How To Break Bad Habits With An iPad
I was addicted to YouTube.
Whenever I felt bored or I didn’t want to do work, I would switch apps and open up YouTube.
On my iPhone, this was already a major issue. When I started doing the same on my iPad, something had to change.
In my most recent post, I talked about forming effective habits. Today, let’s talk about breaking the habits you hate but can’t break (based on info from Atomic Habits by James Clear).
Make It Invisible
To form a strong habit, you need to make the cue for the habit visible.
To break a habit, you need to make the cue invisible.
Let’s use my case as an example:
My problem was that I was using YouTube way too much.
To make YouTube invisible, I removed the app from my Home Screen and moved it to the App Library. Therefore, I wouldn’t be constantly reminded about the app every time I unlocked my iPad.
To make the app even more invisible, you can delete the app. That would remove every possible cue from your iPad. By doing so, you’d force yourself into only using YouTube when you actually want to use the app, not when you’re bored or have nothing to do.
I also have a personal idea to add on (I think it falls in this category): taking on a personal project can take up a lot of your time. You’ll have less time for distractions, making them “invisible.”
Make It Unattractive
This is easy to understand but can be tricky to implement: add punishments after you do a bad habit.
I’ve heard of people hiring pros to slap people when they go on Facebook or paying hundreds of dollars every time they skip a workout.
Unfortunately, most of us can’t do that.
We can, however, make our own punishments that suit us.
Here are the first five punishment ideas that came to my mind
- Pay a friend a dollar
- Pay a sibling a dollar
- Donate a dollar to charity
- One-day ban from a fun activity (whatever that means to you)
- No phone for an hour
Ideally, you want a small but noticeable punishment.
To incorporate this on your iPad, you can use beeminder, a tool with financial penalties and integrations with iPad apps (like Todoist).
Make It Difficult
To form a good habit, you want to reduce the friction of performing the habit.
To do the opposite, you’ll want to increase friction.
Let’s use the YouTube example: someone who deletes the app from their iPad will have to go to a browser and search for YouTube. That increases the friction when trying to watch a YouTube video.
I’ll use another example: mindlessly scrolling through the news on your iPad.
To increase the friction, delete all news apps. You would then need to search for news through your browser rather than simply opening an app.
Make It Unsatisfying
To make a habit unsatisfying, only perform it in an uncomfortable position.
One idea (if applicable) is to only do a habit in noticeably hot or noticeably cold weather. This doesn’t mean reaching the point of heat exhaustion or hypothermia, but the discomfort should be somewhat noticeable.
Another idea is to do the habit standing up.
With the YouTube example, that would be perfect — forcing yourself to stand up when watching non-educational videos will keep you from entering a zone of mindlessly consuming content.
In other words, you won’t get stuck scrolling through your phone while on a bed or sofa.
A final idea I just came up with is to keep a journal of your bad habits.
I’m unsure if this works or not (I’ve never tried it), but reflecting on your bad habits might make them more unsatisfying. Once you understand the effects of these habits, the chance of you repeating them will probably decrease.
Final Thoughts
Bad habits suck.
Whether it’s mindlessly scrolling through your phone, constantly checking your email, or endlessly watching YouTube videos, bad habits keep you from living a fulfilling life.
With discipline, you can break any bad habit you have — I hope this guide taught you how.
For more on forming and breaking habits, check out this summary of Atomic Habits by Ali Abdaal and this summary by Four Minute Books.
Thanks for reading!
Adi
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