No cable? Are you crazy?

I’m almost three weeks into my no-cable experiment, and it’s time for an evaluation.

The main reason to cancel it in the first place, was to force self-discipline upon me in a way that I could not seem to achieve on my own. Admittedly, I come from a family that’s really big on TV – I don’t think my dad could survive long without electricity (a 2-hour blackout left him baffled – he took a nap). But my primary problem is that I would turn on the TV for background noise, as many people do, get hooked into a show, and another, and another. And suddenly, hours later, I found I had long-surpassed any hope of a reasonable night’s sleep. This, of course, led to rushed mornings, being late to the office, and a complete lack of productivity both at home and at work.

So, I pulled the plug. And yes, there have been nights when I’ve been tempted to go hang out at my parents’ house for the evening (and nights where I’ve succumbed to said temptation). But overall, I’m happy with the results – I go to bed earlier, get up earlier and find it easier to do so, have more energy both at work and in the evenings, and am actually accomplishing things proactively, instead of in crisis mode.

Of course, I still do need to practice self-discipline (evidenced by the fact that I’m typing this at 1:30am in the morning). But removing the temptations of TV and the Internet are working well, and when I do stay up late, I’m doing productive things (like cleaning up the office that somehow exploded while I’ve been sleepwalking around these last few months).

I do plan to camp out in front of either my parents’ or friends’ TVs during the upcoming March Madness games.