During the month of October, I’m following along with Edie & Ruth on their 31 Days of Less & More journey. I’d love for you to join in by reading the posts and completing the projects, or just sit back and read along each day.
Less Television
According to statistics, the average American watches over 30 hours of television per week. That’s a LOT of time!
Stop to think what you could do with that time. You could keep your house in amazing shape. You could exercise more. You could cook from scratch. You could have a profitable side business. You could write a book. You could invest in some close relationships.
The sky is the limit with what you could do with 30 hours per week!
I think we’d all agree that, in most cases, there are more productive things to do than to spend hours and hours each week sitting in front of a black box. But we have to be intentional in setting up our days so that television-watching doesn’t become our default.
Here are three practices that have helped us:
1. Turn It Off!
Okay, so this seems like a no-brainer, but how often do you have the TV on in the background as you go about your day? Try just turning it off. It will mean less distraction and less noise in your day — which doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me!
2. Don’t Pay for Cable
This is another simplistic tip, but it really works! If you can’t get that many shows on your TV, there’s a lot less temptation to turn it on or channel surf.
2. Have Set Times for Watching
We don’t watch a lot of TV, but we do have Movie Time at 5 p.m. every day. Establishing a specific time for having the TV on at our house has been so beneficial as then I don’t have to field questions all day on “when can we watch a movie”? And also, it provides a lot of motivation for our kids to get their school and chores done by 5 p.m.! 🙂
More Reading
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of reading. In fact, I enjoy it so much that I sometimes put it as a higher priority than sleep (which I don’t recommend!).
Making good books a part of your life isn’t something that will just naturally happen. Again, it’s something you need to be intentional about — especially if you’re not much of a reader.
Challenge yourself to read for 15 minutes when you get up in the morning or when you go to bed at night. Listen to audiobooks while you’re driving or working around the house. Read aloud as a family.
Set small goals to make reading a part of your everyday life. I promise it will be worth the effort!
For more ideas, check out my post on 15 Ways to Fit More Reading Into Your Day.
For more on this topic, check out Ruth’s post on Less Television and Edie’s post on More Gratitude. I promise you’ll be inspired and blessed!
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it 
