Killing my TV habits

I watch a lot of TV. I have several shows that I like that come on at certain times during the week, and I'm not always home to watch them. However, I do have DVR (Digital Video Recording) and when I come home from work, I sometimes sit in front of the tube and catch up on all my shows. Well, sometimes this can take hours.

I'm not proud of this fact, so I'm doing something about it.

I am more than halfway through a 30-day challenge involving my diet, and I have seen tremendous benefits from it. I am eating healthier, feeling better and performing well in my workouts. I want to do something similar that involves cutting TV out of my life, so I can use my time much more constructively and subsequently become a better person. Therefore, starting on Tuesday, November 3rd, I will be starting the 30-day TV Challenge! What's involved? Glad you asked! Here are the rules (I wrote it with the perspective of more than one person doing this challenge):

- For 30 days, television and movie watching will be extremely limited in the following ways:

- Each day, you are allowed to watch only one television show, regardless of the length (30 minutes, 2 hours, etc.) OR one movie, regardless of the length. If it is a mini-series, you can watch only one episode of the series at a time.

- Once you have watched your show or movie, you are not allowed to watch any more TV for the rest of that day.

- Exceptions include major news events (please don’t loosely define “major” for yourself; the point is to drastically limit your television watching).

- While you are not watching TV, fill your time with something productive and beneficial to you (you are limited only by your imagination)

- Video games count as TV watching. If you choose to substitute playing video games for your daily TV show or movie, you are allowed a maximum of 30 minutes per day.

- If you go a full day without watching TV, playing video games or watching a movie, great! However, your unwatched TV time does not carry over to the next day. Only one show, movie or 30 minute block of video game time per day.

- If you use the TV to help you develop a specific skill, you are not under a TV time limit. For example, if you are learning how to play piano and there is a TV show that specifically teaches you how to play piano, and you watch that show while practicing the piano, you can watch as much of that show as you like (as long as you’re practicing developing that skill!). If you choose to do this, this counts as your TV watching for the day.

- If you decide to cheat, you’re only cheating yourself out of being a better person.

This will be tough for me, and no doubt will I be tempted to cheat. However, there are so many tings I want to do and see done, and watching TV takes away from the time I could be spending doing those things. This is primarily for me, but if you are interested in doing this challenge with me, let me know and we'll improve ourselves together.

Thanks for reading and feel free to give me a call; I'm a lot more likely to answer, now that I won't be watching near as much of the idiot box. ;)