Experiment #1: Creation/Consumption Monitoring

7/16/18 I have struggled a lot with consumption, specifically with social media and streaming media. I think that a lot of people could resonate with this; I spend a lot of time gorging myself on instagram, twitter, netflix, pinterest, and facebook that I have the equivalent of “digital indigestion” where, as I lay down after my day, I wonder what I am doing with my life. That’s not to say that these things are inherently bad, I am able to speak to family overseas, learn new skills (such as new languages), see beautiful places, and buy items previously limited by geography. However, in reality, the amount of time that I spend doing productive things on the internet is far paled by the amount of time I spend binge watching shows, “liking” things, and reading pop blogs and articles. I do not think that these things are bad per se; everyone deserves some downtime to vegetate and just be, the problem comes when you look back on the years and realize that they have been wasted getting amused at the expense of your overall embetterment. Good news is that I have read a lot of consumption and the antidote is deceptively simple: we need to create at least as much as we consume. Given this state of mind, my current experiment includes being mindful of my consumption over creation. I think a practical goal at this time is to attempt to make the amount of time consuming equal to the amount of time creating. That said, I will be logging my hours of consumption over creation. My goal is to make a “consumption bank” where the “currency” is time. In other words, I will use s stopwatch to record the time I am spending in creation mode and this becomes the amount of time I am able to use for consumption. However, consumption in my definition is not just the general taking of substances, but also includes choosing a path the does not provide improvement or active learning for a passive or detrimental path. For instance, I eat out a lot, watch Netflix, and surf the internet too much; all of these things are consumption. Taking a more creative approach, I could learn to cook my own food, learn to produce music or write a story, and start an online business. I will use the following method to track my progress: I am in one of three modes: creativity, consumption, or neutral. When I am creating, I will use a stopwatch to track the time. My “consumption bank” will use a timer, as I finish creating I will add the amount of time during that creation session to the timer. When I am consuming, the consumption timer is running. That’s it, simple. Notes: I will not cheat by intentionally slowing down creation to gain more time for consumption. If I am doing something I think is creative, but I learn is just consumption in disguise, I will stop including it in the creative time and will not include it again as a creative endeavor. Work (as in your job, what you get a wage for) doesn’t count (unless you are extremely unproductive at work). It is easy to justify spending 8 hours a night consuming media because you’ve “worked a full day” and so are entitled to it; do yourself a favor, move away from that type of thinking as it for you to where you are today Reporting: After the date of this publication, I will report on my progress in a week, month, and three months.