Spitting Out The Pacifier

For about ten years now and maybe more, I've had the same morning routine. Get up, make coffee, feed the critters, turn on the laptop, surf the web and blog.

And then keep surfing the web. And surfing. And surfing.

Long after I've found the last interesting tidbit, I'm clicking around, reading and watching. I know exactly what I'm doing, too. It's obvious when the web has nothing more to offer you in the areas you pursue. I'm just sitting there, wasting time, putting off getting up and doing something more productive.

My MGB is still unwired, by the way.

I've got a book in my Audible library whose name I can't recall right now which posits convincingly that the Internet and Twitter and the rest rewires your brain so that you begin to struggle on tasks that require more than a moment's thought. As I listened to the book, I found it frighteningly true in my own life. I've intended to try this experiment for a while, but there was always one more blog to read or one more YouTube video to watch.

So here's the deal. The laptop doesn't get turned on in the morning. For the rest of December, I'm getting up, making coffee, feeding the critters and then ... who knows? Being the unreformed blogger, I'll still take notes and probably sit down to write up the day's thoughts at some point, but it may result in a day or two missed*.

Prediction: Things will get done, skills will be learned and books will get read.

And the sun will shine and birds will sing!

At least that's the plan.

* - Yeah, right. I'm absolutely OCD about this daily blogging thing by now.