Upāsaka

One of the worst ways to spend your time if you are aiming to cultivate a focused, attentive mind is to browse the web. Browsing the web is the antithesis of a focused mind.

You're bored, you go on Facebook, click a few links, read (or skim) a few articles. You've exhausted your news feed, so you see what's trending on YouTube and end up watching a few (dozen) videos. You hop from site to site looking for entertainment or excitement, sometimes finding it, sometimes not. At the end of it all, you probably don't even remember what you read or what you watched, and you certainly won't remember it a few months from now. So why did you spend all that time browsing the web in the first place?

After reading a post on Cal Newport's blog about how he does not browse the web, I was inspired to do the same. A year later, I don't have the slightest inclination to browse the web, and the benefits have been immeasurable. For example, instead of wasting one hour by looking at websites, I filled up that time by reading a physical book. One hour a day may not seem like much in terms of browsing the web, but reading a book for one hour a day leads to some serious progress. You'll go through books faster than you thought you could, and it won't feel like you're spending too much time reading. And if you're like me, you will remember the books you read a year ago and the lessons you learned from them. Answer this question right now (if you have watched YouTube videos in the past year, thinking that you might gain some benefit): what is the topic of one video you watched about a year ago, and what did you learn from it? Can you even remember what you watched one year ago? It's much easier to do this with a book that has a compelling narrative and goes deep into a topic.

Practically speaking, if you find that you have plenty of time to browse the web, consider what other activities you could do during that time. What goals have you always wanted to accomplish, but never started working towards? Break down those goals into tasks that you can practice on a daily basis, during the time that you would usually browse the web. Within a year, you'll be surprised at the progress you have made.