Media Overload

As you may know, I work in the Marketing department of a major automotive company. As a perk, I get dozens of free magazines that are left over from the media managers on the floor. I collect so many magazines each month, I find it hard to keep up. Pam has her favorites that I bring home regularly and between us my bag is usually weighed down with one magazine or another every day.

The problem is I’m using so much time reading magazines, that I haven’t read a book in a long while. I should start limiting these magazines and do some real book reading.

I’m also overloaded with music. I have my 40 GB iPod filled to capacity and only listen to a small fraction of the songs. I scan online sources regularly and find lots of new music to download. Podcasting is also demanding more of listening time and it’s hard to keep up with the many “radio” shows on a regular basis. Since iTunes integrated podcasting, subscribing to interesting p-casts is easy than ever.

Then there’s television. With the means to record four shows simultaneously at home (2 Tivo units + Comcast dual tuner DVR), we often have too much stored to keep up with it.

Cellphones, voicemail, email, radio, television, magazines. It’s a media overload for me.

And this is bad. For all the time I “waste” watching TV or reading magazines, I could be outside exercising.

I’m going to develop a plan where I can read, watch TV and listen to music while I’m outside riding on my mountain bike. I’ll be doing all the things I love at the same time.