Cutting The Cord 2.0

YouTube had to go.
The app had to get deleted from my iPad.

It was too easy to carry a video with me around the house, on the breakfast table, in the bed, on the couch...

It was too lucrative to simply hit play and watch hours and hours of videos in a good resolution screen that fits nearly anywhere around me. I took pride in my eclectic interests: cars, off road trucks, cooking, organization, woodworking, film talk, trailers... the list is endless.

I used to take pride in not having cable, for having cut the cord.
I had just replaced one coaxial cord for a wireless one.

So I reduced my ability to access youtube. I will watch videos but on my desktop computer which is not easily portable to the couch, bed or breakfast table.

Youtube is comfortable. I don't have to think. I can just scroll around, tap the glass screen and watch for hours.

Time for less watching and more doing.

Time to cut the cord again.

Start at One Degree

I fought it. And I won. It is a small victory but a victory none the less.

I have cultivated this beautiful habit of coming home from the office, sitting down with the iPad, launching YouTube and doing nothing more till I start winding down at 9:30 PM. I have honed this habit to perfection.

The iPad was heavy on my lap this evening and I really wanted to tap on that other video. It was almost 7 PM and I had been home for 2 hours, most of which was spent on the iPad. I swung my leg over the bed onto the wood floor, pushed against my quads and stood up. I walked to the dishwasher and unloaded it -- picked up some momentum by doing that. Then I cleaned out not one but three tubs of cat litter (we have many cats). Took the litter to the trash can on the far side of the back yard, then took the kitchen trash out as well.

I just finished dinner and I haven't touched the iPad yet.

The key to overcoming the inertia of lazyness is not to do something 180 degrees opposite (lazyness being the 0 degree mark). The trick is to do something 1 degree different. Then gain momentum. Then 3 degrees, 10...

At 7 PM this evening, 180 degree different would have to be going to the shop and chopping that mortise for my workbench build. I didn't really get there but my iPad is no where in sight and I am closer to going to the shop than I am to inhaling YouTube.

Like DHH said today, I did less than I wanted to do but it was a more meaningful outcome.