Something that I’ve realized today (or am seeing more clearly) is that my mind loves to think up creative ways and excuses to waste time. In the past I’ve been somewhat proud about the fact that I don’t waste time watching much television. But what I’m realizing is that often I’m wasting just as much time per day as if I had watched television.

For me, my biggest problem is probably the internet. Not so much blogging or actually doing productive activities, but just doing what I call “rabbit trailing” on the web. What happens is that I’m usually in the midst of working on something that I should be doing and then I decide that I need to be distracted for a bit and so my mind will conjure up something that I absolutely need to check on, like the weather or the stock market, or the headline news. And so I check one of those “critical” items, and then I inevitably happen upon a link to another critical item that I had not thought about previously, and so I click on that link, while I simultaneously open another tab on the browser to search for an idea or person that popped into my head from one of the articles that I just read. Before long I’ve got 17 tabs open, all of course full of mission-critical information that I had to know right now. Once 2-3 hours have gone by, I begin to realize that maybe I haven’t just been engaged in the most productive of activities.

And so this has been a common pattern in how I approach spending my time. I am continually lured into internet rabbit trailing by my evil and wicked heart that does not want to focus on that which is truly meaningful and important. I’d rather tickle my ears and thoughts with entertaining morsels of gossip and quench my thirst for fantasizing about Seattle actually having a good sports team or about me being a presidential debater or someone else that I will never be. Maybe I should just focus on being me and doing what God has given me to do? But that would be too easy then, now would it?