To be more productive, be more bored

A bottle cap

This seems contradictory on the first interaction but let me explain.

Recently I started noticing one anomaly in my behaviour. I was missing a lot of stuff which I generally would not do. Like I would not put the lid back on the water jar in my kitchen after drinking water.

Or I would forget to bring back cloths from bathroom to the washing area after taking a bath.

Or I would not put my shoes on the shoe rack but on the side.

These seem much smaller issue but I never used to shy away from doing all these. This was a recent change and it seemed it’s not a good one. I should check what is happening.

I started to slow down a bit while doing stuff.

What I noticed was actually not very surprising. I was keeping my phone all the time with me.

I will wake up and reach out to my phone and start reading twitter posts. Then after 10 minutes, start watching YouTube shorts. One hour will be over and I will still be lying in my bed. Somedays I do move to sofa but that is not better at all.

It will either be watching YouTube shorts, or scrolling through twitter or reading Facebook posts. I always had the phone in my hand. In the toiler, while brushing, while wearing clothes or shoes, while drinking water. No matter what I was doing, it was with me.

Earlier I used to call my stammering my stalker but I think it is now my phone.

While doing so, I would ignore the task that I was supposed to do. Like putting the cap back on the jar. I would drink water and walk away.

I was more absent minded than I had ever been.

On a deeper level if I think it might be that my mind was thinking this info is very necessary for me. If I do not watch this short, something bad would happen but if I do not put shoe up on the shoe rack, it’s fine. That’s not a very threatening change.

I would give more importance to reading a post on twitter than the task at hand.

This is not good.

So, about a week ago, I changed a lot of things in my phone. I. removed YouTube, Logged out from twitter and Facebook. Fortunately I am not on insta which I hear is the worst of all.

Now I had nothing to watch on my phone. If I do open greyjay, I get normal videos instead of YouTube shorts. Watching a 10 min video has not almost become impossible for me. Probably due to shorter attention span but in any case, I do not have option.

The phone use decreased. It did not stop completely though. I would still sometime like an automated robot would reach out for the phone. In fact I logged into twitter multiple times. Like the Iran conflict would be solved If I provide my opinion on it.

Then a few days ago, when I woke up, I read an email in my phone. My twitter account was suspended because twitter thinks I am a bot.

Raymond hold saying I am a human male.

My problem was automatically solved. I do not need to do anything there.

Now it has been about a week without any such app in my phone. I would still pick up my phone. There would be nothing to do so I would put it back.

Now I am more bored in the day. The two hours that I was watching shorts, I have nothing to fill there. Somedays I just sleep and that is amazing. I am catching back on my remaining sleep.

Other days I would go for a walk. Now it doesn’t feel difficult to complete 10k steps in a day.

But more importantly, I am doing more stuff.

I am writing more cause I not bust reading other’s twitter posts.

I take more photos because I am not busy watching other’s pics.

I am using my mind more to think ideas where previously I would simply let the day go without much output.

So overall, I am more productive because I have time on my hand and lesser distractions.

I am bored hence I am productive.

Here are a few pics that I took recently.

Lying down on a bench as my back was hurting.

A rose while I was on a walk close by

Windfill and its distorted reflection. Next time I would try to smooth out water.

Flowers behind a bench. The rusty look of the bench and new life oozing from the flower.