I have a to-do list that I look at every day, keep track of what I need to do, prioritize, then either add into my calendar or just write down on a daily list of stuff to do.
I also have a not to do list, which isn't written down anywhere, but perhaps it should be. I have a problem with remembering not to do the things on that list however.
For instance TikTok, or other scrolling media platforms that don't have an end, I find that they deplete my dopamine, which leads me to be less enthusiastic about getting the stuff I need to do done, and also I'm more likely to overeat or drink on the days where I use too much TikTok.
The problem is I keep forgetting not to do it. The past few days I've been waking up and scrolling through Instagram reels, which is the equivalent of TikTok, and I find my days don't go nearly as smoothly. Then after a couple of days of this I realized that I had intended to stop using reels, but somehow just forgot that I shouldn't be doing that and that I had already made a decision to cut that out of my life.
So how does one remember what not to do? I feel like my brain has a desire to do certain things, most of them honestly are computer related dopamine traps. For some reason when I start picking up these bad habits again it doesn't occur to me at all that I had ever thought not to do this so that there would be any reason to abstain from these things.
Unfortunately I don't think I have a good answer. Do I wake up in the morning and go through a list of things I shouldn't do? Should I write them down on my refrigerator so I see them all the time? Perhaps I should add them to my homepage so every time I look at my to do list, my not to do list is also there.
None of these seem very practical. I've tried writing things down on refrigerators but if you're not actually doing the things on the list, eventually it just becomes background noise and you don't even notice it's there anymore.
Leave a comment below if you have a good suggestion on how to remedy the situation.