-Reading stuff on your phone is very different from reading a book. I usually am of the opinion that all reading is good, but I learned that I am not the same person if you interrupt me when I'm reading a book versus on my phone. Something about reading on your phone, you never know if the article will suddenly go away (or get taken over by a pop-up ad! 😡) or how long the article actually is. Yes, you might try to guess based on how big the scroll bar thingy is, but you never really know if that's including all the advertisements at the end, or comments if you're the type to get sucked into reading those (YES, I am totally guilty of that!). Or if there's going to be some OTHER fascinating article that you have to click on next... (Guilty of that, too!) So it's a double-edged sword, because I'll be annoyed that you're interrupting me and trying to put you off until I finish reading, but the fact is that I'll never really finish, because there will always be some next thing to click on to keep me reading. With my book, on the other hand, I can see very clearly that there's still 300 pages left to go (currently reading Hawaii by James A. Michener, so that's not an exaggeration!), there's absolutely no chance that I will finish it in the next five minutes, so I don't really mind being interrupted. (Note that this is not true if I'm in the last 20 pages of a book. Then you'd better just leave me alone.)
So if I'm reading a book, I'm a lot less grumpy over interruptions. Less grumpy me = better mommy. This is good to be aware of.
-As much as I want to be an informed voter, the fact is, it may not actually be all that important. It sort of pains me to say this, but it's true. I'm not saying you shouldn't be an informed voter! (Although Michele Obama just said that that was a-okay, so even if I were saying that, you still couldn't get mad at me.) But it turns out that I have never once voted on abortion. Or gay marriage. Or health care. Or the legalization of marijuana. I didn't vote on Kavanaugh. None of those issues have ever been on my ballot. My state didn't swing the way I voted in the last three presidential elections. So me obsessively following these issues probably doesn't matter a whole lot. I will still vote, and I'll still research the issues before election day, but I don't need to turn all obsessive over it all. My vote only counts as much as the next
-TV is fun, but it's also a big time suck. I know that sounds like the most obvious statement ever, but hear me out here: something about Netflix and the fact that there are SO MANY GREAT SHOWS to watch (ELEVEN SEASONS of Frasier!!!!) makes me want to watch as much as I possible can, all the time. You might even say that I "binge" on my favorite shows. (Call me crazy!) I adore Frasier and think it's a marvelous show. But it's not going away. I don't need to watch three episodes or more at night to feel like I got my money's worth with my Netflix subscription. Calm down. Breathe. Crack open that book.
Not watching tv for a bit gave me a lot more time to do my other night-time chores (dishes, packing lunches-- boring stuff that needs to get done) without panicking or feeling aggravated because I was missing out. And that was a nice feeling. I like my book. I like not feeling rushed. I felt better.
-I don't need to be on my phone before the kids leave for school. The very first day we were doing this, my morning was markedly different: I got up, made lunches for the kids, and then I just sat on the couch for a bit and DIDN'T STARE AT MY PHONE. And then the usual thing happened: the kids kept finding papers in their bags that I needed to sign or they wanted to show me, and I calmly looked at and signed everything and it was no big deal. But I realized that normally this feels like a very aggravating process (because my default setting in the morning is grumpy). But without the phone, I didn't really mind. And I thought to myself, There is nothing on that phone that can't at least wait until they've left for school. Nothing.
So I'm trying to keep the phone put away until they're gone. That's easier for everyone.
So there you go! Lessons learned! Let's see if I can remember them or if we'll have to do this all over again in a few months!
1 comment:
Great thoughts! Though I'm pretty sure I get equally annoyed at interruptions regardless of my reading medium. :)
Politically, I try to put most of my energy into being informed about local things. But even those are difficult - we have an initiative about de-escalation training on our ballot, which sounds great on the surface. But I know our LEO already get some training on this, so how do I find out if they get enough/good quality/etc? Turns out, there are no easy places to find data, and all the research I quickly found on it doesn't go into detail about what specifically is most effective. So you just end up feeling aware of how little you know, rather than the issue you're voting on! I still vote, obviously, but I'm working to not beat myself up over not putting all the effort in to deeply understand every issue. It's okay to just do my best with the time I have.
With TV, grad school was a good way to ID what I actually want to spend my time on there. Some shows I was diligently watching prior to school, I just have zero motivation to catch up on now that I'm done. It's been nice to have a bit of a reset with all of that. I felt oddly guilty about some of them initially, but realized that was ridiculous. If I don't want to watch it, I don't need to!
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