Skip to main content

Distracted

Technology, especially the computer and Internet, have greatly improved my life. It has become so much a part of my day-to-day that I don't really even think about how much my life is enhanced and improved by the Internet. I believe this is likely true for all of you out there in cyberworld as well.

There is a downside I've been thinking a lot about recently. Distraction.
I am like a school kid with ADD when I come to my computer in the morning. I want to stay on task, I really do but the Internet is ripe with tempting diversions.

This morning for instance, I went online to check my email and Facebook. I went to Facebook where a friend posted a funny video that leads me to You Tube where I get lost amongst similar gems. After several minutes - maybe 20 or 30 - I remember to check my email and log onto my home page where OOOO look, look over here on my home page there is a link to the NPR story I only got a chance to hear the end of yesterday, now I can listen to the whole thing. It's a story about a book I was curious about, so I go to Amazon to search for the book and Amazon conveniently has listed some of their suggestions which includes the book I was curious about and others I had yet heard about, so I start to click on the books and learn more. I put them in the Wish List and then see that Amazon has started this Universal Wish List - which means I can add items from almost any other site to my Amazon list. Well, heck, I have to give that a try. So I go to J Jill and find that I can use the Amazon feature with J Jill! I'm so thrilled that I start looking - and I'll be darned but there's a huge, huge sale with free shipping and 15% off my entire purchase. Well, I didn't really need anything but heck such a deal.

After a few moments, I wonder why I'm shopping on J Jill and remember that I don't need anything. Wasn't it that Dave Ramsey book I read parts of that talked about scaling back and only getting what you need? I can't recall, so I go back to Amazon to check if that's the book and remember my reason for going to the J Jill site. But I cannot remember what brought me originally to the Amazon site. I look through that site's wish list and see the book I heard about on NPR! I better order that, I think, before I forget again. Now what was that other book or author I came to Amazon for?

I can't recall so I go back to my email account. There is an email from a teacher that reminds me I need to log on to the school site to check grades. For both schools - different districts.  By the time I'm done with that, I see that I have now spent 90 minutes on the computer and haven't completed one thing I needed to complete. Which was???

From now on, before I sit down in front of this attention-grabbing-distraction-causing technological wonder, I will have to make a to-do list. Or I'll never get anything done!

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Francis of Assisi would run away from home if he lived here!

The title might be a bit extreme - Francis might just go to his room and shut the door and put a pillow over his head to silence the 'noise'. I have done that on occasion. And not because I have toddlers, or a kid that plays the drums or even really loud kids - it's because I live in a house where there is one lawyer, one law school student, and two more potential lawyers. And me - the one singing "Let there be peace on earth . . ." The other four Piggins family members enjoy debating. Sometimes, I think for the sake of the debate. John, Michael, Matthew and Delaney seem to really like these 'discussions'. For instance, we were watching a television show recently - I cannot even recall which one, but it seemed fairly bland - when one of the barrister Piggins made a comment that inspired disagreement from another barrister Piggins. That inspired another from another. And then one more from another until the four of them were debating on some point that wa...

You don't know me . . .

I stopped blogging for awhile. I know some might think that I was being lazy, or overly-involved in some community or school venture or in the middle of some really good books or projects. While all of those are true, that's not the main reason. I stopped because it felt strange to be somewhere and have someone refer to something I wrote. It was like they knew a secret about me (though secrets are not usually published on the Web) that I hadn't shared with them. Though in reality I had shared because I wrote it on the blog.  Truth be told, I don't know who reads this - I have a smattering of followers but a lot more readers. Blogger lets me see how many page views for each posting and I can even tell the referral site. The most I have had for any post was 152 and I've had readers from as far away as New Zealand (thank you Gretchen) and Alaska. Most readers are referred through Facebook. I know that if I were more diligent, I could market the crap out of the blog ...

Struggling to not feel like a failure

Okay all of you 'struggling to stand' or 'not wanting to have to use a wheelchair' or others that look upon using a wheelchair as a symbol of failure, you're about to get punched. Punched in the figurative sense. I am about to go on my soap box and my Irish is up which means that I'm fairly peeved (though I've been mulling this over for awhile so I'm not as angry as I once was, which means there will be fewer expletives and a kinder tone). If you've read this blog or know me at all, you know that I did not go easily into using a wheelchair as my primary mode of transport. I too, may have had a little bit of your attitude about the wheelchair being sign of failure or of having given up. My sister, Kerri, helped put it in a different light. She said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "It's actually an energy saver since walking is stressful and you're worried about falling - using a wheelchair will take away a lot of that stress. You will hav...