In which the intrepid Justin Fox demonstrates how avoiding one task forces you to begin avoiding all sorts of related tasks in order to help you avoid the first tax:
For days, sometimes even weeks at a time, I use Google Reader to keep up with the 16 blogs whose feeds I've subscribed to. There are many other blogs and news sources that might be useful to me, but I don't subscribe to them because of what happens already with my mere 16 feeds: I miss a day, or two, of checking Google Reader, and then the sheer number of unread posts begins to weigh upon me. I start actively avoiding Google Reader. I see the link on my browser toolbar and it shames me. I don't click on it. I stop looking at my browser toolbar. I stop looking at my browser. Etc.
Etc, assumedly, goes something like "stop looking at my computer, stop looking at my study, stop looking at my house, stop looking at my family." And the sad part is it's all -- sob! -- true.
But I can solve Justin Fox's Google Reader problem: Set yourself up with not one, but two, blogs, and convince yourself they need a combined 10-15 posts of content per day. Ignore all evidence that your posting frequency and, indeed, quality, has no discernible impact on any available metrics of success or accomplishment. Realize you do not have 10-15 thoughts per day. Soon, you will obsessively consume not only the blogs on your list, but dozens more, in your desperate search for other thoughts that you can pass off as your own.
