It’s almost 3pm, and I haven’t turned the television on today. I believe this is the key to today’s productivity levels (relatively high).
Some mornings I’ll wake and think, “Just with breakfast. I’ll just watch an episode of Whatever Shit I’m Addicted To with brekkie, then I’ll get into it.” I watch the episode, and I usually finish my breakfast by 15 minutes into the 45-minute episode. So I waste an extra half-hour seeing the episode out.
Recent perpetrators: Dracula, Masters of Sex, Boardwalk Empire, The Blacklist.
The problem is two-pronged.
1. I waste the extra half-hour, and then get to work. But my mindframe is shot. I’m in lounging-mode, not working-mode.
2. “Just one more”. All shows that I’m watching after-the-fact (that is, that I don’t see weekly as they’re aired) have the allure of just one more. What’s another 45 minutes and some narrative closure? The trap, of course, being that each episode has its own cliff-hanger, and I never get that closure. So always one more.
Fix: don’t turn the TV on at all, until the work day is done. It’ll ruin everything.
Sam van Zweden 
18/12/2013 at 4:24 pm
Totally agree. I don’t watch network television anymore because I can’t stand the ads. Some days I’ll wake up and know it’s a day I’m not getting out of bed so will binge watch a few eps of Grey’s Anatomy or whatever makes me feel better but I always save TV for the afternoon when my brain’s fried from working.
18/12/2013 at 5:46 pm
It’s not the TV that’s my downfall, it’s freakin’ Facebook and Twitter and other people’s blogs. Like right now, I’m meant to be writing my own stuff and look at me, here on your blog, making a comment about how I shouldn’t be here. Point proven. One to me … I think …
18/12/2013 at 7:41 pm
Haha! Well, I feel privileged to be one of you time-wasters today, Louise!