u/EricDiazDotd — reddlx

Recently, I started keeping a list of daily habits/reminders; very simple things that take just a few minutes: sitting in silence, looking at nature, stretching, meditating, reading, learning languages, drinking water, and so on. Simple habits that I didn't want to lock into a rigid schedule, but also didn't want to leave entirely to my memory, which isn't strong enough to remember all the things I want to repeat every day.

Since this to-do list (I use Loop Habit Tracker, which is free) lives on my phone's home screen, whenever I feel that boredom and that urge to procrastinate, the first thing I do is check the app. Every time you mark a task as done, the app puts on a little virtual confetti show that adds a small boost to the naturally pleasant feeling of "mission accomplished" (remember, we're looking for small wins). I think that feeling probably shares the same roots as the dopamine rushes that, in the case of harmful addictions (like eating chocolate), keep pulling you back to repeat the same action. But as we'll see, the effects are very different.

I can't claim it turned me into a superhero, but my sense is that I did gain a kind of "superpower," because before this I felt completely unable to maintain that level of consistency, repeating habits for more than 100 days with fewer than half a dozen "pauses" (which I prefer not to call "failures," in order to keep my mindset positive). Be careful not to let this list become yet another source of self-criticism, by the way; the idea here is to adopt the habits you want, not to pile on more obligations.

I'll admit I haven't entirely freed myself from needing those little spikes triggered by the phone's glowing screen, which mean nothing in themselves, but help me stick to the habits I've chosen. There may be a way to do all of this through sheer willpower and a good memory. But until I figure that out, I'm happy with my small habits, and feeling a little calmer and better hydrated.

Of course, procrastination is still a problem, and I have to confess that sometimes I go read a book, look at nature, or stretch when I should be tackling harder, more important things, like any bureaucratic task related to my work. That said, this kind of distraction has one big advantage over the activities I used to use for procrastinating.

To avoid any imprecision, I'll describe the sensations I experience rather than throwing around terms like dopamine and serotonin.

When I read, stretch, meditate, or exercise, the sense of satisfaction isn't immediate. For example, the moment I start stretching, my muscles feel sore and resistant. Similarly, when I pick up a book, I need to remember where I left off, get back into the context, and focus before I feel any satisfaction at all. That pleasure is never instant, it always requires a little effort. In that sense, I think it's actually good to "force" myself to start certain things even when the goal is purely leisure (like reading a fiction book).

Once I start feeling absorbed by the book or the exercise, the satisfaction builds gradually, but the effort, though less noticeable, is also quietly accumulating. After a while, with pleasure more or less leveling off and effort on the rise, comes that feeling of boredom and fatigue. For instance, much as I enjoy walking, after an hour my feet or knees are usually aching. So I need to switch stimuli, and the cycle begins again.

The new stimulus needs to be different enough that the tiredness doesn't get in the way. If I'm out of breath after a walk, jumping straight into another exercise won't help. On the other hand, if I start reading a book, I let my body rest (which in itself feels good after physical effort) while my mind begins a new satisfaction curve.

The simplest way to do this is to alternate between physical and mental activities. If you spend most of the day sitting, as I do, there's at least one very straightforward application of this tip: when you take a break, instead of reaching for something mental (like YouTube or Instagram), try stretching or doing a brief exercise while letting your mind rest. Even spending a few minutes standing and staring at the wall has been more energizing for me than scrolling through social media (and it counts as meditation too, so that's one more task checked off).

Ideally, many of these habits can be done with no preparation, anywhere, with no special equipment or set time. I complete several of them on the bus: instead of watching videos, I remember that one of my tasks is to look at nature. So I look for trees outside rather than stressing about the traffic. Or I use the time to do another lesson on a language app, listen to an audiobook, practice breathing, and so on.

The distractions I consider most harmful, like TikTok or a bag of Doritos, work differently. They deliver instant pleasure, sometimes within seconds. It's a pleasure that requires no effort, but it doesn't last either. Rather than a smooth curve that rises and falls, I picture a spike followed by a dip, a jagged zigzag on a graph. Because it generates neither fatigue nor a sense of having had enough, I could keep prolonging that pleasure indefinitely until something external cuts it off: an alarm going off, feeling sick from eating too much, the physical discomfort of sitting in a bad position for too long, the emotional unease of feeling like your time is slipping away, and so on.

Of course, habits like reading, meditating, and walking can also pull you in and make you spend more time than you intended. But honestly, I never mind when that happens, it means I got in a longer workout than planned, went deeper into my meditation, or got lost in a good book, which will leave behind far more than an hour of short videos ever would.

Even when I get absorbed in a book for twenty or thirty minutes, the act of reading eventually produces a certain tiredness, which makes me want to stop and return to whatever task I was avoiding (whether the bureaucratic stuff or something else) or, if I'm still not ready for that, to move on to another item on the list. In other words, all the tasks I use to escape boredom eventually generate their own boredom, nudging me toward other tasks or back to the main one. The trick is to never fall into an activity that artificially keeps boredom at bay indefinitely.

The "superpower," then, isn't eliminating boredom, it's learning to use it in your favor. Every time that urge to procrastinate shows up, it can become a walk, a few pages of a book, or five minutes of stretching. Boredom and procrastination still haven't been defeated, and maybe they never will be completely. But now they work toward goals that you chose.