Days Free of Fic: 0
Longest Streak: 1
Current Subscriptions: 9
Current History/Bookmarks: 9
Todays Steps:
- Quitting Fic: Cleaning up the Inbox
- Moving Forward: Setting Some Definable Goals
Yesterdays stats made me feel good about the progress I’ve made throughout last week. It wasn’t perfect which is fine but the fact I had one totally Fic free 24 hours was great. But the fact that my screen time dropped that much was what really pleased me.
What didn’t please me as much as the fact that I couldn’t really well account for what I was doing with the time I got back. So this week I’m going to set some big long-term goals to aim for but also set a daily addition that I desire to make sure I’m using this time in a good way but also implementing strategies that will have long term pay off.
Step 5: Cleaning out the Inbox
Alright this one is one of those that I almost didn’t add to the list. I wanted everything to be as easy as cleaning out all my AO3 stuff, deleting some browser history and then calling it good. I wanted to ignore these next 5 steps because they are the ones that feel so very final to me. They were the loop holes I wanted to leave for myself. The bottle of booze in the box in the back of the bathroom cabinet just for emergencies.
But I encourage you, if you are battling something like this to get rid of those escape routes. And if you can’t eliminate them yourself tell your person. Remember them from 1: Pressing Unsubscribe & Reaching Out, reach out to that person and tell them if you leave yourself and escape route.
There is no tracking this one. I’m not counting or going through each one individually like I did for Subs and History. I’m just going to type the email address AO3 uses to send me notifications (for your ease of use if you are doing this its do-not-reply@archiveofourown.org)
Don’t do this on your phone it’ll make your life harder if you don’t have a good app. Instead sign into the browser version so you can do select all functions.
If you stored all yours in a folder go ahead and delete that folder as well. Wipe it out. Don’t keep these. Be honest with yourself. Clear out reminders. Clear out the things that reduce friction make it a 10 step process to try to get to a fic.
Going to be honest even with select all doing hundreds at a time this is tedious. So turn on some music or put on a podcast while you do this. Motivate yourself don’t put it off. If you want a suggestion Dr. K put out another youtubes on technology addiction. This is what I’ll continue listening as I do this. I find understanding helps fuel my desire to leave it behind.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/OwlXbUYDf0w?si=JTyhaR6f8_xZqdkx
Once you are done. Block the email. I can’t seem to press that button, but I believe in you.
Step 5: Setting Definable Goals
My project manager side is coming out so I like clear goals (ie the 10 Steps) and trackable things. The obvious one is my goal is to
- Never read fanfiction again
- Block Fanfic Emails
- Delete My AO3 Account (this causes a really high panic spike so definitely something I’ll be discussing with my support)
- Take 2025 Off Kindle Unlimited Minimum (I mentioned this in the moving forward step four briefly 4: History Notes)
- Limit my phone screen time to no more than 5 hours a day
Why: Because I want to live a healthy, intentional life and have a driving purpose
Small goals win however so celebrating the small success are what I’m looking at on a day to day. Right now it would be a huge success to go for 3 days without ready fanfiction. Cleaning out my inbox and AO3 make me have to work harder to get to read a story and gives more chances to turn around. Dropping the hours of screen time I did last week gives me space to start dealing with emotions I’m avoiding (if handled well)
So my definable goal to track this week for moving forward is implementing something good that will help me in the long run. We’ve done a lot of removing negative and I want to make sure that time is spent on good.
Weekly Good Addition: 30 minutes journaling a day. For me this is going to be focused on two things.
1. Starting me day: Thoughts on a nonfiction book I’m reading that is about a man who spent 7 months with Monks and is reflecting on that life. I find this very inspirational as this is something I would theoretically love to do but cannot afford to not work that long or leave my life behind like that at this stage. I’m hoping this adds a sense of peace to my mornings and replaces waking up and reaching for the phone.
2. Ending my day: Listing three things I didn’t like and 5 things I liked about the day and try to repeat the likes as little as possible. This is proving quite hard, but I have been using the I didn’t likes as motivation to fix things in my life or topics for therapy.
Ie. I wrote I didn’t like how messy my front entry way looked on Friday and on Sunday I decided that would be my project.
What is a weekly goal that you want to add in as you take your addiction out of your life? Remember no matter how small a step in the right direction counts. Keep your head up a new moment is a fresh start – Mels
Ps. My posting schedule is going to be MWF 8:00am (ish) and Stat Sundays.
Leave a Reply