This might be quite personal, but I haven’t been feeling that good in the recent weeks. I can’t really pinpoint any specific problem; I just don’t feel my best.
Recently, I’ve noticed that whenever I have 5 minutes of free time or feel bored for just a moment, I always default to a behavior that isn’t what I wish for. Most of the time, I end up grabbing my phone and start consuming either Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, or news websites. It’s quite awful, and I usually get no value out of it. In fact, most of the time, I feel even worse than before the activity started. Setting blocker timers doesn’t really work for me, so I’ve decided to do something a bit more radical.
I’m doing a 7-day internet consumption reset. The goal is to stay away from all internet consumption sources like social media and news websites. For me, the most problematic ones are Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and some Slovenian news websites. However, I will allow myself to consume web articles (like blog entries and newsletters) as well as reading books, PDFs, or any other resources found on the internet, as long as they don’t include “unlimited content feeds”. Watching educational YouTube videos is not recommended due to the high possibility of relapsing. Here’s an interesting observation to give you a better example: even while writing this post, I randomly opened Twitter just because I was bored for a second and wanted to fill that gap. Messenger apps are allowed since I still want to be connected with my friends and family.
I’m using NextDNS, so I’m going to block those websites to make this challenge a bit “easier” due to a fear of unintentionally relapsing. Here’s the list for now (+ social media section under parental controls that block all social networks sites and apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, etc., but does not block messaging apps). I will continue posting my daily blog posts on Mastodon, but I will try to find a way to automate it. I will update the list as I see fit.
The idea behind doing a 7-day internet consumption reset is to use the extra time to think, journal, and reconnect with myself and the people around me. I want to better plan and use my time and maybe even try some new activities. I have no idea of the effect of a 7-day internet consumption reset, but I’m going to give it a go. Since I’m blogging daily due to my 100 Days of Blogging challenge, I will report on my progress as well.
The challenge starts right now on Sunday, 23rd of July, and finishes next Sunday, 30th of July. Wish me luck.