The Beginning of an Era

This first post is by necessity an explanatory one. It recently became apparent that I may have a problem with the wasting of my time. The activities that I indulge most in are watching movies, television, and playing video games, all of which are heavily weighted in the time-wasting side of things.

Now...I like to think of myself as a pretty smart guy, and I think that there might be some better uses for my time, which led me to to wonder what I would do to fill my time if I was not able to waste it so efficiently.

I feel that at this point I must proffer one clarification of intent. The purpose of this experiment is not necessarily to maximize the proper efficiency of my time, but to reroute it to other, less explored, alternatives. With all that said, here are the ground rules that I have chosen to inflict upon myself for the next month.

Starting today, March 3rd, 2011, I am not to play any video games, watch any television, watch any movies, or watch any videos from the internet. That last one must be expounded upon as I know that I will undoubtedly break that rule first, should they be interpreted in a dogmatic fashion. I will not watch videos from the internet, unless they are specifically suited toward some learning goal. An example that comes immediately to mind would be a video regarding a famous chess game.

That leads me to the activities I've been leaning towards in my creation of this personal challenge. For simplicity sake, I present them in list fashion in no particular order:

Computer programming (C# mainly)

Reading

Learning to speak Spanish

Chess

Fixing my guitar

Learning my guitar (those last two ARE in order)

Improving my vocabulary

Writing this blog

Those are the main ones. One of the ultimate goals of this experience however, is to encourage more self learning. If while doing any of these activities I should stumble upon something new and interesting, I will pursue that interest. I want to either learn to balance my time wasting with self improving, or simply indulge in different hobbies on the other side of this.

As anyone who has read my previous blogs should know by now, I have no idea how often I will post, or for what duration, but if any of this does interest you, feel free to pester me to post again, should my motivation be lacking. To the beginning of a Renaissance!