Hey Reader

I already know I’m not the best at giving myself leisure time 😅

I enjoy my work and that means holding boundaries with it can be challenging!

With dedicated effort though, I’ve actually been able to contain my work to “work hours”, freeing up my evenings and weekends more than I ever have.

Go me! 💪

But this has come with its own problem.

If the leisure time is dedicated to spending with others, I'm normally pretty good at doing genuinely leisurely and cup-filling things.

But downtime by myself? When there’s nobody to hold me accountable to actually having leisure time?

Uh oh 🤳

My biggest default here is just to endlessly scroll Instagram (or open and close the same 3 apps on repeat, which really isn't much better.)

Rather than doing something that would feel properly restful, I just end up looking at post after post, Reel after Reel.

The worst part is that even for the ones that are genuinely interesting, in 2-posts time, I won't remember them at all 🤦‍♀️

It's not like I don't have other options for things to do; I love collecting ideas of ways to spend my downtime, whether it’s creative projects, books I want to read, games to play, movies to watch...

But all too often when I get to my leisure periods, I just default to scrolling. Why?

Some possible reasons I've thought of are:

• I feel too tired to do anything else
• Scrolling is just a practiced behaviour for me
• Too many leisure options leads to analysis paralysis
• I collected leisure ideas when they seemed interesting, but now I’ve lost interest

Which one do you relate to the most? Let me know by voting on this little poll 📊

Sometimes a li'l social media scroll can be okay for a brain break (...kind of...I mean there are better ways to give our brains a break...)

But when my leisure time is constantly getting stolen by scrolling, it really doesn't leave me feeling rested.

The factor I aimed to tackle this week is that scrolling is just a well practiced behaviour for me, so let's have a look at how 👀

But first, some exciting news!

If one of the leisure activities you want to get involved in is keeping a reading journal, then I'd love to guide you through it 😄

On June 21st, I'll be leading a beginner-friendly reading journal workshop in collaboration with The Creative Planner Co.

I'll be going through how to set up and keep a reading journal, as well as walking through fun layouts that will help you get started. Plus, you get a downloadable goodie bundle of resources to help you make your reading journal too 🥳

While the session kicks off at 8:30pm NZT / 9:30am GMT, all participants get access to the workshop recording after for rewatching.

Hit the button below if you're keen to join me!

The idea - Breaking your bad habits

Breaking bad habits can sometimes be even harder than making new ones 😅

In the book "Atomic Habits" though, author James Clear gives us a 4-part strategy for breaking a bad habit.

• Make it invisible
• Make it unattractive
• Make it difficult
• Make it unsatisfying

While my bad habit is endless Instagram scrolling, this can be applied to any habit you're looking to break.

Make it invisible

This is all about limiting your exposure to the thing that prompts your bad habit. The prompt is often called a cue, and sadly my cue is discomfort or boredom.

While I could try to avoid boredom and discomfort altogether, that doesn't seem super realistic.

A lesser-cue, or one that prompts my scrolling less it just seeing the Instagram icon on my phone or computer 👀

To help "make it invisible", I first tried moving the Instagram app on my phone to be nested in a folder, and completely deleted the saved link I had on my browser bookmarks bar.

This helped for a while, but thankfully we have some other tactics to try.

Make it unattractive

Our behaviours are very much based on predictions. If we predict an action will have a particular positive result, we're more likely to do it.

My predictions around Instagram scrolling are very well established; if I'm bored, scrolling Instagram will make me not bored...at least for a while 😛

For this tactic, we want to work on changing our mindset around the bad habit to really highlight the benefits of not doing the thing.

Plenty of benefits come from not aimlessly scrolling Instagram. Not interrupting my focus on the things I'm supposed to be doing, not wasting my leisure time, the ability to spend the time doing something else.

The issue is that I already know this and find myself scrolling anyway 🤦‍♀️Maybe I need to find some more compelling benefits? 😂

While this aspect hasn't helped me as much, it can still be useful for other bad habits, so it's still worth considering.

Make it difficult

This tactic is about increasing friction, or having more steps between you and the habit you're aiming to avoid.

I'm pleased to report that this is the one that's really made a difference for me so far.

Because picking up my phone, hitting the Instagram app, and jumping straight into Reels was just too easy, I decided to make this much harder for myself.

I just deleted the Instagram app entirely.

While I could also block the website through my computer browser, I haven't done that just yet. It might be the next action if I find myself constantly gravitating there though!

Make it unsatisfying

I know aimlessly scrolling Instagram will be unsatisfying for me in the long-run. The time wasted, not feeling energised, and the negative effects on my focus will all suck.

The problem is that these feelings don't hit me while I'm scrolling. They happen after I've already wasted 20-or-more minutes 😝

To use this tactic, what we really want is to make the bad habit immediately unsatisfying.

Some suggestions James Clear gives for this is getting an accountability partner or making a habit contract that outlines the punishment for doing the bad habit.

While I could start tracking and sharing my phone's screentime data, I think I'll see how I get on with just not having the app on there first 😅 At least I have options though!

Let's take action

Thinking about a bad habit you want to break, how can you make it:

• Invisible
• Unattractive
• Difficult
• Unsatisfying

I'd love to know which bad habit you'd like to break. Hit reply and let me know 😄

Until next time!

- Jess