Personal Development

Here are a couple of fun challenges for you that will help you feel less bored and even better your life in the long run. Try them out today!

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1. Learn how to write with your non-dominant hand

Being ambidextrous is not only cool but can also come in handy when you can’t use your dominant hand because of an injury or if it is already occupied.

So why not challenge yourself to learn how to write with your non-dominant hand? 

2. Learn how to brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand

This is a great way to wake up your brain in the morning, prime it for the day, and practice working with your non-dominant hand. 

The long-term effects of using your non-dominant hand are debated. 

Some claim it increases your creativity and problem-solving skills. 

Others argue that each hemisphere in your brain intentionally has a specific task, and balancing out its functions will not make you smarter. 

Either way, it is a fun challenge to try out when bored.

3. Learn to do splits

Learning to do splits takes patience and commitment to regular stretching. 

Many lose their motivating after a few days at a seeming lack of process. 

This also happened to me a couple of times over multiple years until I finally committed to my daily stretches. 

Much to my surprise, it only took me two weeks to manage my first splits. 

Don’t push yourself too much tough! If you overstretch yourself (you will notice it when one leg suddenly stretches less than the other), you will have to take a break for a few weeks to let your muscles heal again. 

4. Learn to hold a handstand

Again, this takes practice and patience.

Do it safely, and make sure to use the right technique straight from the beginning before you form bad habits.

5. Learn to speed read

The informational age causes us to spend much of our lives reading everything from books, news articles, blog posts, subtitles, Instagram captions, e-mails, and text messages. 

Yet, most of us still read at a speed barely faster than elementary school kids. 

Imagine how much more time you’d have each day if you could double or even triple your reading speed while retaining your comprehension!

6. Practise the Memory Palace technique until you can use it with ease

Probably every student has wished at one point in their educational career to memorize information more easily. 

Well, the memory palace is a technique memory pros swear on for effective memorization of information. 

And while the rules of this technique are rather simple, applying it takes some practice and can be frustrating. 

So challenge yourself to get this technique down and ready to use. 

7. Learn the Major System to memorize numbers with ease

The Major System attributes letters to numbers so that combined with the memory palace technique, you can visualize a picture that translates into a number. 

That way, you can remember phone numbers, birthdays, passwords, and more much more easily. 

But again, you have to get the major system down first. 

8. Go a month without sugar

Going sugar-free is challenging not only because of our sweet tooth but also because virtually everything nowadays contains sugar. 

You might not even be convinced whether staying away from sugar really has any major health benefits. 

That’s why a trial month is a perfect challenge for you to see the effects a sugar-free diet has on your body and overall well-being.

9. Go a month without gluten

Seemingly all beautiful foods have gluten in them: bread, noodles, cereal, etc. 

It’s difficult to go without it, but there have been some speculations that gluten might cause acne and other health issues, so it might be worth a try. 

10. Eat vegan for a month

Besides the obvious reasons for going vegan, I think it can be a nice challenge that will clarify whether or not you really need that much meat in your diet to be healthy and happy. 

Try it out! You might just discover a new favorite recipe! 

11. Practise Yoga daily for a month

Depending on what type of Yoga you do, its practice can have calming effects or make you lose a ton of calories. 

However, all of the different Yoga types will positively impact your body and overall health if practiced regularly. 

There are many YouTube videos you can check out to learn about people’s experience with doing Yoga daily and the health benefits found by science. 

12. Learn how to juggle 

I always thought being able to juggle was a neat skill. 

I just never dedicated enough time to learn it. 

When I finally did so, I learned to juggle with three balls in only about a week! Now I only need to commit enough time to learn how to juggle with four balls.

My tip: Use rolled up socks and do it over a bed. That way, you won’t damage anything in the room, and you won’t get back pain from picking up the ball off the floor countless times. 

13. Learn to spin a pen between your fingers

Again, just a fun little skill that looks really cool but takes a while to get the hang of. 

Take some time to practice at home (not at school!) and make sure there is nothing breakable near when your pen slips out of your grasp mid-spin. 

14. Learn to type with ten fingers

Some lucky children learn this early on in life. 

If you are one of the people who didn’t, go and download one of the free typing programs and spend a few minutes every day on it. 

Being able to type fast is a necessary skill in many high-paying jobs. If you can type even faster, you will save yourself a lot of time. 

15. Cook one new recipe daily for a month

Eating the same few meals over and over again can get monotonous. But finding new recipes and cooking them for the first time takes a lot of time many people don’t have.

So let’s make it easier through task batching. 

Just dedicate one month (or maybe just two weeks) to cooking a new recipe every day. 

Before you start into that month, you spend some time accumulating 28+ recipes you want to try. Then you plan them out so that recipes with similar ingredients will be cooked close to one another, making shopping easier for you. 

And then you’re already good to go! 

You’ll end up not only having one month full of new recipes and improving your cooking skills, but you will also have an arsenal of new recipes for the months that follow. 

16. Find less-waste-producing alternatives for at least four household items in one month

There are many people online who advocate the merits of living without plastic, entirely vegan or entirely vegetarian. 

These people often make changing your lifestyle sound like a daunting 180° flip. It makes us forget the significance of small steps. 

You don’t have to be all vegan or all vegetarian. 

And you don’t have to live entirely without plastic. 

Reducing the amount of plastic you use even by changing one of your products is already a valuable step you should be proud of. 

Because it is a step that can take a lot of time and effort since it can take some time to find a suitable alternative and an affordable and available one. 

So challenge yourself to find less-waste-producing products for at least four household items during this month. 

Some ideas for products to replace: wet wipes, detergent, shampoo, water bottles.

17. Journal every day for 30 days

Many people recommend journaling, and while we might believe in its benefits, it can still be difficult to start. 

I believe the biggest problem is that people don’t know what to write about. And the second biggest, that they don’t block out a fixed time in their daily schedule for their journaling session. 

Use this challenge to work past these two issues. 

Read also: 9 Fun Ideas To Start Journaling Daily | How To Start Journaling

18. Improve your selfie skills with ten selfies a day for a month

If you are not a selfie pro, this can be a fun challenge to overcome your awkwardness when taking pictures. 

Confidence in any skill requires practice. So commit to taking ten selfies a day for a month and play around with different poses. 

19. Try a new makeup look every day for 2 weeks

It doesn’t need to be anything big. Especially if you feel incompetent with makeup, make sure to stick to subtle looks that you can do quickly and wear every day. 

At the end of the challenge, you will be more competent in applying makeup and have over a dozen looks to choose from in your arsenal. 

20. Challenge yourself to read one book a week 

Many people don’t even read one book a year. Few read one book a month. Even fewer manage one book a week. 

Challenge yourself to belong to this last group and maybe couple it with becoming a speed reader. 

21. Summarize every day of a month/a year in a sentence

It’s not only fun to be able to look back on the day-to-day happenings of your year.

It also causes you to remember that year better and, as a result, not feel like it has flown past in the blink of an eye. 

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Do you have any additional challenges to recommend? If you do, we might add them to the list. 

Either way, I hope you found some inspiration from this. I wish you lots of fun and motivation while doing the challenges. 

Until next time, Felicity Seeker!

Many recommend journaling as a daily habit. But it can be difficult to start when you don’t know what to write about. Here are 9 fun ideas to start journaling daily. 

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1. Content commentary

This is how I got into daily journaling. 

I took some personal development content – mostly YouTube videos – and analyzed in how far I lack what they recommend. 

For example, for content like 16 Habits of Highly Successful People, I would write about which of these habits I already have, which I really should implement and how I could do so. 

This is a very structured and easy but valuable way to journal. It increases your self-awareness and helps you to not just consume self-help content but actually use it to change your life. 

Also, you will never lack anything to write about since there is an abundance of personal growth content out there. 

2. Scripting

Scripting describes a way of journaling in which you write in the first person as if you are already living your dream life.

For example, don’t write about how today was just another day studying all day long while spending a few hours on your side hustle. 

Instead, write about how your business hit the 5.000 €/month benchmark today. Write about how you found the dream apartment and what exactly it looks like. 

Just write as if your goals have just become your reality, and make sure to imagine vividly and really feel the emotions along the way. 

3. Problems turned to solutions

Another way I like to use scripting is by directly writing about how I solved a problem that I currently still have. 

So, for example, instead of lamenting about how I am struggling to get clear skin or to learn faster or to get more blog traffic, I write about how I finally have these things and how all the effort and patience were worth it. 

This helps to get unstuck from self-pity mode and it instead directs your attention to how you could reach this future reality. 

4. Daily Summary

This is a very short journaling idea, but it can ingrain the habit of opening your journal every day. 

Simply write a one or two-sentence summary of the most noteworthy things that happened during the day. 

This will not only be nice to look back on, but it will also make you remember more of what you experienced and accomplished. 

5. Letter from your future self

People always talk about writing a letter to your younger self. Why not turn that into an affirming and manifesting practice by writing a letter from the point of view of our future self. 

What do you imagine your future self will be able to tell you? 

• You are on the right track; just be patient!
• All the hard work is going to be worth it!
• Things will turn out even better than you’ve expected them to!
• XYZ isn’t a problem anymore!
• I’ve come such a long within such a short time!

6. Journaling Prompts

Another great way to start journaling is by using the abundance of journaling prompts offered online. 

Especially Pinterest can be a great source of inspiration, so make sure to create a Pinterest board full of journaling prompts for yourself and aim to write and answer to at least one prompt a day. 

Read also: 27 Journal Prompts To Reinvent Yourself

Read also: 11 Journaling Prompts To Skyrocket Into The New Year

7. Diary

Recounting your day and working through the things that happened in diary-style can also be a form of journaling. 

It’s not my personal favorite because I’ve already recounted everything often enough by the time I sit down to journal. 

Any additional recounting is an unnecessary dwelling that will only keep me stuck in a possibly unhelpful energy. 

8. Daily gratitude, affirmations, positive/negative, and self-worth

Ok, so this is part of my morning routine, which is why it’s a perfect idea to start journaling daily. I start the morning by writing down : 

• three things I’m grateful for (try to find new ones as often as possible)
• three affirmations (in the present tense, as if you already have it)
• one good thing that happened yesterday and one bad thing (this is referencing to one of the Universal Laws, the Law of Balance, which basically states that for everything positive, there is something negative)
• lastly, one skill or attribute that makes me feel proud and worthy (because if we feel unworthy, we won’t manifest our dreams)

Being consciously aware of the law of balance is important because you can make your life very difficult if you try to only stay on the positive side. 

People who try to stay positive often have a big emotional crash that balances them out again.

So make yourself aware of the negatives to every positive in your life. For example: 

• More income means more taxes.
• Finding your dream apartment means additional costs for moving all your stuff there.
• A good grade means it will be more difficult for you to keep your performance on the same level and people have higher expectations of you.
• Finding the perfect dress means having to spend the money to buy it.

You get the point. There is always a downside to every good thing, but these downsides don’t mean we can’t appreciate the good. 

9. Journal through your regrets

Most of us try to suppress the memories of embarrassing situations or other regrets. Of course, we do. After all, it hardly creates comfortable feelings. 

However, this doesn’t help us because ‘what you resist, persists.’ 

Suppressing these memories will only make them pop into your mind at random during the day. Maybe you were in a good mood, and then the memory pops up and makes you feel bad. 

So how do we prevent this from happening? The answer: By working through our regrets and overcoming them. 

Usually, I do this as a meditation with eyes closed, but writing it down might be better for you if it helps you process and feel the emotions.

This is how you do it: 

1. Allow yourself to vividly remember the situation you regret and let yourself feel the regret. 
2. Then imagine yourself standing next to your past self or the person who wronged you, and tell them: “I forgive you, and I ask that you forgive me.”
3. Next, imagine how your past self or the person who wronged you looks at you and tells you the same thing. 
4. Lastly, breathe in deeply, and when you breathe out, release your regret out through the breath. 

Depending on how deeply ingrained your regret or anger is, it will take a few of these sessions to get rid of it. 

But if you do it for every new uncomfortable memory, you will notice yourself cling to them far less. 

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Which is your favorite idea to start journaling daily?

And who got you interested in journaling in the first place? I think for me, it was Kalyn Nicholson and Kimberley Wenya. 

As always, make sure to share any additional tips down below. We always appreciate your advice.

Until next time, Felicity Seeker!

Life can feel monotonous if we are going through the same routine every day. Luckily, I’ve got 19 ideas for you to make life less boring.

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1. Have a long-term project/goal to work on

Projects are always a great thing to focus on and direct your energy to. If you are busy chasing a goal, you can’t really be bored.

A few long-term goals for you to pursue are:

• Learning a language.
• Getting a degree.
• Healing your damaged hair.
• Learning to draw.
• Writing a thesis.
• Learning how to sew. 

2. Have a short-term goal to look forward to

While the above-mentioned long-term goals are great, they can at times take too long to keep up your motivation.

To balance this out and make life less monotonous, make sure to also pursue short-term goals. 

Here are a few ideas:

• Watching a newly released episode of a series.
• Reading the new chapter of a fanfiction (that gets regularly updated).
• Looking forward to the next Formula 1 race.
• Looking forward to the release of a movie.

3. Do a digital detox

Many of us get bored easily simply because we are usually stimulated all the time. As soon as this constant stimulation stops, boredom kicks in. 

It’s not only helpful to practice being bored, but the mental solitude you experience in the absence of stimulation is actually immensely crucial for a happy life. 

Cal Newport points out in his book Digital Minimalism how mental health professionals have noticed an unmistakable correlation between the spike in anxiety-ridden patients and the coming of age of the first true ‘smartphone’-generation.

It turns out that being always connected is not the formula for happiness but rather constant anxiety.

So, be smarter than most people and do a digital detox to relearn that solitude is not boring but a key ingredient for happiness.

At the very least, it’s going to be a fun challenge to tell others about.

Read also: Digital Minimalism Book Review | 11 Lessons + Quotes

Read also: 9 Easy Ways To Reduce Your Social Media Use | Tips For A Digital Detox

4. Give yourself a monthly challenge

If we don’t push ourselves to do anything besides our daily tasks, we spend weeks or even months lost in the monotony of doing almost the same things every day. 

That’s why giving yourself a monthly challenge is such a nice idea. 

Here are a few you should try: 

• Learn how to brush your teeth and write with your non-dominant hand 
• Learn to juggle 
• Practice to do splits
• Improve your selfie skills with ten selfies a day 
• Try a new makeup look every day 
• Challenge yourself to read one book a week 

Read also: How I Read One Book A Week – 11 Tips To Read More

Read also: 9 Personal Growth Challenges You Have To Try

5. Switch up the series you watch instead of sticking to them for a long time on end

Ok, so this is a tip mainly for people like me, who don’t binge-watch series within a handful of days.

I don’t spend much time on Netflix. Many days, it’s not even an entire hour. So you can imagine how long it takes me to get through a series like ‘Friends.’ 

To create more variety in your life, make sure to sprinkle in other series or even movies. Maybe dedicate your morning Netflix session to watching Friends, and then in the evening, you watch something shorter like Sex Education. 

Just switch it up.

6. Exchange series time for audiobook, book, podcast, or youtube time

Use the different mediums that are at your disposal. Don’t just cling to your all-time favorite. 

There is a lot of fun and value for you to discover!

7. Change your hair color

You don’t even have to do something big. A small change in tone that is noticeable enough to feel novel can help you make life less boring. 

But if you’re brave, go all out and try pink or blue hair or maybe those two-colored layers like Dua Lipa once had. 

8. Rearrange your furniture

You might not have the money to move somewhere new or travel far. 

But you could always rearrange some of your furniture. 

Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the furniture. You could just rearrange all the things standing on your table. 

9. Decorate according to the season

Another way to make life less boring is by using the variety that nature already presents you with. 

There are four (or, if you’re Swabian, five) seasons a year. Use them to change the look of your home. 

Decorate with snowflakes in winter, tulips and easter eggs in spring, perhaps melons in summer, and colorful leaves in autumn. 

These different aesthetics are a nice way to spruce things up. 

10. Study the moon cycle and do some fun rituals

Another cycle presented to us by nature is the moon cycle. 

In the last years, some businesses have been coming up that focus on teaching how you can synch your lifestyle to the moon cycle. 

There are, for example, some fun and witchy rituals you can do in the different phases. 

Perhaps it sounds too woo-woo to you, but give it a try for a cycle or so. It will definitely make your life less boring. 

11. Study the star constellations

And another variable of nature that is always changing are the constellations we see in the night sky. 

This change is not particularly fast, so it won’t offer much excitement to distract from your life’s monotony. However, it can still be a nice project that will spruce things up a bit. 

12. Write a one or two-sentence summary of each day and its most memorable moments

A whole year seems to flash by in the blink of an eye because we didn’t make enough memories that could create benchmarks for us to measure time on. 

Without those timely benchmarks, the days blur into each other, and we feel like we are repeating the same day over and over again. 

So take a few minutes out of your evening and write a one or two-sentence summary of your day, highlighting the most memorable moments.

13. Actively search for new songs

You can make life less boring by having a fun playlist to accompany you throughout the day. 

So make sure to not only listen to your all-time favorites on repeat and wait for new songs to be released but also actively go and search for new songs to vibe to. 

You can do this through Spotify playlists, YouTube edits, TikTok videos, or soundtracks to series.

14. Join a book club or purchase a monthly subscription

Following the reading recommendations of a book club can bring the variety that will make life less boring. 

You could also purchase a monthly subscription for books or games or whatever exciting product you can find. 

15. Challenge yourself

Challenge yourself by doing something you wouldn’t have thought you were capable of. 

You could try to read one book a week for a month instead of just one book a month. 

You could try to learn to juggle with three balls in a week and with four balls in two weeks.

Or how about joining the Yoga With Adriene challenge of daily yoga sessions all throughout January.

You could also finally commit to stretching daily until you can do the splits. 

And how about learning to spin a pen in between your fingers. 

There are truly endless options for fun little challenges!

It’s time to do all the things you would have always liked to do but never had the patience to sit down and actually learn. 

16. Take personal development courses

Immersing yourself in personal development is a great way to make life less boring. But it can be tedious to do it all on your own. That’s why having a self-help course with a clear curriculum, lessons, and tasks can be such a refreshing option.

Besides the tons of individual courses offered by countless online entrepreneurs, websites like Masterclass, Mindvalley, and Skillshare offer several high-value courses for a yearly or monthly subscription. 

17. Plan out a future vacation

You might not be able to afford to travel anywhere far away right now, or there might be travel restrictions, or perhaps you’ve only returned from your yearly vacation. 

Either way, another great way to make life less boring is by immersing yourself in planning and researching. 

You could create a binder full of potential hotels to stay at, routes to take, restaurants to eat at, and sights to see at your dream destination. 

The more you’ve got planned out now, the more spontaneous you can take that trip you’ve been dreaming of. 

18. Cook one new recipe every day for two weeks/a month

Cooking can take a lot of effort. First, there goes the planning: What recipe appeals to me? What ingredients do I need? Where can I get them? 

Then the actual cooking comes, which always takes much longer if you’re doing the recipe for the first time. 

While rotating through the same couple of recipes saves you time, it can get rather monotonous and boring. 

That’s why dedicating a month to finding and trying out new meals not only makes that month more exciting but also makes the following months less boring. 

19. Create a past and future milestones list

It’s always exciting to see how much you’ve already accomplished, and it’s motivating to see clear future goals laid out in front of you. 

So take a page in your journal or make a new note on your phone where you list all the milestones you’ve accomplished this year/since you started college/since you started your business/in your life. 

Make sure to take a moment and truly be proud of them. 

Next, take a new page and list all the milestones you want to meet in the upcoming months or years. 

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Which of these ideas do you want to try out first to make life less boring? Do you have additional ideas to share?

Share your thoughts with your fellow Felicity Seekers!

Until next time!

If you are ambitious, you most likely want to get ahead in life as fast as possible. Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Here are 11 ideas to help you get ahead of your peers.

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1. Live below your means

If you always spend your entire paycheck before the next one comes in, you will forever be financially stuck. 

Even worse, you will run into financial troubles as soon as unexpected costs come around!

Do your future self a favor and live below your means. 

You can do this by continuing to live in your tiny, shabby flat a few months longer than necessary before you upgrade.

Or you can keep the phone you have for a year longer than you’d planned to. 

Every time you postpone an upgrade of your lifestyle, transfer the money you would have spend on the upgrade into your savings account. 

Since you were willing to spend that money anyway, it won’t hurt you if it leaves your bank account in the form of savings. 

2. Do the inner work

We all have grudges, traumas, insecurities, and limiting beliefs that are doing us much more harm than good. 

The sooner you overcome them, the quicker your life will improve. 

To do the inner work, you can get yourself a coach or mental health professional who will take your hand and guide you.

Whether or not this is an option for you at the current moment, you should also do the inner work on your own.

• Read personal development books to uncover your limiting beliefs.
• Journal about their cause, their impact on your life, and the beliefs that should replace them. 
• Meditate on your memories, and keep remembering them despite every effort you’ve made to forget them. Forgive the person who has wronged you, and forgive yourself for making mistakes. 

In my experience, you don’t have to put much effort into consciously overcoming limiting beliefs. 

If you consume personal development content every day, you will inevitably come across your limiting beliefs. And as long as you are open for change, they will slowly make space for more supportive beliefs.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, requires conscious effort and courage. It is so much more easy and comfortable in the short term to resist thinking about an embarrassing situation or to marinate in our anger. 

Integrate a practice of forgiveness into your daily routine. The beginning will be hard, but it is an important habit to help you get ahead in life. 

3. Build income streams

The more financial freedom you have, the more you can live life on your terms. 

Having multiple streams of income is more important than having one very prosperous stream of income. 

Because that one stream can always run dry. You could get fired from your 9-to-5 for one reason or another. There could be a financial crisis or a pandemic that forces your company to shut down. 

We all experience bad luck once in a while. If you have multiple streams of income, bad luck can’t hurt you as much. 

Start building at least one additional stream of income now to get ahead in life. 

4. Learn how to learn fast and effectively

School teaches us what to learn but very little about how to learn. Due to that, students have been applying outdated studying techniques for decades.

Nowadays, this is a much bigger problem than ever because of the sheer volume of what we need to learn. 

That’s why successful people know that they have to learn how to learn fast and effectively to get ahead in life.

Get ahead in life by using techniques like spaced repetition, active recall, and the memory palace. 

Read also: 11 Tips to Study Effectively | How I Study for Law Exams

5. Learn speed reading

You will spend a lot of your life reading the information, whether in books, online articles, magazines, emails. Or captions. 

Learning how to read faster with more comprehension will help you to get ahead in life. 

Read also: How I Read One Book A Week – 11 Tips To Read More

6. Solve any health issues as soon as you can 

Seemingly small health issues can cause severe consequences if left alone for a long time. 

The healthier you are, the more you can enjoy life and achieve it. So make sure to get ahead in life and take care of any health issues as soon as possible. 

7. Aim to google things just once

Many people nowadays have the mentality that since they can google anything at pretty much any time, there is no need to make an effort to remember the information. 

Change this mentality today and actually make an effort to remember what you looked up. 

Not only does it save you time when you inevitably would need to look it up again, but it also increases your common knowledge and makes you seem more sophisticated. 

8. Let go of things and people that don’t serve you

I’ve recently had to let go of a plan I had been clinging to for quite a while, and let me tell you, it lifted such a weight off my shoulders! 

It really had been causing me unnecessary stress, and I should have adapted to reality much sooner.

You can also feel the same relief once you let go of ‘friends’ you haven’t been vibing within quite a while. 

It’s ok to grow apart. While that person may have been an important part of a phase in your life, it doesn’t guarantee you will stay close later on. 

Be open to changing your relationship into something more fitting. If that doesn’t work, consider dropping it altogether.

9. Start to collect practical experience

While having a degree is good and often necessary to gain a job, it rarely guarantees you are skilled at handling practical work. 

You know that, which will make you struggle to be confident, and your employer knows that.

So, how do we improve our competence? By gaining practical experience early on. 

If you study law, this could be by working as an assistant to a lawyer in your spare time. 

If you are working towards a programming degree, you could do some programming work for others through Fiverr. 

And as a business student, why not try to get your own blog off the ground or manage the social media of someone. 

Get ahead in life by collecting these experiences early on. 

10. Build self-discipline and resilience by starting projects and seeing them through till the end

“How you do anything is how you do everything.”

– T. Harv Eker

With each task that you start but don’t finish, you increase the struggle to complete the next task you take on.

Like so many things, self-discipline and resilience are muscles we need to exercise to keep them strong. 

The sooner you start with their training, the more you are going to get ahead in life.

11. Read books, newspapers, blog posts, fanfictions, etc. – just read

Reading has a myriad of benefits: First and foremost, it is one of the best sources of information our world has to offer; secondly, it trains your concentration and comprehension, and it also increases your vocabulary.

I also believe that it can boost your creativity and imagination because of all the new ideas it presents you with. 

You can hardly go through a day without reading something, be it emails, articles, or contracts. 

So you might as well start making reading an important part of your day to get ahead in life.

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What about you? What activity served you well and got you ahead in life? Do you have anything to recommend?

And which of these ideas do you plan to try out? 

We’d love to hear from you!

Until next time, Felicity Seeker.

Many people seem to do a digital detox nowadays. But how and why exactly should you reduce your social media use?

Read also: Digital Minimalism Book Review | 11 Lessons + Quotes

Few people realize that the founders of Apple, Facebook, Instagram & Co. would never have built such a successful company had they spend as much time on phones and social media as the average users of their products do.  

According to some statistics, the average social media user spends almost 2 1/2 hours (145 minutes) every day on social platforms. 

Even worse, the average phone user picks up their phone 58 times a day and spends three hours and 15 minutes using the device. 

That’s more than 22 hours a week, and more than 49 days a year, we lose to mostly mindless scrolling and tapping on our phone.

By contrast, I have used my phone on average a little over 20 minutes a day for a few years, and I only drop in on social media on odd days when I am curious about one specific account. 

Of course, I am no digital saint. I spend a lot of time reading fanfiction on my tablet or laptop, and occasionally I spend too much time watching YouTube videos. 

Still, I imagine I have so much more time during the day to spend on pursuits like studying, reading, and building my business than phone addicts have.

Also, since I stopped using Instagram daily, I feel so much less comparisonitis and FOMO; instead, I am more focused on and content with my own life. 

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to reduce your social media use. But, since you’re here, I suppose you already know that. 

So let’s get into the tips: 

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1. Delete the apps on your phone and only access them via browser

This seemingly small rule has immensely powerful effects. After all, the biggest reason we’ve become so attached to social media in the first place is the convenience of its immediate availability. 

Just grab for your phone, which always carries around with you, swipe up and tap a few times, and voila, in a matter of seconds, you are staring at your news feed. 

Deleting the apps from your phone is not meant to signal you stepping away from social media once and for all. For most people, that measure would be way too harsh to ever try. 

Instead, you should delete the app with the promise to yourself to still check your social accounts from your laptop or tablet. 

The extra time and effort it takes to enter your accounts will do true wonders to quell your motivation to do so. 

In fact, you might soon find yourself losing a big portion of your interest in these apps. 

2. Find an alternative activity for bursts of boredom.

In a world of instant and constant entertainment, we suffer from a lack of tolerance for boredom. 

The second we feel bored – be it waiting in a line, sitting in a waiting room, or counting the minutes until the end of a lecture – we reach for our phones to fill this entertainment void. 

This urge can be difficult to resist at the beginning when you are still very much addicted to the social media rush. 

Pure self-discipline can get you there, but there is also a far easier method: Stay busy. 

Usually, I’d advise everyone to not be busy but productive because the quality of your work counts and not how many hours a day it fills. 

However, in this case, we can benefit from being busy. If you fill your free time with tasks that take up all of your attention, you can’t focus on other things like your phone. 

When you’re bored in lecture, grab a pen and continue to fill out the squares of a page in your notebook. 

If you are bored in a waiting room, take out a book and work on your goal to read one book a week. 

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And if you are bored at home, take three pairs of socks and work on your goal to learn how to juggle them. 

Find goals to pursue during every burst of boredom. Ideally, but not necessarily, those goals should keep you entirely away from your phone. 

3. Turn off notifications

Once you have found something to direct your attention away from your phone, it would be counterproductive to have your phone vibrate and ping and destroy all that effort. 

I’ve disabled any notification sounds for text messaging or social media straight from the beginning, and later on, I also disabled notification banners on the lock screen. 

If I have to use my phone for navigation or look something up on the internet, I don’t want to be immediately bombarded with other people’s messages. 

I chose how I spend my time. If I want to look something up online, I do exactly that. And if I want to text with others, I do that on my own time. 

I take control of how I spend my day. 

4. Be busy! 

The easiest way to forget to check your phone and social media is by being too busy to do so. 

So before you jump into your digital detox, make sure to find activities or projects to fill your time with. 

Naturally, these activities shouldn’t include a phone. 

5. Use apps that block your internet or certain websites 

I’m sure you’ve heard of the many apps available that can block your access to certain apps or even wifi altogether for predetermined amounts of time. 

If you think this is the right fit for you, make use of them. 

A word of warning: Don’t be too strict with the limits you set yourself. Keep it to the very essential. 

The more you restrict yourself, the more resentment will build and the more you’re likely to ditch these apps altogether. 

6. Carefully curate a handful of high-quality sides you follow for a certain topic

Are you interested in the news? Don’t just browse through random news sites and read all the breaking news in hopes of getting a tiny bit of different information from each side. 

Instead, curate a shortlist of high-quality and trustworthy sources that will present you with the most complete version of the story. 

The same goes for celebrity gossip. Ditch the dozens of gossip accounts you follow on Instagram. Instead select maybe three sources that have proven the most valuable for you so far. 

If you carefully curate the list of your sources of information, you will spend a fracture of the time gathering the most important information. 

7. Always ask yourself: Why do you want to use this tool? Do its benefits outweigh the time it will steal? And how do you plan on using it? 

Most don’t spend much thought on why we use social media. It’s mostly a kind of herd pressure we mindlessly follow: ‘All my friends are on Instagram, so I should be on Instagram as well.’

Once you actually take the time to analyze your relationship with Instagram, Facebook & Co., it might be surprised how you could spend so much time on an app with so little value to you. 

Why are you using Instagram? What benefits do you want to gain from it? If you strip it down to just these few benefits, how would you need to use the app to attain them? In how little a time a day or a week could you achieve these benefits? 

Chances are, you would only need to check Instagram or Facebook once a day for maybe 30 minutes to an hour to connect with others. 

8. Leave your phone behind when possible or put it out of reach

Out of sight, out of mind. 

If you put your phone into a drawer at home or into your back instead of your pants pocket, it will be much easier to avoid the urge to look at it. 

11. Power through one week of discomfort

The beginning of a digital detox is always uncomfortable. You’ll find your hand twitching to your phone more times than you’d expect.

The good news is, getting over your digital addiction is much easier than getting over a substance addiction. 

After a week, many notice themselves forgetting about their phone and social media more and more. 

So, brave that discomfort for a few days and don’t give up straight away. It will be worth it in the long run!

Do you think these tips can help you to reduce your social media use? Do you have any additional tips? 

Let us hear from you in the comments down below!

Until next time, Felicity Seeker!