DeCluttering While Increasing my Dependence on Technology

I don't know about the rest of you, but I never use our phone books anymore. The only circumstances that I can foresee needing them is in the event of a power outage, when I wouldn't be able to access the oh-so-helpful, everything-I-could-possibly-ever-need, storehouse-of-information that is the internets. Occasionally, my in-laws will ask to see a yellow pages and I will kindly direct them to our computer, but I think they're adapting nicely.

I've saved several phone books for present wrapping and yet-to-be-determined craft projects (because we can always use paper), but mostly I recycle them. Which, I know, is the lesser of evils. I'd prefer not to see them at all.

And then, fortuitously, Aurora forwarded me a link about how to opt out of their delivery. I had to actually pick up a phone, make a couple of calls and speak to real live humans, but it didn't take long, like 3 or 4 minutes max.

DEX- 1-877-243-8339 (option 2 when I called)
Yellow Book- 1-800-929-3556
Verizon- 1-800-555-4833

[Actually, she sent me this link like a month or two ago and I'd completely forgotten about making the calls until I was reminded of it this weekend while Jeff and I were cleaning the garage (inspired by Chile's Cut the Crap, Declutter-a-thon that I've been participating in for weeks before I knew she was even doing it). Jeff said about the yet to be recycled pile of phone books, something along the lines of... "you can get yourself on a list to keep telemarketers from bothering you, but you can't stop them from delivering phone books". Hummm. That sounds familiar. Don't I know a way to actually do just that?]

So, I've made all the calls this morning and will now be forever phone book free.

I am now going to follow up that helpful information with thoughts about how dependent on technology I have become (you know, in an unhealthy way, not the phone book saving way).

As I believe I've mentioned before, I'm a walking contradiction.

You may have noticed that last month I agreed to participate in a Technology Free day (once a week) that was suggested over at Elements in Time. I know how easily both the computer and the tv can suck away time that would be better spent living life.

While pondering this, I've thought of a lot of situations in which my brain expects technology to save the day, instances in which I've become mentally dependent. I've talked to my siblings about this and here's what we've come up with.

1) I have a DVR on my tv (which is basically like TiVo, in that we can pause, rewind and replay anything we're watching). Because of this, I expect to be able to do the same thing with, honest to God, people.

2) My brother Tommy was standing in the pharmacy, scanning the shelves for a particular cold medicine and he had the urge to use Control F (find) option to locate it. I, myself, have often felt this way with printed text. And, seriously, wouldn't that be great for lost keys and glasses?

3) Jenny's had instances in which she would love to have a Control Z (except she says Command Z cause she uses a Mac and all) to allow her to undo whatever she just did. I must not make the kind of life and death decisions that she does because this has never occurred to me.

4) I can think of quite a few art projects (or household chores) in which Copy & Paste would come in extra handy. Yah, all that effort and thought I just expending on that last thing, could I just quickly repeat it again and again? I've folded one basket of laundry, now just copy it with a Control C and now apply right here to the next basket of laundry with a Control V. And done. Oh, there's another basket of laundry, well Control V again.

Oh, the genius of it.