HAVE YOU EVER HAD the experience, during a power outage or on a vacation, of finally having the time to really enjoy a conversation or read a good book and find yourself thinking, “Why don’t I do that more often?”

Why? Because the easy entertainments and products of our modern world are always enticing, and, of course, there are always chores that need to be done.

Some famous authors have written their books while in jail. I’ve often thought what a great opportunity they had. They lived in circumstances highly conducive to writing (because there wasn’t much else to do). And here I am, stuck in civilization with all its temptations. Poor little me.

But there is a way to create some of the same kinds of experiences without power outages or jail time. Human beings have been successfully using a simple and very effective method for thousands of years. It is simply to forbid things.

Today, for example, I have forbidden TV for myself. And I’ve already written more today than I have in the last week. It works. And there’s nothing forced about it. I don’t feel I have to write. I want to. Once I take away the nonstop seduction of the television, the most interesting and fun thing available is writing. Forbidding a distraction simply opens up the time I have available to do the things I really want.

Try it. Take the thing you do that wastes the most time or creates the lowest-quality experience and forbid it for a day. You don’t have to make it permanent. Simply forbid it for tomorrow or for the rest of today. I think you’ll like the result.

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