New Habit #1: Less Facebook

Facebook is my own version of crack.

Okay, so I know this wasn't part of the original list, but I have decided that Facebook is the source of all evil!! Okay, not really, but it does affect a lot of those bad habits that I'm trying to change.

For instance, one goal I want to accomplish is to be in bed earlier. Resulting in that will be other goals including no more applying make-up in the car, eating a REAL breakfast, having more productive gym time by planning, having more productive time in general by planning, etc etc. Because Facebook sucks up so much time, it leaves me with little time to accomplish those goals.

In order to accomplish those goals I've laid out, I have to curb a certain addictive habit of mine...and that is Facebook. I'm not going to totally do away with getting on it, but rather limit my time to 30-40 minutes per day (excluding weekends). Oh, how I'm SO addicted to Facebook. It's sad, but I eat, sleep, breathe Facebook. It's not that I'm lazy or I don't have a life. It's the fact that I know a lot of people from various places and walks of life and I love to keep up with them. I love looking at an old roomate's photo album of her new baby, I love reading status updates and being in the up-and-up of who's marrying who and who is having a baby, and who just bought a house, or who's going to the beach for the weekend. Heck, I even love spying on jerk ex-boyfriends or the snotty "it" girl from high school, just to see how miserable their lives have turned out (hopefully). Ha, that's terrible, but true! Also, it's a great way to quickly communicate with many people, knowing you'll get an immediate response. I've made a lot of plans through Facebook.

This is why this first habit is the most essential, yet the most difficult. Limit and curb my Facebook time. I don't see anything wrong with Facebook, it's simply that it has become like a Kudzu plant, slowly creeping over my life. I post a status, only to check back a few minutes later to read responses. I'll see an interesting news article or youtube video, which leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another. While waiting for the food to microwave, I'll hop on facebook for "just a few minutes" only to return to the microwave 30 minutes later, cold food awaiting me. I've even had a few burnt suppers and burnt spaghetti noodles thanks to Facebook. Before I get in bed, I'll jump on, and before I know it, it's 11:30 and way past my "bedtime". If I have just 20 minutes before I need to head to the gym or run an errand, I'll log in and then find myself barely making it in time. I'll get on the computer to pay a bill, check my bank account or email, or to mapquest something and somehow I end up on Facebook and completely forgetting why I'm on the computer in the first place.

I whine and complain that I never have "time" to do the ordinary day-to-day stuff, even to blog like I want to, and the fact is I DO have time, I just don't utilize it very wisely. It's something that I've personally become convicted over.

So this began day #1. Not the best day, not the worst day. I set the kitchen timer to 15 minutes, and I did get off when the buzzer rang. However, I remembered I needed to send a friend a facebook email, and then that resulted in me hopping on and off a couple of times to communicate with her. So overall, I've been on for a total of 45 minutes today, which sounds like a lot to many people, but for me that's nothing. So no more facebook for the rest of the day, which is already making me break out into a cold sweat.

Now, I must *ironically* post the link to this story on Facebook, because a lot of my non-blogger friends follow this through my status updates. But that will be *it* for the rest of the day...seriously though. No checking to see who has commented on that link until tomorrow...even though it's gonna bug me all night!