Switch off, not over

At the Do Lectures in 2009, Geoff McFetridge's 'Big Do' was "throw away your television". IMHO, living without a TV is one of the best decisions about day to day living that anyone can make - if you're up on your subject, nothing on TV will be news - in fact far from it - the gap between an event and 'news' is often, in my experience best judged in years rather than weeks, days or minutes.

Seth Godin's blog today was on the same topic:

But it's better than TV

At the local health food store lunch buffet, they offer stir fried tempeh.

I never get it. Not because I don’t like it, but because there are always so many other things on the buffet that I prefer.

That's why I don't watch TV. At all. There are so many other things I'd rather do in that moment.

Broadcast TV was a great choice when a> there weren't a lot of other options and b> when everyone else was watching the same thing, so you needed to see it to be educated.

Now, though, you could:

• Run a little store on eBay
• Write a daily blog
• Write a novel
• Start an online community about your favorite passion
• Go to meetups in your town
• Volunteer to tutor a kid, in person or online
• Learn a new language, verbal or programming
• Write hand written thank you notes each evening to people who helped you out or did a good job
• Produce small films and publish them online
• Listen to the one thousand most important operas
• Read a book or two every evening
• Play a game a Scrabble with your family

None of them are perfect. Each of them are better than TV.