The Greening of Gavin

The Secret of My Success

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I often get asked by readers, how I find the spare time to blog, podcast, make videos, garden, and be a more sustainable person.

Usually I don’t give it a second thought because I love my lifestyle and wouldn’t have it any other way, however I do have a big secret that I am willing to share.  Yes, a secret.

What would you say if I told you that this secret can give you back over 720 hours a year?  That’s nearly fourteen hours a week, or just over two hours a day.  Every single day.

What would it feel like to suddenly find 30 days of spare time per year?  Time that you could build a more sustainable lifestyle, and spend with family and friends.  Quality time to do the things that matter.

Wouldn’t that be simply amazing?

Well folks, it is.  Here is my little secret that changed my productivity.

I stopped watching television.  Yes, it is as simple as that!

On average, Australians watch between 2 and 4 hours of television a day.  A 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics study found that;

“TV watching/listening was found to be the activity which took up most people’s leisure time. On a daily basis 87% of Australians watched or listened to TV for an average of just under 3 hours (179 minutes)”

I realise the the readership of this blog is probably in the 13% that don’t watch that much telly, but those stats just blow my mind.  It may have changed a little since the survey, but not by much I reckon.
Personally, I have so much free time to do all the things that I do.  
And so can you!  All you have to do is pry yourself off of the couch or sofa, walk over to the screen and turn it off.  It is as simple as that.
So that is what I did. 
Don’t get me wrong, we still have a screen so I can watch eco documentaries, and the odd entertaining movie (and Star Trek or Dr Who), but that is it.  It also runs on minimal electricity for the short time we use it.
 Kim does watch the odd show, but she tells me that is just to make sure that it is still crappy as ever!  A kind of a regular reality check for her.

So I watch no commercial television, ever.  It makes my skin crawl with its advertisements and product placement, trying to suck people into buying rubbish they just don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t really like.
Wendy Brown  recently discussed television advertising in her post “Five Easy Ways to Save Money“;

“So, how does this save the average person money? Well, in a lot of ways. First, television commercials are designed to make us want. They appeal to our emotions in ways that are hard to ignore, making us feel like we are inadequate of we don’t have A, B or C product, or that we are depriving our children the key to their eternal happiness, or whatever the emotion the commercials evoke. Make no mistake, advertisers are professionals in psychological manipulation. It’s their job to get you to want whatever it is they’re selling, and they are completely unscrupulous in the actions they will take to make you believe that what they have is what you need.”

Ne’er a wiser word said about television advertising.

So how have you rid yourself of television and become more productive?  I am sure I am not the only one holding the reins of this secret.  I would love to hear your story via comment.

Burning The Candle…

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This lifestyle that I have chosen is not an idle one, which is not a complaint by the way.  It just is the way it is, and I love it.

So what have I been doing, and how do I manage to cram it all into a 24 hour day?

Well my day job takes up a vast majority of the day (2 hours of commuting, 9 hours in the office), so keep that in mind while I list the things I have done so far this week.  By the way, it hasn’t really been a busy one, so maybe I will do this exercise once a month.

  • Saturday – Fed chooks, Made cream cheese, Gardening, Archery Lesson, Cooked dinner for family (veggie curry).
  • Sunday – Fed chooks, Remedial gym session, Rest, research for cheese making book, finish off making cream cheese, Finalised six monthly workshop schedule for Melton Sustainable Living Group with Kim, then wrote and published Blog post.
  • Monday (public holiday) – Fed chooks, Garden maintenance, cleaned out chicken houses, wrote two blog posts and scheduled one on the Little Green Cheese blog, researched soft cheese.
  • Tuesday – Fed chooks, Commute, Work, wrote introduction chapter for cheese making eBook, eBook marketing, researching ideas for future podcasts.
  • Wednesday – Fed chooks, Commute, Work, research for cheese eBook  finished off book 1 of The Rangers Apprentice (thanks Dawn for the recommendation), formatted cheese eBook draft manuscript and added all cheese recipes, harvested dinner with Kim. 
  • Thursday – Fed chooks, Commute, Work, bought some more bird netting for Tomatoes, Committee meeting for Melton Sustainable Living Group, this blog post, start recording new podcast intro.

In amongst all these things listed above, I am constantly looking for new ideas for blog posts, thinking about our rapidly changing climate and resource depletion, and attempting to understand what things may be like in the future (but I don’t let it get me down), when these things hit our society in the face.

Also, as you can see, there is no mention of watching TV in there, because there is no room for it in my busy schedule.  In fact, it is because of the fact that I don’t watch TV that I have the time to do all of these things.  Life just seems a lot fuller, so much more satisfying, and without boredom.

So next time someone asks me how do I manage to fit in all the stuff that I do, I will just point them to this post!  I know from experience that you get so much more of your life back without the idiot box in it!

Are you beginning to get more things done by weaning yourself from TV time?