According to the United States Department of Labor, Americans spend almost 3 hours a day watching television. I have seen higher numbers on other sites. But, hey, let’s give our fellow countrymen the benefit of the doubt. Let’s stick with the lower number.
The average American watches television for 3 hours a day.
Consider this:
“Wikipedia took one hundred million hours of volunteer time to create. How do we measure this relative to other uses of time? Well, TV watching, which is the largest use of time, takes two hundred billion hours every year — in the US alone. To put this in perspective, we spend a Wikipedia worth of time every weekend in the US watching advertisements alone. If we were to forgo our television addiction for just one year, the world would have over a trillion hours of cognitive surplus to commit to share projects. Imagine what we could do for the world’s grand challenges with a trillion hours of focused attention.”
– Peter Diamandis in, Abundance
If you are watching an average of 3 hours of television daily, you have all the time you need to learn a new language. You could close this book right now and use this tip alone to learn Latin, or any other language.
But… you like watching television. You have favorite shows you can’t miss!
Fine. Record them. Take one day a week. Watch them. Have fun.
During the other six days of the week, however, leave the T.V. off. Study Latin instead. Or, Italian. Or, Spanish. Just study 3 hours a day.
Why 3 hours a day?
3 hours a day, 6 days a week, equals 18 hours a week. Those 18 hours turn into 72 hours a month. 72 hours a month equals 900 hours a year! (By the way, I am giving you two weeks off a year. You’re welcome. 50 weeks x 18 hours equals 900 hours.)
In Michael Masterson’s book, The Pledge, he states that you need roughly 1,000 hours in any subject to become proficient. Simply by turning the T.V. off, you could become proficient in Latin… in one year.
You just found 900 hours a year! Use those hours to learn a new language, get in shape, or start a business.
You will not really miss T.V. You will thank yourself in the long run.
Happy Saturday!
Dwane
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Dwane Thomas Tip of the Week – July 18, 2015
