Writing

I blocked Reddit

I blocked Reddit at my router level. I got tired of the eternal cycle of "boring meeting -> pick up celphone -> opens reddit -> get disgusted". Seriously, there were some days when I would spend more time doing this than anything else. It got to a point where I was getting disgusted with myself during the action of picking up my phone and not being able to stop myself. Or even worse, doing this without even thinking what I was doing. So I blocked reddit at my router.

Is this a good solution? No. Am I working on the underlying causes of doing this? Yes. Is my job boring? Not really, but I do get stretches that it's mind numbling boring, and there's nothing I can do about it. Can I do something else? Of course! Oh the irony, I was accessing Instagram. No kidding. So I uninstalled the Instagram app from my phone, and blessed be Meta employees, Instagram's website is dogshit. So I don't stay doomscrolling there, and now I don't doomscroll on reddit.

Hackernews gets old really fast, with all the effective altruists masquerading as human beings there. Linkedin is a corporate wasteland. Brazilian news sites have to decide if they're going to be news or gossip websites (I'm looking at you, UOL.) So I have to face my boredom head on. And you know what? It's working.