Due to my transient, military-brat upbringing, I spent many of my formative years in small, remote towns. We didn’t have TV, shopping malls, McDonalds, or movie theatres – in other words, many of the things young people like to do to “kill time”. I think my lack of big-city luxuries served me well, because it forced me to find other things to occupy my time. I read voraciously. I got into music. I went outside right after breakfast and came back in when the streetlights came on at night.

I didn’t “kill time”. I used the time when I wasn’t focused on school to do, explore, invent, create, imagine and play. In my house, we weren’t allowed to be bored, and we weren’t allowed to spend hours on end in front of the TV (we only had one channel anyway, so there wasn’t much point).

So I guess it stands to reason, that as a grownup, I have a tremendous dislike for the words “killing time”. Yet, there are so many ways we find to do just that.

Our lives are full of distractions, the stuff that drags us away from the real work and the real life experiences. Our television screens are full of sensationalist news stories and obnoxious reality TV. Our computer screens are full of social networks and cat videos. It’s like a bad sitcom. You want to stop watching but you can’t tear yourself away, for fear you might miss something horrible.

When I put it that way, it sounds a little sick, eh? But we’ve all been there, and we’ve all done it. We’ve all simply “killed time”. And the problem with killing time is, we end up with absolutely nothing to show for it at the end.

Not enough hours.

We have no time, yet we kill so much of it. Think about the past couple of days. Make a list (mental is fine, but it’s really more effective if you write it out) of the things you did to kill time during those days – how much you slept and napped, how much TV you watched, how much fluff you read, and how much mindless internet surfing you did, how much Angry Birds you played. Consider anything that was unproductive and didn’t achieve anything. Now, add up those hours. If you’re like me when I slip into “killing time” mode, you probably end up with between 1 and 4 hours a day of “killed time”.

1 to 4 hours a day. Seems like we could get some serious stuff done with that time, eh? So much for not having enough hours. Put down the remote. The next season of Breaking Bad can wait.

What to do with all those hours.

Here’s an incomplete list of things you can do with all that killed time you just recouped. Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments:

That should give you a start. Pick a few things from this list and jot them down somewhere. Then, in the next week, whenever you find yourself slipping into “killing time” mode, grab one of the things off the list and do that instead. Report back on the results, ok?

I promise you’ll be more energized, rested, inspired, and happy.

[photo by kidicarus222]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Responses

  1. Great thoughts. It is crazy when you think about how much time one spends doing mindless things ( aka tv)

    You have presented a simple way of discovering how much time one has lost and putting that time to good use.

    What is your favourite thing to do with your recouped time?

  2. I had dinner Monday night at a friend’s house and they have no television. Married couple in their 60s with occasional kids who stay with them when not in college; and no TV.

    The idea of killing time goes ancestral.

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