The reason why I set these rules is because if I’m being honest with myself — I STRUGGLE with productivity. I’m still learning how to be indistractable and (it’s a bit of wince to say but) productive. Or rather, a better way to put it for myself is — being intentional with time. Being productive (what we are used to saying), is not about hustling day in day out. It’s about intentionality.

If you intend to read, READ. If you intend to finish that online course, FINISH it. If you intend to watch a movie, go WATCH it. If you intend to scroll through Instagram to check on the latest updates of your friends, SCROLL. But if you intend to complete that presentation, and you scroll mindless through Instagram, then you are not being intentional with your time — or shall I say — productive.

1. No movies unless it’s social.

I know it sounds bizarre, like won’t I want to take a day off to reward myself and watch a movie or series of some sort? No, I’d rather spend the day journaling, reading, writing or going for a nice long walk or hike. Because I realised that days spent watching movies or a series alone can easily be forgettable or regrettable. I’d end up asking myself: where have the day gone to?

The one time I gave in to this rule was during the Christmas break and binge watched all the episodes of Squid Game 2 in one day. The dopamine crash hit me like a bulldozer and it took me almost a week to recover from it.

So, I’m only allowed to watch movies or a series when I’m with someone. Just a chill night or when we have nothing else to do, a movie is a great way to past time. Compared to watching it alone, I get to share my reactions and thoughts about the movie with others. And it’s just fun to see everyone’s different reactions. We can laugh, cry, be annoyed or cringe together. It’ll definitely not be a forgettable or regrettable night (or day or whenever you choose to watch it)!

2. No social media app on my phone.

Yes, I’m talking about the tempting, easy-to-click-and-open app. Just with a click of a finger, we can easily stay hooked on the crazy activities happening in other people’s lives that are not even their usual day-to day. Of course there are exceptions, but let’s be honest with ourselves: do you actually share with others the full story or more so the sweet side?

I can understand that the whole point of social media is that it is just a platform where we share updates — not our whole life story. If we want, we can write a biography or something. Hence, we tend to share the fun, exciting, interesting and crazy stuffs we did recently or milestones in life. No objections to that though. But most of the time, we couldn’t care less. If we truly care, we will be congratulating our close friends and family personally because we would have known that they are on the road to achieving and have achieved a milestone.

Nonetheless, some posts will trigger something in us to reconnect with that person but most of the time it’s only at the surface level — liking and commenting — and then we forget that we even left that comment there. But these only happen rarely. Weighing the pros of potential reconnection and inspiration to take certain actions in my own life, and cons of staying hooked for hours on meaningless scrolling and being a wasteperson, I have decided to let go of social media.

3. Log into social media only if I have something meaningful to share

The only time I’ll log into my Instagram account is when I truly have something meaningful to share. It’s mainly to spark inspiration in others, share my learnings and progress on something. I’ll log back out and delete the app off my phone once I’m done. This is to prevent me for continuous checking for likes and comments. Dopamine craving. I’ll only check it once the next day for my ‘thenerdysloth.sg’ Instagram account in case any readers have questions regarding my educational posts.

For example, my last post on my personal account was on completing and passing my CVA certification exams. In the caption, I shared how much we, CVA students, have grown from the first on-site session to the day of the exams. From being confused with the names and location of many points to being able to go through all the 200 acupoints in a few hours. My main intention is to spark encouragement to whoever that may be struggling out there that challenge is just part of growth and the road to success is bound to come. And to celebrate our wins along the way.

For my ‘thenerdysloth.sg’ account, I share educational posts on veterinary medicine and pet care.

Before posting, I’d ask myself: what can someone who sees this post learn from this?

4. No phone usage until 12pm and past 8pm.

From the moment I wake to 12pm I’ll do anything besides using my phone to reply to messages or whatsoever. Because my mornings are when I’m most productive and I wouldn’t want to waste my energy reacting to messages or, worse yet, mindless scrolling. And not even listening to podcasts or music while walking to school in the morning — it’ll my headphone free pursuit walk — walking with my own thoughts. Moments like these are so precious because that’s when my most creative ideas spark.

Besides the research showing improved sleep quality with reduced screen time 2 hours before bed, unless it’s an emergency, people will not mind at all that you reply them the next day when they sent a text past 8pm. It’s my wind down time after 8pm and wouldn’t want any text or email to keep me up at night. If it’s really urgent, they will call.

If I forgot that I need to reply someone and only if I know it’s going to take me less than 2 minutes (2-minute rule), then I’ll whip out my phone for a quick text.

Of course there will be exceptions but these only happen rarely. Like when I need to check the ‘important messages’ group chat before an exam for any changes in venue or timing, or when our prof will only let us know of any updates to class changes on that morning.

5. Be ‘unproductive’ for 2 hours every day.

An advice from a professor whom I really look up to and is great at what she does. When I mentioned to her how stressed I was during one of the exam sessions last year (2nd semester of year 1) that I failed a subject, her advice was “give yourself 2 hours every day to do something relaxing or energising”. Be it having a meal with friends, a video call with my parents, a walk alone in the park, gym or yoga.

It’s only unproductive if we are doing something that is unintentional and unplanned. Hence the apostrophe. As long as it is intentional — even watching a movie — it is productive. Time is meaningfully spent and not wasted. You are your own master of your time.

Block out that 2 hours. Depends on how we may want to split it in a day. An hour then another hour. Or even between work periods — 15 minutes of break after 45 minutes of focused work. If you think about it: 6 hours of work with breaks — after every 45 minutes, we take a 15 minutes break — that’s exactly 4.5 hours of focused work (because research do shows that we can only focus for 4-5 hours per day) and 1.5 hour of break. That leaves another half an hour block free for us to do anything we want. My point is TAKE PROPER BREAKS — your mental health will thank you for it.

We are all familiar with the Pomodoro technique but for more cognitive heavy task requiring longer focused time or if we are able to focus longer than 25 minutes, we can increase our focused time and break time accordingly. One relevant study is by Dr. John P. Trougakos and his team at the University of Toronto, examining how taking breaks impacts performance and well-being. They found that workers who engaged in longer work sessions (around 40 minutes) followed by slightly longer breaks (10-20 minutes) showed better recovery and were more engaged in subsequent tasks compared to those who didn’t take breaks or took breaks that were too short.

6. Stretch for 5 minutes before grabbing my phone.

If I have the urge to check my phone for no particular reason or when I just want a ‘break’, I will stretch for 5 minutes before touching my phone (and my phone will be placed far away).

A similar rule I set for myself is when I go for a toilet break – I’ll grab a small physical book (maybe a Kindle in the future 😆) instead of my phone. If not then nothing at all — I’ll just do my business in silence or just sit with my thoughts. It’s better to stay 10 minutes reading a book in the toilet than 30 minutes watching YouTube videos and getting numbness in my legs. Currently, the book I’m bringing with me to the toilet is a book on Vipassana meditation 🧘‍♀️.

7. Send appreciation messages or ‘I’m thinking of you’ messages when I have the urge to stay on my phone.

After I’ve checked all my messages and replied to all of them, did whatever I needed to do on my phone like settling my stray notes, clearing images etc, and I have the urge to stay on my phone to maybe watch some YouTube shorts or something, I’ll go to WhatsApp or Telegram to send appreciation messages or “I’m thinking of you” messages. After sending to a couple of friends or family members, that urge to scroll usually dies.

If that urge stays, the 5 minutes rule (rule 6) comes into play. Stretch or look out the window works great.

To end of…

I hope these rules sparked something in you to take action. We are all different. We have different habits and beliefs and hence the rules we set for ourselves will be different. But at the same time, we are also similar in the sense that we struggle too. We have bad days and good day too. To minimise those bad days, we need to set boundaries for ourselves in order to get to where we want to be.

Rules are rules. Once set, DO NOT BREAK THEM.