Two Changes that Worked

Last month I wrote about habit stacking, which has helped me stick to a daily home-workout regimen.

Two years ago I tried maintaining a wall chart for daily exercise, which worked for a while but eventually failed. This was partly because I sometimes did my workout elsewhere, e.g. at work, while my chart was at home, and as the chart became a less accurate reflection of my habits, I began to backslide on updating the chart and eventually on the exercise itself.

I then tried a phone app called Loop Habit Tracker. I really like the app. It has a clean interface, all the features I need, and (almost) nothing more. But of late, habit stacking has been working well for me, to the point where I feel I don't need the app at all. Still, I like the app so much that I want to try and find some other use for it.

The Guardian has a reader-submitted series called The One Change that Worked. When it comes to daily workouts, habit stacking, for me, has been the one change that worked.

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Speaking of reader-submitted content, this is rather belated, but I was quoted in the Guardian liveblog for the Argentina vs Switzerland Football World Cup game. Screenshot below (the first post is for context; I omitted a few posts in between).

Here's a photo of the flower shop in question:

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Another 'change that worked' is an app called ScreenZen, which has helped cut down the time I spend on social media.

I only use one social media app – Instagram – but I was spending more time on it than I wanted to. Android phones have a native app called Digital Wellbeing, but it only allows you to set a daily limit. In practice, I found that I was often hitting my limit with several hours left in the day. This meant I had to either stay off Instagram for the rest of the day, or override the app which defeats its purpose.

ScreenZen allows you to set a per session limit (mine is 3 minutes). Each time I try to open Instagram, it shows me this screen, which makes me pause and consider if I really want to.

Then, after 3 minutes of use, the same screen pops up again, at which point I generally close the app and get on with my day.

While scrolling through social media, it's unfortunately all too easy to get absorbed and lose track of time. ScreenZen's reminder periodically snaps me out of that stupor and prevents me from binge-scrolling. Ever since I installed it, I have been staying comfortably within my Digital Wellbeing-imposed daily limit.