Cleaning up my online life - tips on reducing doom-scrolling, watching shorts?

south_korea_ln

In my faith, we celebrate Lent. One of the pillars of this 40-day season is giving something up. This Lent, I have given up a good number of my online pastimes.

Here is what I have learned:
- App blockers are wonderful, but my fingers still automatically type out YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and others. That teaches me that it's not just the environment that I have created around myself but how I have become habituated to seek it out. If I had to commute to these things, I might have an easier time breaking the habit of directing myself toward them. 
- Upon seeing the block notice after subconsciously typing my way to YouTube, I have paused to reflect on what was I doing just before I decided to get there. Upon that reflection, I have found that I was either dealing with a boring task, a task that would involve deep cognition, or a task that invoked a negative feeling.

Putting on music has helped. I'll keep my body moving at a standing desk, and that can keep my engaged in otherwise boring or uncomfortable tasks. 

I wish you the best of luck nipping this thing in the bud.