This post is to document my experience during the “No Frivolous Internet Challenge” posted about previously here. It will be updated weekly at a minimum for accountability and to give you a LOL, I hope. This challenge runs until at least November 26th, 2022.
Day 1 – Oct 26, 2022
So far, so good. It’s 1:53 pm and I’ve had a fairly productive day. There were only maybe 1-2 instances where I questioned whether my internet activity was frivolous or not. I decided in those instances it was not. HURRAY!
Towards the end of day 1, I felt like I was more present with my kiddo, which was good. I had extra time in the evening to do some French training on Duolingo (haven’t done that for over a year), and go to bed a bit earlier than usual. I had trouble falling asleep, so I read some of my book for book club, which I had not picked up in at least a week! After that, I fell asleep early. Then I was woken up by my child, who could not fall asleep. Then I had to wait to fall asleep again. Ah, the life of a parent.
Day 6 – Monday Oct 31, 2022
I fell off the wagon yesterday. For some reason I broke my frivolous internet fast and went on TikTok AND YouTube, and not for useful stuff like recipes or how to properly change a toliet flush flap thingy. AAGGGGHHHH! Results: only 5 hours of sleep, which was not enough.
Anyway, I’m back on track today. Some good things that have happened in the past 5 days as a result of this challenge:
-
- Read a good amount of my bookclub book
- My house is most definitely cleaner and slightly more organized
- Got more weekly steps on my fitbit than I have in months
- Played 2 board games with my boy, M
- On a 5 day Duolingo streak! Incroyable, mes amis!
Can’t wait to see what I can get done this week!
Day 7 – Tuesday Nov 1, 2022
Today is going fine. Frivolous internet is NOT A THING today. So far. I forgot that one of my goals for November is to do literally all my Christmas tasks before December 1st so that throughout the month of December, I may lounge about and drink wine and eat cheese. I did the Christmas Pledge last year from theartofdoingstuff.com. It helped immensely to lower my stress levels closer to the holiday season. I hope to do even better with it this year! I made my own 2022 Christmas Pledge Calendar, since I had some specific things I wanted to add. In case you want to do something like this, here’s the Calendar I made:
I did do a bit of frivolous internetting this evening, which was spurred by posting to Kitty’s TikTok account. I need to figure out how to post to TikTok without actually looking at any TikTok videos. There is probably some plugin for that.
I also BRIEFLY went on Facebook to tell friends and family about this wild deal at Public Mobile. If you are in Canada, and regardless if you are already a customer or not, they are offering a deal where you get 15 GB of data for $40 per month! This is the SAME PRICE I’m currently paying for 5 GB of data!! I love that Public Mobile offers these kind of deals to existing customers, not just new customers. If you do want to sign up as a new customer, you can use my referral code for a $10 credit. T’s Public Mobile Referral Code: NR2OR4. You need to get your SIM card first, then put this code in while setting up your account to get the $10 credit applied. BooYah!
Day 8 – Wednesday, Nov 2, 2022
I’ve come to realize that any venture into any social media app is going to result in frivolous internet. Debating what to do about that. Maybe I can delete the apps completely. Or look for plugins that block all the juicy content. Why haven’t I done this by now?
Day 14 – Tuesday, Nov 8th, 2022
G’day. Finished my book club book on the weekend. Hurray! I have a 12 day streak on Duolingo. Hurray! I’ve been catching up on my favorite financial podcasts. Hurray! The great thing about financial podcasts is they help me think up new ideas to try in my own financial independence journey. Also, they help me think of new blog posts. A definite win-win.
Now let’s talk about cheating on this challenge. There have been numerous occasions. I’m deleting some apps from my phone completely to generate more friction. Why did I not do this yet? Somehow my brain just “forgets” about the no frivolous internet challenge briefly. Habit, I suppose. Deleting apps should help! The biggest challenge is trying to find things on social media that are not frivolous, and then getting sucked in because I’m “in there”. For example: selling an item on Facebook Marketplace, looking up a recipe on TikTok, or looking for something actually useful on YouTube. I need a way to “remind” myself not to scroll/click mindlessly.
Day 23-ish – Saturday Nov 19th, 2022
Well, there has been some cheating. Ok, a lot of cheating. This challenge has not been taken very seriously towards the latter half. That said – today is a new day! I still havea 22 day streak on Duolingo. Woohoo! I started a new book for book club. I got a few Christmas tasks done. I went on a freakin’ amazing girls weekend in Nova Scotia…pics to come! And ummmmmm I’m not sure what else. It’s 12:18 am and I need to go to bed.