I’ve been trying to loosen up and restructure my weekly schedule, but I ended up overindulging.
The results? I’ve:
- Gained weight
- Worked less
- Played more video games
- Watched way too much mindless YouTube and Facebook content
- Obsessively followed international news (especially the Iran-Israel conflict)
- Read fewer ebooks
Clearly, this has turned into more of a slump than a productive reset. Unfortunately, I’ve also developed eye strain from skipping my usual screen breaks—something I used to do to prevent eye, back, and muscle tension. These breaks are important to avoid eye, back and muscles strains.
While I’ve cycled more, I’ve cut back on my walks by the corniche.
Now I’m trying to figure out where this reorganization plan derailed.
Rather than making gradual changes—like swapping 45 minutes of reading for cooking or learning healthy recipes—I went all-in and replaced productive habits with time-wasters.
In my battle against perfectionism, I overcorrected and became complacent—even careless.
So, which habits should I prioritize first?
First things first: I need to bring back my screen breaks—every 15-20 minutes when working on the PC.
Since actions shape emotions, my second step is to replace idle scrolling with audiobooks. I’ll cap Facebook and YouTube at 30 minutes per week (unless work-related).
There’ll be a brief adjustment period (maybe a minute or two), but then I’ll settle in. Better to spend time on what actually matters—things with long-term payoffs.
In facts, these two last ideas are based on science:
1- The activation energy, that is the minimum amount of energy required to initiate an action or change. Activation energy often needs a disproportionate amount of motivation and energy to initiate this action or journey more than the energy needed for maintaining that action once it begins.
2- Delayed gratification is the ability to resist immediate reward for a more significant reward in the future. It requires resisting immediate temptation, self-control, self-regulation.
Practically how I am going to implement this plan
As I know myself and my tendencies in general, I will try to bite more than I can chew. That is before finding stability adding the old habit of 15-20 minute work then a break I will be already motivated to add another habit.
For this I will simply set a reminder on my calendar to focus reactivating this main habit for 3 weeks, after that move to something else.
Meantime, it will be fun to blog about refreshing this old habit, to keep track of the challenges, and tools used.
I may also ponder about finding more stability and success with these habits, consider my goals, and aim for success on the short and long term.
Blogging supports my thinking as it is supplemented with research and formulating ideas is slower and deeper.
Below are the three first habits I am working on:
1- Take a screen break every 15 minutes, during the break I will avoid using Facebook & YouTube. The use of these two social networks should not exceed 30 minutes a week, except if I use them for work.
As such I will lose less time and care for my eyes.
2- When not using a PC I will use TTS to read ebooks for 12 hours, every week.
3- I will exercise for 1 hour everyday, cycling and/or walking. I will take 2 days break from cycling a week as a recovery time.
As you can see these habits complement and stack on each other. For this reason, I could do them all at once.