Stop staring at the screen all day, nerd

I love what I do, I really do. The internet changed everything. I’m old enough to remember using dial-up as both a teen AND a young adult. We had Windows 98 in high school. eBay was brand new; Amazon was a place where you hocked your used textbooks (I made a killing doing that!).

Now, you can make a six-figure living online with no college degree (college is going the way of the buffalo, hopefully). Just WiFi and a winner’s attitude. But it is a double-edged sword.

When it’s 65° and sunny, with a fresh breeze rolling across the prairie, the last place I want to be is sitting in the office, staring out the window. Yesterday, my fingers flew across the keyboard to wrap up my workday.

Look, WiFi money is awesome. I love it. But truth be told, I’d rather be playing around on my tractor, or digging around in the garden. So that’s exactly what I did.

My 13-year-old daughter, Nat, already knows what’s up. She hates screens and has requested we find a curriculum she can use that isn’t computer- or web-based. Now that is based.

She is determined to live on our 20-acre property, raising chickens and goats, growing gardens, and eventually growing kids out here. And I couldn’t be happier. So yesterday, we grabbed a go bag full of tools and made more garden beds out of some scrap lumber from our old deck I demoed.

She didn’t know how to use a circular saw, so we grabbed eye and ear pro, and she learned with a quickness. We also talked about how to use a carpenter square, why carpenter pencils are flat, and how to use a Sawzall to finish cuts on larger pieces of lumber when the circular saw doesn’t cut all the way through. Very practical stuff that will serve her well for years.

While she was at this, the other kids wanted to get in on the action, so my 11 y/o son went to scooping up chicken manure for the compost bins while my 7 y/o daughter wetted down cardboard for the lasagne method of no-till gardening.

There is plenty of time for me to explain how to get your business going and make good money on the internet, but what’s the point if you don’t act on it?

I use it to leverage time and get rid of a commute. My commute was over 36,000 miles per year, and I spent over 750 hours a year in my car—that’s over a month per year in my car. In the past three years, I’ve literally gotten three months of my life back. That’s why it’s worth it to me.

But before we talk about those points, just go outside and get some fresh air. Talk to ya tomorrow, friends.