- 8:00~9:00 – Getting ready for work
- 9:00–13:00 – Work
- 13:00–14:00 – Lunch + YouTube
- 14:00–18:00 – Work
- 18:00–20:00 – Break from work + Dinner + YouTube
- 20:00~1:00 – YouTube, gaming, occasional events, personal projects, or sports. Lately, I’ve noticed my screen time during this period has increased a lot, and I’ve been feeling lazy to do anything productive—mostly just doomscrolling or watching videos
What’s your routine like? How do you manage your time, maintain social connections, avoid digital distractions, and stay on track with your goals and learning?
I am cautious if anybody uses the word "healthy" outside of the context of actual diseases like pleurisy and conjunctivitis. I am aware of a below-the-radar societal battle over way of life, and proper conduct, and the battleground is haunted by specters of ideas like sin and saintliness. It's these fraught issues that cause "media addictions". The nature of the "addiction" is doubt and unhappiness over the thing you want to do, where the saintly walking-over-broken-glass things you imagine you ought to want are set against a reactionary avoidance of it, and the meaning of "want" is lost in the turmoil.
I haven't watched Youtube for ten years, but I will do other unproductive things "endlessly". (If anybody cares, I can report that the Backrooms mod on C:DDA has a layer of soil above the main level, and it's possible to break out into the open air and build a car up there. That's mostly what I did over the last two weeks.) I like to be so firm in my convictions that I can say "and I don't care", but sadly I keep coming back to the idea that I should make some games, or write or do art. Those are prestigious, pious things to do. It might turn out that my feelings are correct, and I might return to a project and complete it. But I might also be wrong about these self-aggrandizing ideas. I might keep coming back to appearing to be creative only as a kind of defense against appearing unworthy. I might actually idle my days away in a farty, unproductive manner unto death, and that might be what I should do. Whose moral standard is it here? Mine, yours, society's? "Do what you like", if you can wholeheartedly figure out what that means - that's the problem.
What it comes down to is not having belief in what you do, so you do other things. You might feel trapped, so you pass the time with stuff like YouTube because that is the most compelling thing available to you. A man will walk on broken glass with a smile if he truly believes in what it will accomplish.
When I was younger, I was into video games because they gave me a sense of accomplishment and progress compared to high school, which I found relatively meaningless. I called it progress quest.
When there is a rare game or youtube topic that really obsessively catches your attention, like Factorio, pay attention to it! It helps show you what drives you, and you can try to leverage that into things you find healthier.
Also, it might be worth it to look into ADHD testing if this has been a persistent pattern your entire life.
Second step is breaking the habit. Literally, you need to start spending that time on something else. Your behavioral autopilot automatically gravitates to browsing Youtube - you need to rewire that to something else. For some reason it's really difficult the first couple of times and then gets easier.
Third step, once you're starting to feel like you've made it out, is understanding that there are circumstances out of your control that will lead you back into those old habits. Maybe work was draining or relationship problems hit - whatever it is, you'll feel like you deserve a break. You need to recognize those moments and have a plan ready for those moments. You absolutely deserve that break, but falling back into that habit is literally self-sabotage, and you'll feel worse after.
Fourth step, rinse and repeat. I've never made it past this step.
In general with all forms of addiction: your mind is crazy good coming up with excuses. So give the key to change your setup to someone else. E.g root access :)^^
What do you mean by “productive”? What would progress look like for you? And towards what?
When it is disabled the yt screen will not contain any recommendations and will actually be empty. After you do this, you'll find yourself dozing off to yt on occasion and reaching a blank screen only to realize you didn't actually come to watch something specific but more as a force of habit and you'll lose the trigger. I recommended this to a couple of friends of mine and they all say it worked wonders.
I'm not sure if you only have to disable history or some other options as well, but basically you want a blank screen when you reach yt. You can still have subscriptions, but the idea is that you intentionlly look for what you want to watch instead of having the yt screen recommendations offering videos and you choosing.
Before you begin, take some time to outline the tasks you need to complete. Now when you return to the home office, you are only there for one reason.
If problems persist, you may need to find more interesting projects.
The single most effective thing I did was during my week off when I put my phone in a drawer and mostly stuck to my apple watch for notifications and a keycard for my car.
Obviously I need my phone for work, so I've been trying other things to reduce its importance in my life.
I moved the TV from the room with the sofas to the room with chairs. I wind up spending more time in conversation with my wife or my friends on those sofas, rather than "Hey check out this video I saw..".
I've also replaced my phone with my watch for stuff involving unlocking car, and using a mostly-offline Linux handheld device with custom apps to replace stuff on my phone. You'd be surprised how many things don't require internet access; books and videos can be cached, and other things (paying credit cards, etc..) can be done on a desktop.
"One day, you'll realize that your dream died because you chose comfort over effort. Don't let that regret haunt you forever."
And it worked.
The css for yt looks like this:
body {
min-height: 100vh;
background-image:url(https://example.com/effort.jpg);
background-size: contain;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: center;
background-color: black;
}
p,div,h1,span {display:none}
To help me disconnect, I set my phone to turn on power saving, grayscale, dark mode, and max redshift after 11 PM. It makes it so annoying to use that I can just put it down.
Don't worry too much about being unproductive outside working hours. Worry about unhealthy habits that will eventually harm your productivity.
At a certain point you need to accept that you will not be able to willpower your way out of it. You need systems and strategies in place that cut you off from your addiction.
That can look like a lot of things that I'm not going to try to stuff into an HN comment but here's what works for me:
- Leaving the house with a dumb phone. I recommend using an old smartphone that is meticulously stripped away from bad things over purchasing a flip phone. You're eventually going to need to call up an uber, scan a QR code, and other such smartphoney things you need a dumb phone to do. Leaving your environment is also key. If you must, bring your actual phone with you, but fully powered off.
- Using a feature on your phone to cut yourself off from YouTube on a scheduled basis. Most phones have something like this by default, but there are also some third party apps that take it a step further.
- Have something you enjoy to take the place of YouTube. Entertainment is healthy to an extent. Taken too far, it becomes a distraction from cognitive processes you need to be regularly engaging in, to say the least.
The recipe is, and has always been, to delay gratification. Duty comes first.
This was definitely one of the most important discoveries of my PhD.
(2) Wipe history and only watch productive topics on your account. Watch all other videos on incognito - I set up violentmonkey scripts to help. Here's a cool secret: your feed will ONLY be related to the videos in your history. My feed is now ONLY ML and music
(3) Delete the app on the phone. Only use youtube through firefox (if you have android) which allows the ublock extension
(4) Alternatives like newpipe helped before I stumbled onto this solution
You still need a little willpower. Find the strength to not use youtube for 3 weeks. Then it becomes much easier
Edit: clarity
I also keep my laptop by my couch so I reach for it vs my phone. I hate typing on my phone so I end up just clicking on a dopamine drip app rather than actual reading / work which I tend to do more readily on a laptop or desktop.
It is a behavioural problem at the end of the day. Which means it will take discipline and accepting some feelings of discomfort up front to change for the long term.
No WiFi or mobile phone data allowance means you have to leave the door every time you want anything on your phone or computer. You would be surprised by how well this works. If you download something to watch later as you go shopping in an actual store on their WiFi, you can get your emails and messages from apps download at the same time.
Keep a list of things you need to use your favourite search engine for, and just work the list when you are in town.
You would be surprised at how easy it is to go all day Sunday with no data.
Obviously if you are work from home, this won't work. Being contactable primarily by phone or SMS works great for friendships, it is good to talk and more of that gets done if you go fully North Korea.
You can also go further to make your home a sanctuary, keeping it clean with shoes off at the door is a start, keeping only healthy food is another way to get that serene vibe that you desire.
That's a nice balance for me - it leaves more options than completely blocking it but it protects me from being bounced around by the algorithm.
After a full workday, your brain wants easy dopamine. That is being human. You're not a startup. The people posting about 5am routines are just performing productivity online.
Maybe go to bed earlier or be more mindful when it comes to digital dooms scroll.
Also it is true that these things with procrastination and addictive behaviors are very much emotional issues and so on... and in my case whenever I notice that I'm avoiding dealing with my emotions and the hard stuff with YouTube content black holes I do the resets.
Good luck
So the trick is to set the rule [don't do X, do Y instead] and immediately stop thinking about X and move on to Y. Just shut down the "do X" thought and shift to Y. "Y" can be anything even the absurd like patting the top of your head 5 times because it breaks your subconscious programming. In fact, the absurd Y's seem to be more effective BECAUSE they a silly or ridiculous. Of course, as you gain skill at this method you can start using more productive Y's like doing 10 pushups or do a quick household chore, do a small task on your to-do list, etc. Once the subconscious program is broken then thoughts to do X will fade and you can move on to X2 that you want to change.
Here's a test for you.
If I were to offer you $10 million to do anything you want during your day, what would you do? Would you accept the money? Of course you would.
What if the consequence of accepting was that you don't wake up tomorrow morning? Obviously you say no. But you just found out waking up in the morning is worth more than $10 million.
Going outside facilitates this
I know how I sound, but... For me it's the only approach possible. I cannot moderate myself. The only way for me is to quit cold turkey.
For many websites, I had to attempt this many times because I would fail. But I don't see any other way.
When you look at life, ask yourself what brings you most joy in life, what makes you feel most alive, find your direction, and avoid the petty traps designed to enslave you.
Find your discipline, challenge yourself, and find like-minded people without your phone as a filter. The cost of social connection increases exponentially with malign influences as it becomes digital. Learn the education and related skills of discernment which have been purposefully withheld from recent generations. Seek and base your actions on actual truth, not rhetoric.
The first step is recognition of the compulsion traps that have been set for you to enslave you to addiction.
Read a book, Robert Cialdini's "Influence", and you will begin to recognize the subtle factors in your own psychology that allow others to manipulate you towards detrimental ends without your knowledge.
Learn about what specifically defines torture, so you can recognize and eliminate such torturous and vexatious things from your life as intolerable.
Most of the things people have been brought up to believe today are true only in the narrowest of respects, and in a broader perspective are lies of omission, designed to blind you.
Evil didn't stop existing, people were just induced to willfully choose to be blind to it with carefully crafted convincing lies, and technique, and systematic indirect interference to tie you down leaving you without agency.
Reclaim your cultural heritage whatever culture that may be, and prepare yourself for the dark times that are ahead, which may move slowly but are coming.
Without joy, partnership, children, a future, there is nothing. If you aren't moving forward towards that, you are moving backward.
However, we really missed two channels - Zebra Gamer and Art For Kids Hub.
Actually, she missed more than that, but I didn't think the other channels she missed were really good for her - think annoying gamers with questionable behavior whose content is clearly trying to gain your attention every 15 seconds with insane alert sounds. (Just in case you're looking at a second screen instead of them? idunno folks, but it's unbearable to me).
So I made a script that downloads all the content on the selected channels beyond a certain date (all of it was too much to store), and I serve it on a Jellyfin server.
No algorithm, no unlimited content to browse, just a large but finite selection of content from a selected list of channels (only 2 in our case!) which only updates when I run the script.
I never had energy for side projects with a full-time job. Just because some do doesn't mean it's for everyone.
Maybe there are higher value ways to relax than doom scrolling but I don't think being "unproductive" beyond 8 hrs/day is a bad thing.
Hopefully you can also find work that is stimulating and gives that sense of accomplishment.
1) Block said online service using the hostfile until addiction becomes manageable / goes away. Repeat as needed.
2) For work, keep a notebook. Review and set goals at the start of each day or week. Review and update notes / goals at the end of each day and week. Your own agenda, your game to keep yourself motivated.
Now, since your addiction is blocked and you have something to do, you'll at least get it done before turning to your addiction to kill time / unwind.
Just like having junk food in the house means that I will tend to eat junk food (but I won't go buy junk food on impulse)...
* Remove the time-wasting capabilities from your devices (e.g., uninstall apps, set up uBlock Origin blocking rules for anything TikTok-like, block HN for a week).
* Make dedicated distraction devices hard to access (e.g., unplug gaming rig/console and store it away for a week/month, same with the living room TV/screen, sell that handheld gaming device).
Also, once you get some momentum on a better activity, it's easier to stay doing it. You might have to lock away all your distractions for a few days before you can get immersed in that coding side project (or writing that novella, or that new workout routine). But then it can become a go-to activity that you do automatically, and maybe even think about at other times, rather than defaulting to doomscrolling.
(I don't claim to always do this myself, but when I do, it works.)
The way I got over it is that I have started realizing, confronting, communicating these issues. I "sat down with myself" daily just to think for 15 minutes, without any distraction like youtube. Communicated what I though were my problems to my partner, friends, parents, therapist, forums, LLM.
Over time, patterns emerged, either by others pointing them out to me, or them occurring to myself. The patterns became higher and higher level, and I had more and more power and agency to fill in my gaps, and those in turn made my problems smaller, manageable. Challenges, even.
I also picked up hobbies that nurture the specific parts that I was lacking. For example, I had a very hard time to persistently care about living things. But after a leap of faith I successfully kept a plant alive, and I slowly build a hobby around this.
Funnily enough, youtube helped in this, because I also shaped that so that the helpful videos remained. While doing chores, self-care and other such things, I listened to a lot of mental health, lifestyle, introspective, hobby content, and these were wonderful sources of inspiration.
In a way, having a bluetooth headphone also helped a lot. It helped to bridge the gap between the digital world, which was my only comfort zone, and the "irl", which was like the cold, hard, overwhelming rest of the world that I didn't really want to deal with.
You can still listen to podcasts and YouTube whe on the treadmill or listen to your favourite albums.
As a coder myself i always thought gym wasn’t for me but i finally tried and i wish i started 20 years ago.
I’m now a better person i have less time for distractions and everything i do including watching youtube i do with more focus and purpose.
If you have too much time in your hands its easy to waste.
Go to gym!
If it's mild, and you just fell like you're too easily drawn into whatever the algo feeds you, well... it means the dopamine dealers at Alphabet are doing their job "right". Your job is know to try and cure the addiction.
This is not like "spending you days on cable TV" - YT has infinite content, with no occasion for boredom. Everything is always going to be 100% interesting, captivating, infuriating, etc... And if it's not, the "next" rush is a click away. Your brain is fighting an unfair battle.
Thankfully, "cold turkey" should not have any critical downside, so you could try.
Just being mindfull of how long you spend can help.
Leechblock NG has a helpful mode where you just restrict how long you can spend, before being locked. [1]
Any extension that removes the "suggestion", "shorts", etc... would put you in a better spot. I use Enhancer for Youtube for that [2].
I also find that many of the most interesting youtubers happen to be on nebula.tv, which clearly is way less designed for binge and addiction. [3]
And of course the usual stuff apply - find something or someone so great that you're rather spend time with them that on YT.
Also, at some point, I hope someone will run on a platform of "not letting advertisers completely rot people's brain for a few clicks". Even meth dealers have to sleep and watch they back.
Good luck !
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...
[2] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enhancer-for-youtub...
Done.
99% of all content on YouTube is crap anyway. Better things to do with your time.
Exercise also helps you sleep better -- sleep issues can also interfere with focus. And eating right is probably helpful too. It's the advice they give everybody who needs more energy -- but I think it can all be especially helpful for focus issues.
Youtube Enshitification, as it became more polished and commercial.
The short answer is the only things that do help are:
- therapy and medication to help stabilize and strenghten your emotion Control
- going cold turkey on addictions , removing them entirely for at least 30 days. This must be hard removal, not apps that block stuff but can be circumvented. Removal of block should be as hard as it can be
- go for 12-steps internet addicts anonymous groups. 12 steps are proven to work
- find a new hobby when going for 30days cold turkey, plan it like vacation
For instance, there's an RSS feed at https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections/videos.
I combined this with the Distraction Free YouTube browser extension that worked really well — no recommendations would display on the home page or on an individual video page.
So I'd only look at the videos that came through my RSS reader, and I'd see no other recommendations on YouTube — in and out. There are trade offs. I'd miss out on content that I'd probably be interested in. I trusted that if there was something interesting enough, a friend would tell me.
The extension broke when YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers. I still get alerted to new videos in my RSS reader. Except now, I get sucked into recommended content sometimes when I watch a video.
I think I just realized in typing this that I need to find another extension like DF YouTube.
- if on desktop, get a browser extension (or code one yourself with an AI) to turn off all the bits on YouTube like like count and comments. This makes the video content you’ve subscribed for the main content. No getting distracted reading comments
- curate your suggestions and only sub to things you care about
- get rid of the YouTube app on your phone and only use the browser version on mobile.
Kicking YouTube isn’t on my priority list but I don’t want it to consume my life like it has in the past. There’s value on that platform if you can interact with it consciously. I’ve implemented these suggestions in my own life and it’s helped rein in my YouTube time. Good luck!
For example, I have “Trump” or “Musk” to block any video with these keywords in the video title.
If you click on a share link video and those keywords appear, it’ll just show a black screen.
You have to first do a dopamine detox...you mention YouTube but it's usually a lot more than that. You probably addicted to a lot of other stuff (like porn, food, sugar, TikTok). You need to give your brain a break from the over stimulation.
what does this look like? get rid of all your electronics except what is essential. for me this is just my phone, kindle and laptop. as soon as I get home my phone goes in an electronic time lock box and its locked until next morning. on my laptop everything is blocked like YouTube and only the stuff essential is available (I'm on my Mac I use an app called SelfControl). get rid of your junk food and eat wholesome home made meals. replace YouTube with other interests you have always wanted to do preferably something that doesn't require electronics like drawing or reading or playing an instrument
After 30-60 days you feel a lot better and more at peace with yourself. at this point you have a decision to make, can I go back to where and keep it under control or do I need to make this the rest of my life. for me I chose an analog life and I avoid electronics as much as possible. I use instagram and YouTube but I have iOS timers on them so it's blocked after my allowed time runs out.
Still, you may then do something else that can also be considered a distraction, like refreshing the news, or Reddit or HN. So the more "global" approach is to look at your life setup and figure out why you feel the need to fill time like this.
Create a list of what you want to be doing and consider attaching it to your monitor or putting it just to the side so that you can easily look at it. When you feel stuck, look at this list and do something on the list. Ensure the list includes some easy to do things on it like maybe "go for a walk", "read a book", "play instrument" etc.
When trying to change habits, start off small and simple. For example, if you want to start running each day you might start by putting on your running shoes and walking to the end of the driveway and back. Start off so small that your brain can't talk you out of it.
I create daily todo lists and feel satisfaction from checking them off.
Try some ideas and see what works for you. Good luck!
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/detour/ogddhmpffcgk...
Install browser plugins like UnHook - which let you disable/hide many things like shorts, sidebar, etc
Uninstall the Youtube app on your phone
Turn off youtube history and have google delete all the history
Go back to old hobbies like art, music, etc or find new hobbies
I think Screentime does something similar on iOS so you could try that too but there wasn't anything I could find for Linux.
I also recommend therapy. This could be a symptom of something more complex in your life that you don't fully understand yet.
What worked for me was to install an Android app called Regain. It asks for how much time will you use while opening an app, like 5 minutes, 1 minute or 3 minutes or maximum time in a session. And then I also used another app called Farhan. So it gives you a reminder and a pop-up that you have scrolled something for like continuous 5 minutes or 10 minutes. You can set the timer. Both of these apps made me change my habits and now I don't have that much urge even without these apps.
I have uninstalled these apps. But I can now choose not to play anything on YouTube or Reddit or Telegram. And I also like I keep YouTube history off so it doesn't show me anything like that. And I try to use third-party YouTube apps like FreeTube. So that doesn't show suggestions, recommendations if you like. That can also block certain channels, shorts also. And I try to use every new browser wherever possible. That helps.
On laptop, I use News Feed Eradicator and Leechblock. You just have to use them to break your unproductive habits, that you can uninstall them.
I was heavily addicted to Twitter and Reddit. Not anymore.