Controlling Distractions

It's amazing how much we can learn from our children if we just stop and pay attention.  My teenage son Eric is in the midst of a big two weeks.  On Saturday, he competed in the first half of our county's Academic Decathlon competition and it will finish off next Saturday with a day full of tests and the "superquiz".

Eric's already a pretty busy guy, performing in three different music ensembles at school and balancing a host of other activities.  How he manages it all, I'm not sure - at seventeen he's already a master of personal productivity.  Sometimes it's not pretty, but the kids definitely "gets things done".

So this week, Eric has declared a self-imposed moratorium on Facebook.  He knows he's going to need extra time for study this week, and sees the distraction that his favorite online playground can be mentally and timewise.

I'm wondering how many of us, anticipating a week of big projects or deadlines, would have the mental focus to declare our Facebook status to be: "is going a week without Facebook, starting right now" as Eric has.  We reward ourselves with visits to our favorite social networking sites, video games, or other time wasters for "just a few minutes as a break" and can end up more stressed than ever - I speak from personal experience here!

I'm not going to predict how long Eric will actually keep himself off of Facebook, I'm just proud of him for being mature enough to recognize the need to manage his time productively.  One of the two of us will likely be ready when it's time for him to go off to college...