see…world news…Darfur, war, poverty…too heavy for this kind of fast…US News…Obama..Hillary. McCain..nah, politics is not my thing..I’ve got it. Sports! Frivolous enough, yet taken seriously. Let’s see…videotape scandal…steroids…hold the phone…here we are…LeBron James is quoted as saying his team doesn’t get any respect.
I’m a basketball fan, so there it is folks. From today, I am going on a one-week media fast to protest the media’s lack of respect for LeBron James and his team. Since the media has upset LeBron James, I too am upset.
(cue the rage) How dare the media criticize LeBron’s team! They made it all the way to the finals last year for Pete’s sake (only to get beaten by my beloved San Antonio Spurs).
But you wouldn’t know that by the way the media totally disrespects LeBron James. I’ve had enough!
I will continue this fast until the media starts showing LeBron the respect he deserves. And I am sure after my one-week fast I can google up a puff piece on LeBron, but until I do so–I am fasting.
Wish me luck.
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Hope my readers are having a great weekend.
I just wanted to thank all of you for your support of this blog. I could not do it without the awesome feedback (and the occasional donation) to keep this blog afloat. The postings have been irregular the last few months during my adjustment to the “single dad” lifestyle, and I appreciate you all bearing with me. I hope that the posts I have written have benefited you in some way.
I have also been “looking under the hood” of the blog and making some changes behind the scenes. You won’t notice so many changes in the coming weeks, but I am am looking at some ways to improve the blog and get more readers. Of course, if any of you know anyone you think would benefit from this blog, please pass on the url, or just tell them to go to existmore.com.
I will be doing some interesting things with the blog and will also do a few “experiments,” including being a “human guinea pig”. Just wait and see. It will be fun.
I wish all of you the best and please post a comment on any post. I ahve made some updates to the blog that I hope will provide some interactive dialog among readers of this blog.
Best wishes,
Carlon Haas
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I have never been the most organized person in the world. And I will go on record right now to say that I have been known to be easily distracted.
My desktop reflects this tendency. Many times I’ve looked at this giant mass of programs running as I creatively think of ways to shut them down. Or how many times have I been doing something (like writing this blog post), glanced at my open internet browser and just started surfing…uh, I mean, researching?
It happens to a lot of us. But with desktops getting more “gadgetized” I have found some free tools that help you to “devolve” your computer.
I call them computer Zen. I’ve heard the term Zenware. And that’s exactly what these programs do. They seek to save us from ourselves. They seek to aid the ADHD user that dwells within us. And help they do.
There are a lot of programs out there nowadays that help you to stay focused on what you’re doing. And I wanted to share with you some of the tools I used to help me stay focused on my work.
1. Swept Away
Cool program that hides programs that are on your desktop that you are not using. The only drawback is if you do get distracted and start surfing internet sites, Swept Away will “sweep away” the work you are supposed to be doing so you can focus better on being distracted.
All in all though, it works well.
2. Dropcloth
Cool little app that overlays a solid window over your desktop. Out of sight out of mind. This app covers that cluttered desktop. Use it in conjunction with Swept Away, like I do, and watch your focus go WAY up.
3. Dark Room
MS Word. Love it, but man it distracts the you-know-what out of me. I fiddle with margins and formatting like you wouldn’t believe. Enter Darkroom. With its retro green monochrome with the flickering cursor, it keeps me focused on one thing and one thing only—writing. Guess what I’m writing this post on right now?
Those are a few tools, and I know there are more out there. If you know of any, please comment and let my readers know.
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For lack of a better word, I was pissed! I just got the word that the woman who had been hired by the company 2 weeks ago was now being asked by the company president to run our department—never mind the fact that I had been working there for two freakin’ years!
So, I promptly went out, drank a bunch of beer, and bitched and moaned about it.
The result?
Read more »
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I feel a little embarrassed when I first get to the meeting. I wonder if maybe I don’t belong here. All these people from different backgrounds. Most of them don’t seem like me at all.
I almost walk out the door before the meeting starts. But I know I have to be here. I knew I had a problem. And I knew it was affecting everyone and everything around me.
In turn each person spoke, saying their names and admitting the problem. And now it was my turn. I mustered up the courage and said…
My name is Carlon Haas, and I’m…
Read more »
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What can I say? Consider me a fan. A lot of you enjoyed “my” post on Randy Pausch’s “Last lecture.” In fact, take a gander over there at my popular posts and you’ll see that, as of this writing, Dr Pausch’s Last Lecture is “my” second-most popular post. For those of you who don’t know, Randy Pausch was diagnosed with cancer and given 3-6 months of good health left. It’s been over three months, and he still looks healthy.
Well, I found a new lecture of his on Time Management. It is excellent as well with some great info. And considering his situation, I think his insights into what to do with the time you have make the video well worth watching.
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While Bono is out there saving the world, he has also come to the aid of this blogger. No, I’m not saying that Bono is omnipotent, but music has a way of getting under your skin and sparking revelations–even 17 years in the making.
Yep, 17 years is all it took for me to get the meaning of this U2 song. But more importantly, the lesson I learned from the experience of finally “getting” the lyrics is something I think everyone should learn.
Take a listen to this podcast to find out what U2 taught me about listening to others.
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Posted: January 9th, 2008
Categories:
Podcasts,
Success Mindset
Tags:
listen_to_others,
music,
u2,
u2_song
Comments:
2 Comments.
Today, I celebrate 5 years of being smoke-free.
To celebrate, I bought a nice bottle of wine and decided to write this New Year’s post for all of you. You see, for many years I tried making New Year’s resolutions. And just by chance, I was going to make a resolution to quit smoking on January 1st, 2003. The problem? A friend of mine sent me a carton of Korean cigarettes. So, I felt obligated to smoke them and said I’d quit as soon as I finished.
And I did…one week later…January 7, 2003…the last time I ever smoked. But let’s move to 2007.
2007 is over.
How was your 2007? Did you do the things you wanted to do? Achieve the things you wanted to achieve? And on New Year’s Eve, amid a vast array of booze and indecent party snacks, did you make your New Year’s resolution?
Well, if you did, my advice is to…
…take it back and resolve NOT to make any New Year’s resolutions ever again.
New Year’s resolutions hardly ever work (just ask the gym people who sell memberships right after New Year’s). And I think it’s because most people don’t know that resolution, at its root, contains the word resolve. When you resolve to do something, you are determined to do it. Nothing should stand in your way.
But how long does it take after New Year’s for your resolve to fail? And let’s not just stop at New Year’s. How often do you see the beginnings of your resolutions fail because you lost the resolve, determination, and perseverance to make it work? It’s happened to me often enough.
How often do we look for instant results instead of plodding through? Plodding is boring, but the results tend to speak for themselves. If I think about myself, I have managed to get healthier after 6 months of working out regularly at the gym. The results weren’t instant, but they last,
Maybe it’s because a lot of us feel like we don’t have time to do anything. But I’m a big believer in putting in time to get results. Without any results, you can waste time. It’s like the guy who asks a woman to marry him on the first date and when she refuses says, “Well, she must not like me because she doesn’t want to marry me.” Sounds silly, but this is exactly how many people approach self-development—marriage on the first date.
And this is why I’m telling you now…
…throw out those New Year’s resolutions.
You can make those resolutions ANY TIME YOU WANT but make them only when you have the resolve to see them through.
I’m not just telling you this because I read some stupid self-help book or watched some movie that changed my life. It’s all from my own experience. That’s how in 2006, I stopped biting my nails. And how I quit smoking. You see, movies and books (or blogs for that matter)don’t change lives …
…people do.
And the person change starts with is you. No movie or book worth its salt has ever told me anything different.
Don’t let anything hold you back…
…especially yourself.
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1. The funny thing about heartbreak is that you get over it sooner or later. Some people may not think it’s funny at all, but sooner or later the feelings you thought would never go away vanish, until you are left with a remnant and perhaps a life lesson.
2. Some feelings seem like they’ll last forever. But this overlooks the fundamental truth of life—change. The greatest gift (and perhaps curse) human beings possess is resilience. The ability to bounce back. That’s what we do. It is what we are. It is in our DNA.
3. Even though we intellectually understand the truth of resilience, we let fear overtake us. Fear of heartbreak. Fear of loss. Yet, loss is a part of life. And heartbreak makes us grow.
4. How many opportunities have you missed because of fear? Did you let heartbreak evolve into cynicism? Did you let someone slip through your fingers who could have brought something new to your life? Did fear cause you to stop when you should have gone forward?
5. Acknowledge resilience. Acknowledge that for every pain we thought would never go away, it eventually did. We get over things. We move on. It is life.
6. Fear of loss is the tool of those who seek to lead you into foolishness. You need not fear loss. Acknowledging the resilience within you will free you from this bond and open the door to possibilities once thought unimaginable.
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