Phone addiction

@sensitiveSailboat

I have been addicted to phone for so long and waste my time on useless things. I have made a lot of progress by prioritizing my studies for now but still I spent unnecessary time on phone. After my studies, when I'm running on low energy I use my phone but sometimes it becomes hours. I am trying to learn other things in the free time but I can't just bring myself to do it. I have been procrastinating for 2 months on this and the worst thing is I know I am procrastinating but not being capable of doing anything about it and hating myself in return only. I don't know if it's lack of will power or something else.

Hey! Firstly, well done on posting here, it can be really tricky to feel comfortable enough to post about what's going on, so I'm really proud of you for that.

As for the problem at hand. There's a couple of things that might be helpful to consider:

1. Procrastination is often the result of being anxious about starting something, or more commonly, having perfectionistic tendencies. Does that sound like something you might relate to? Often people procrastinate because they're worried that they won't be able to do whatever else they're trying to do as well as they want to. Or they think that they'll fail or something along those lines. It can be really difficult to get started when it feels like you're just not going to be able to do it right anyway. 2. Another thing that could cause you to be procrastinating is overwhelm. Maybe you need to break down your tasks more so they feel a little more manageable? This goes hand in hand with the perfectionism sometimes, other times not. It can be really hard to start something when it just feels like everything is too much.
3. You might just be tired, honestly. Sometimes we're just tired and need a break. And while hours on your phone probably isn't the best break, it certainly does act like a semi-decent one for a little while as well which might be why you're drawn to it.
4. You could just be prone to distraction or have trouble getting started on things. Both these are manageable! As is lack of willpower if you think that's what it is, or struggling with being self-directed. All these things can be worked around and they can be worked around without driving yourself into the ground which is important.
5. Executive dysfunction could be another thing to look into as well

As for what you can actually do to help stop spending hours on your phone. At the moment I'm a pretty big fan of scheduling out my day on google calendar so I know what I'm doing when which helps me not get taken over by something else or getting distracted by my phone. I think this might really be able to help you. You obviously need to be sensible with your scheduling and include breaks for yourself, working with no breaks just won't work for you. But you could be really specific in some of those breaks and title them "Break: *insert here activity that's not being on your phone*" This sort of acts as a prompt to actually do the things you want to do, and you can schedule in time to be on your phone. Of course, if you do this, you need to be prepared to adjust things, especially for the first few weeks that you do it because inevitably, different things will come up and have you step outside of that schedule and that's so okay!!

You might also considering setting time limits on your phone so it shuts off certain apps after you've spent a certain amount of time on it

I hope that at least some of this can be helpful for you! Feel free to reach out anytime