Hello Fellow Bookworms,
I hope everyone is well. I have been doing okay although I will say that I have been having some trouble with the requirements I placed on myself surrounding watching You Tube videos. We’ll get into that in just a minute but first let me say that I am thankful to everyone that has been reading my blogs. If you find them interesting and informative please subscribe so that you don’t miss the next post.
Now let’s get into how terrible I’m doing with cutting back on my You Tube intake. Okay so I started cutting back on You Tube April 18, of this year. In order to be totally honest with myself we’re going to do some math. April 18 until today, May 10, there are a total of 552 hours. (24 hours x 23 days = 552 hours.) I spent 139 hours working my full time job which leaves a reminder of 413 hours. Let minus sleep time of about 138 hours which leaves a total of 275 hours left of unaccounted time. Out of those hours left I watched You Tube (from April 18 – May 10) for 102 hours. Crickets chirping. That’s terrible guys, but this is a huge eye opener for me. This leaves me with a balance of 173 hours that are not accounted for. Did you notice I used the word balance? When you break it down just as I did now you begin to see your time differently. It’s not just time, it’s time spent, and that time spent you will never get back. The remaining hours were probably spent on cooking, cleaning, showering, walking dogs, reading, and the other stuff we do in our everyday lives.
I really failed cutting back on my You Tube hours. Listen I don’t have cable and I only have three streaming channels and we all know how the streaming services are doing with not really putting out good shows and movies. I feel like I’m stuck with You Tube, not that there’s anything wrong with that because if you’ve been reading you know I love me some You Tube.
I’m going to share some of the issues I’ve been experiencing with my writing and You Tube. As I was working on my writing projects, I had originally turned YouTube off and had the silent atmosphere thing going. That only lasted about two minutes. I used to always write well in silence. I feel I may not be able to write like that anymore. I didn’t like the silence. I wanted the noise, I wanted You Tube. From there I did what any American would do when we want something, I gave it to myself. I turned You Tube on to a snoopy cozy jazz ambiance channel and got to business. That worked for a couple of days and then I grew tired of the jazz. Yes, I could have found another channel with different music but that’s not what I wanted.
I typically can’t listen to people talk and write at the same time because I’ll stop writing and totally listen to whatever it is that’s playing. I told myself I was going to find something to play as background noise that wouldn’t be to interesting. That worked again for a few days before I started finding the boring stuff interesting. I know that was my brain trying to procrastinate so I switched it up. I started playing repeats on You Tube. Repeats are shows I already watched and are being rewatched a second time. That worked little better. I still found myself from time to time not writing and instead watching the repeat show. The only difference was it was easier to pull away from it and redirect myself because I already watched the show and knew what was going to happen next.
What does all this mean? It means I’m doing poorly with reducing my You Tube time. I feel like I’m at war with myself mentally. On one side I know that watching more than I am writing is a distraction and will slow me down with completing my projects in a timely manner. On the other hand I enjoy writing and watching You Tube videos.
Unfortunately our world is terrible right now. There’s so much going on that I have decided to focus on things that make me happy and bring me joy. It doesn’t matter where you live or your nationality, we as a whole are really seeing many changes and challenges, some that are not good. Which is why I made changes in my life. I read a lot. I work on my writing projects. I color in my adult coloring book. I sketch and then watercolor my sketches because I’m learning to do both. I don’t have time for nonsense, life is too short, and I say the same for you. Do things that make you happy. Surround yourself with people and things that bring you joy. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.
In conclusion, I’m going to continue to work on cutting back my hours on You Tube as I’ve been trying. What I’m going to do differently is try not to stress about it. I’m human and far from perfect like everyone else. I think stressing about it is only making it worse. I want to make improvements yes because I want to get better with my writing and reading. I’m just not going to stress about it. Instead I’ll continue to count my You Tube hours and share them with you. At least now we have something to work with. My You Tube time should not increase past 102 hours for the next 23 days.
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Until next time Bookworms, stay safe and stay positive.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommies 💕
M.C. Addington 