One More Tab
Tabs are portals to fascinating minds.
With every distracted scroll, you lose energy on the work at hand.
I tweeted this earlier in the week. It’s one of those things that’s stayed with me.
Remember how breaks while studying in school would feel like an actual break. I’d play a quick game of wall cricket, call a friend for ten, hang in the kitchen with the mother. This isn’t pointless nostalgia. But a feeling. Breaks at work now tend to be on another screen on another app driving me on another path.
And when I come back to the original task, I’m not refreshed but weary. I can attribute part of this to my work not being in large chunks but small bites and therefore work and a break often look similar-sized. But it’s also a function of access. Tabs are portals to fascinating minds and lives. It’s ever so tempting to micro-dose on Twitter wisdom, mindlessly scroll Instagram and find half of India in Goa, or just needlessly read that 37th productivity article on Medium.
But this chronic consumption is tiring. There must be a better way. If you’ve figured hacks to take better breaks, do let me know how.
I’ve been feeling this way off late and have realised that I’ve so much excess time that goes in mindless scrolling . A hack that seems to have been working for me for the past one week is deleting my social media apps . I do log in On safari 2-3 times a day to check through , but the interface is never going to give you the dopamine kick that the app does. Also it’s more tedious to log in each time. Long story short, I’ve found other ways to kill the in between time slots . Stare out of a window. Make quick conversation or pick up the book that I’d otherwise keep for the night. I’d love to know if this/ something else works for you 🎈