I’m not too good at math sometimes, but procrastination is a four-letter word.

I read something the other day by David McCasland where he wrote, “…it takes as much energy to avoid a task as it does to do it. Procrastination saps power; completion gives relief.”

Dang it. He’s right.

Procrastination saps every part of our lives, from work, to leisure, to relationships, and to contributing to the greater good.

This made me think about Clay Shirky.Mr. Shirky writes about the social and economic effects of Internet technology and has a book that I’d like to get a hold of. At any rate, a reviewer of this book on Amazon, Alyson had this to say:

Shirky suggests that the historical barriers to collaboration (principally time, expense, and the ability to easily find like-minded people) have been largely stripped away, enabling us to make better use of the unused brain cells (our cognitive surplus) made dormant by TV addiction.

Not only do we have a cognitive surplus, we also have a surplus of time! Many will call me crazy for writing that last sentence, but if we strip away the unnecessary things we’ve added to our lives, we probably have more “free time” than we realize.

Marriage in the crapper? Make time to make it better.
Kids growing up too quickly? Stop and spend the evening with them.
Have friends you haven’t seen in 25 years? Go see them!
Always say, “We should go there.”? Go there!
Want to volunteer somewhere? What’s stopping you?

We have the time and resources to do what was unheard of less than a generation ago. What will you do with it?
~TV STiNKS

What would you do if I said you could have more free time than you can imagine in 2010? Would you go back to school? Spend more time with your family? Start a business on the side? (Right, Pamela Slim?) Get a good night’s sleep?

I don’t have time for anything else. How often do we say that? It’s a pretty lame excuse that we give for not doing something to step out of our comfort zone for a little self-improvement. Our day seems to fill up with all the trivialities of life and there seems to be no time.

If you’re like the average American, however, the time killer is most likely your TV. Americans spend an average of four hours a day in front of the TV. Four hours of sitting and not doing. We don’t make resolutions to sit more. We make resolutions to do more. Four hours is 1/6 of a day. One-sixth of a year is TWO MONTHS. I’ll write that again because it’s so crazy: TWO MONTHS!

Want sixty more days in 2010 than you’ve ever had? Put your TV in a closet and leave it there. Sell it to some poor chap who doesn’t have the gumption to stop sitting and start doing. Get out of the rut you’re in, change the dynamics of your family, and begin to find life away from the television.

P.S. If you’re crazy enough to try this little (admittedly) non-conforming experiment, let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you and offer encouragement to keep it up!
~TV STiNKS