PaperCat

Tag: changed

  • Stop the Doomscroll Weekly Recap

    Over the week, I did find two new apps to use but they are not time-wasters. The two apps are Wellos and Fable.

    Screen time recap last week

    Wellos is a health app that I have access to through my insurance. Fable is a book tracking app that also has book groups. I saw it through Instagram before I got rid of it and Fable is a great alternative to Goodreads since I’ve been trying to drop Amazon. (Goodreads is owned by Amazon.)

    Even with the addition of health and reading tracking, my screen time for the week went down by 58% from the week before.

    By creating a barrier to the apps for myself by only accessing them on my computer, I have greatly increased my reading time. I was able read the majority of the first Wheel of Time book in about 3 days. (The book is 744 pages!) I also finished reading ‘Home is Where the Bodies Are.’ (Not my favorite read.)

  • Stop the Doomscroll Day 2

    Today was a more typical day with listening to YouTube in the morning and the evening but it is still progress. The screen time app said that my daily average is down 76%!

    Screen time 3.24

    Even though it looks to be more than I would like, this is exactly what I was hoping for.

    As an anecdote, I feel that my mood has been more stable but also more neutral. That is to say, I often feel like I feel nothing. It’s true that emotions are not supposed to be up and down constantly and shifting from very high to very low quickly, but I just feel very neutral and it feels like nothingness right now. I hope that using my time productively by making things and cleaning things will help any boredom to become fulfilling.

    I have made progress in reading: I read two chapters of “Home is Where the Bodies Are” at lunch time and I read one chapter of the first “Wheel of Time” book in the evening.

  • Back to Stop the Doomscroll

    Back at the beginning of the year, I made a decision to stop my doomscrolling habits. Now at the end of the first quarter, I can say, that habit did not go away and it maybe even got worse.

    I am here at the beginning of Quarter 2 to finally make and keep this promise and work on my habit of doomscrolling.

    But first, my current habit:

    My current weekly screen time

    As you can see, in a week’s time, Instagram stole (actually I gave them willingly) about 18 hours of my time. In a week.

    YouTube looks bad at almost 14 hours but for that, I mainly pop headphones on and listen to videos while I accomplish other things.

    Facebook wasn’t terrible at almost 2 hours in a full week but again, that’s two hours of sitting, scrolling, maybe interacting, but doing nothing.

    In a week, almost a full day was used on social media apps. A full day. 21 hours and 13 minutes.

    A goal needs steps. First steps:

    I have deleted Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn and Facebook from my phone. I can access them on my computer as needed, and with that, I can set aside an intentional amount of time in my office for using social media apps.

    Next week, I will check in with how this time compared to last time.

    Second step:

    If I feel like I want to scroll, I will read a book. I have nine books I am currently reading from my TBR pile. Let’s see how many of those I can finish with the 21 hours not being allocated to social media.

    Have you made similar time-management decisions? How did they affect your life?

  • Whole Food, Plant-Based

    I started an interesting journey at the beginning of December. I had a doctor’s appointment and it was suggested for my health that I look into a whole-foods, plant-based diet. Knowing me, I immediately went all-in since I tend to be very all-or-nothing about things like this. I had done a similar personal change of diet about three years ago but it was difficult because my husband has no interest in the same diet, so I was making two of everything, one plant-based and one animal-based. Again, with how I am, I have a very hard time not being completely committed to something like this, so this time upon getting the recommendation, I am also heavily researching veganism from the ethical point of view. There is a lot of it that resonates with me but because my husband has no interest and I am the person who makes the household meals (including his animal-based meals) I hesitate to say that I am vegan. I would like to be vegan otherwise. For that reason, I will say that I am plant-based.
    Some of my favorite resources this past month include the Forks Over Knives website and recipe app, the documentaries Forks Over Knives, Game Changers, and Food Choices, as well as numerous YouTube channels including Cheap Lazy Vegan, Sweet Potato Soul, and Avant-garde Vegan. There are many other YouTube channels as well.
    As I continue to go into this journey ethically, I am planning to make many changes in what I am purchasing and using, especially with regards to clothing, makeup, and essential care items like shampoo and toothpaste since these are things I have never thought about before but now I can’t really unsee it without going into some sort of denial. This also makes me step back and really think about the kind of fashion business I would like to work for or with because of the environmental impact that clothing businesses have on the planet.
    As this continues, I plan to share more of my favorite new cruelty-free products and how I’ve made the transition in some of these areas. Full disclosure: in some areas, I haven’t started the transition because I am going to finish using what I have before I begin purchasing new items because I believe it would be more of a waste environmentally to simply throw out what I have now to buy something new.
    Please let me know if there’s anything in particular you would like me to answer about this transition process. Also let me know if you have any tips if you’ve already made the transition to a vegan lifestyle. I would love to hear your tips!

    (I am sharing my new experiences as I change my own lifestyle. I am not telling anyone else how they should or shouldn’t live their own life. All links in the post above are for convenience for the reader only and are not sponsored.)