The Camera Test: What Would a Week of Footage Reveal About You?
My dad used to call them Vidiots.
People glued to screens, consuming hours of content, staring at nothing in particular while life passed them by. Back then it was just television. Now it's everything.
Netflix. TikTok. Instagram. YouTube rabbit holes. Reddit threads. News feeds that refresh forever.
Digital Opiates
They work exactly like the real thing. They numb you. They make time disappear. They give you just enough dopamine to feel like something is happening—when nothing is happening at all.
Here's a thought experiment:
Imagine someone observing you while you sit on the couch watching TV. But not from behind you—from the front. Their vantage point only sees you. Not the screen. Just you, sitting there, staring forward.
What do they see?
Nothing happens. Maybe some slight eye movement. An occasional trip to the kitchen for a snack. A shift in position. But no real activity. No production. No creation. No movement toward anything.
Hours pass. Nothing changes.
Now imagine that observer recorded you for an entire week. Every evening. Every weekend afternoon. Every "quick scroll" that turned into an hour.
What would that footage reveal?
I spent 12 years as an internal auditor for Costco Wholesale. Certified in Six Sigma, LEAN, Kaizen—every process improvement methodology with a name. My job was evaluating how things actually worked versus how people thought they worked.
The gap was always bigger than anyone expected.
People are no different. We think we know where our time goes. We don't.
When I started working with people who wanted to level up—better careers, better income, better life—the most common excuse was always the same:
"I just don't have the time."
In 12 years of auditing operations, I found maybe two people who genuinely had no margin. Two. Everyone else had hours they couldn't account for. Hours that vanished into the scroll, the stream, the comfortable numbness of a screen.
The Vidiots my dad talked about? They're still out there. They just have better screens now.
The Trade
Here's what people don't want to accept: your day is already full.
Every 24 hours is completely allocated. You're not going to "find" time. There's no hidden pocket of hours waiting to be discovered.
If you want to add something to your life—a skill, a side project, a workout, a credential—it has to replace something you're currently doing.
That's the trade. That's always the trade.
The couch will always be there. The screen will always have something new to show you. The algorithm is designed to keep you watching—that's literally the business model.
Your goals don't have an algorithm fighting for them. Only you.
The Exercise
So here's the exercise. I call it the camera test—as if someone is filming what you actually do with your time.
For one week, track your non-work hours. Not in your head—on paper or in a notes app. Every hour, write down what you actually did. Not what you planned to do. What you did.
At the end of the week, look at the list.
You'll find the hours. They're there. They've always been there.
Three hours of Netflix on a Tuesday. An hour of scrolling before bed every night. A Sunday afternoon that disappeared into nothing.
I'm not going to tell you what counts as "wasted" time. You know. You'll see it on the list and you'll feel it. That's the whole point.
Once you see the hours, you have a choice.
You can keep spending them the way you've been spending them. That's fine. It's your life.
Or you can reallocate.
Take one hour a day—just one—and point it at something that compounds. A skill. A certification. A side project. Movement toward the life you say you want.
Do that for 30 days and it becomes habit. Do it for a year and your life looks different.
I know because I've done it. Every degree, every certification, every credential that elevated my career—it came from hours I reclaimed. Hours I used to lose to nothing.
My wife once challenged me to write a book—and publish it—in 30 days. I did it. Not because I had more time than anyone else. Because I stopped pretending I didn't have any.
I'm not saying never watch TV. I'm not saying delete every app.
I'm saying be honest about what's happening when you're plugged in.
Is this screen moving you forward? Or is it just a drip feed keeping you comfortable enough to not change anything?
Run the camera test. Track the week. See what the footage reveals.
Then decide what you want to do about it.
— Scot Free