I remember growing up that almost everyone around you said don’t quit or never give up. Everyone has some kind of toxic habit that needs to be quit as soon as possible to have a more productive life.
Sometimes it’s hard to quit, especially if you are trying to accomplish something for a long time, for example, reading a long boring book.
Quitting is leading too.
— Nelson Mandela
I grew up in a small remote village without electricity most of the time; I vividly remember studying under candlelight or kerosene lamps back in the ’90s. Here is a picture of a similar lamp.
I remember sitting next to a kerosene lamp with a textbook in my hands while mom was sitting on a charpoy (bed) with a long stick to keep an eye on us, repeatedly saying, you are almost done with your homework, or You finished ten pages of the book, don’t quit now.
That one thing ‘don’t quit’ has been ingrained in your systems since we were kids.
Apologies for the long intro, but I thought it was necessary to give a background.
That kind of not quitting is great for growth, but in this article, I’m going to share the quitting behavior, which is unintentionally detrimental to our productivity.
It all started last year when I read the following tweet by Aviral, someone shared on Linkedin.
On average, I used to spend 4+ hours on my phone screen scrolling Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and YT videos. Most of this was not productive at all.
I was almost doing everything that the tweet said except one thing: my phone screen time.
Before you continue reading, I recommend checking your phone screen time and then coming back to the post.
You will be shocked to see how much time you waste on your portable cell phone device every day.
How to reduce your cell phone screen time
Track your screentime pattern right after dinner or when you feel relaxed or have done the work. The smartphone will tell you which App you are spending your maximum time on. I was wasting my time almost 70–80% on Instagram and YouTube.
The smartphones even provide you with a weekly summary of your screen time with every app usage metric in detail. I did not develop significant progress until I put the cell phone in a “cell” or box or in a different room out of my eyes.
Research shows that an average human toches their smartphones at least 2617 times. If we put it in perspective and let’s say you used the phone for merely 5 seconds each time, that equals 3.6+ hours.
Without doing the math, we don’t realize how much time we waste by just touching the phone.
I would recommend shaving off the time one step at a time. If you chronically spend time on Instagram or any game, it will be really hard to break the bad habit and build a new good practice. I wrote a detailed article on how to develop sustainable habits. Here is the link
