Consume Challenge

The Create/Consume Challenge This is a guest post from my friend Matt. Hes challenging himself to create as much as he consumes next month. The video above has the details cartoon-style (so cool!), and you can read below to hear more of Matts Why and join the challenge yourself! Hi there. My names Matt Shafeek. Im a writer and performer living in New York City, and I have a little life experiment coming up that I want to tell you about. Its called Create / Consume, and Im very excited about it. For the entire month of July 2012, I am committing myself to creating as much as I consume. This means that for every minute I spend watching TV, playing video games or browsing the internet, I have to match that time with a minute of writing, performing, or otherwise creating. This will not be easy. Ill have to keep track of every minute of my free time, and Ill be have to be vigilant about staying ahead of my consumption. But thats precisely the point of doing this to become more aware of how I use my time and to hold myself more accountable for it. I have a strong tendency to misuse my free time. Ill spend hours blowing through my Google Reader, on Facebook, or on my iPhone. I have a pretty unhealthy addiction to Words with Friends and Hero Academy, and I can easily justify spending an afternoon catching up on a season of Breaking Bad. And I certainly would never think to fully deprive myself of these things. Like a dieter who eschews all his favorite delicious meals and desserts, I understand that simply forgoing all of lifes pleasures would be a recipe for disaster. Instead, Im simply looking to find a better balance, because right now the pendulum is simply swinging too far in the wrong direction. Four years ago I decided to give up video games for a year to see what Id do with my time. The goal was to read more, write more, exercise more, cook more and travel more. And I did all those things it was great! I blogged about the whole experience and even got interviewed by a few people when I successfully finished the year. Clearly I enjoy doing this kind of thing. But this time around Im encouraging other people to join me in my wacky little experiment, tweaking it to fit their own needs, and sharing their experience with the world just like Im doing. So how about you? Are you a creative person looking to find better ways to your time? Do you enjoy kooky little life projects in general? Well then hop on board the crazy train with me and lets see what happens. Youre free to make what you want of your Create/Consume experience. I already have a friend who I told about that will be incorporating riding her bike and avoiding using her car for the month, which I think is awesome, and Id totally be doing that too if I owned either of those things. Thats my spiel. Are you curious? Intrigued? Then keep an eye on my blog.  If youre looking to reach out to me, to sign up or ask any questions, email me at createslashconsume@gmail.com, and if youre interested in getting the latest updates on the experiment, follow me on twitter @create_consume. Have a wonderfully productive and/or lazy day. Matt Shafeek is a writer, performer and amateur game designer, though he wouldnt have called himself any of those things 5 years ago. He started (and still maintains) a  blog  in 2008 when he gave up video games for a year, and since then hes focused his attention on all the things he loves to do. He recently got his first short story published and has been performing long form improv regularly at the  Magnet Theater  with his team Phooka for the past 4 years. He also was a client of Michelle Ward and greatly appreciated her amazing work helping him figure out how to make the life he wanted a reality.