Default; it’s a word that, in the context of technology, means the option that is used when no active choice by the user has been made. In this ready-made and straight-out-of-the-box world that we live in, many of us never stop to consider our relationship with our devices, both high-tech and low-tech. It’s as if people forget that these tools exist to serve us and not the other way around. With that said, I cannot stand on a soap box and preach because, until recently, I was living on default settings. However, gliding through life like this leaves a lot of our most precious currency, time, on the table. Some small tweaks away from your default settings can yield staggering returns in the time market.
I started a new job a few months ago (after my self-inflicted unemployment). With this change, came a whole host of changes to my daily routine, most noticeably with my sleep cycle. For the first time in nearly twenty years, I needed to rely on an alarm clock to wake up. I had my alarm clock on my headboard, mostly as the default setting. When the alarm would go off, I’d reach up, shut it off, and then…. linger. I built a habit of lingering awake in bed. Just five more minutes frequently turned into over a half-hour of lost time. I started getting frustrated with the lack of time that I had at the end of the day as to why I hadn’t been able to get more writing in.
A study shows that this habit wasn’t the exception, but the norm. Most Americans hit the snooze button multiple times and it often takes 24 minutes to actually get out of bed. 24 minutes! A quality H.I.I.T (high intensity interval training) workout takes only thirty minutes. I’m not trying to sound like David Fucking Goggins but this is time that isn’t well spent, and this can be pointed to when one claims that they don’t have time to exercise.
However, I went back to an old habit I practiced as an adolescent; I moved my alarm clock to the opposite side of my room. Thus, when the alarm went off, I would have no choice but to get out of bed and shut it off. This change in default setting, from headboard to across the room, resulted in massive changes. I no longer lose massive blocks of time wasted on idle nothingness. In fact, me writing this article, mid-week after back-to-back late exits at work, is proof alone of that concept.
Similarly, I had grown accustomed to sleeping with my phone on my nightstand. This grew out of the last few jobs I had in which I was placed on a rotating call list, and an old employer of mine had zero qualms against calling at 3 am. However, I am no longer on a work-related call list, and hence I don’t need to be able to answer a sudden phone call anymore. Since my phone was always within arm’s reach of my pillow, I would always check various e-mails and texts messages while in bed, work-related and otherwise.
In this aspect, I was far from alone. A large population-level study (yay!) revealed that nearly 80% of Americans reach for their phones first thing in the morning. And not only that, checking your phone first thing in the morning is also pretty bad for you. Let’s be honest, few things that hit my inbox are actually of utter importance. Seriously, are you the President? An on-call trauma surgeon? Chances are nothing that hits your inbox is that important either. So do yourself a favor and at least postpone your limbic hijacking, lest ye be a mindless slave to Silicon Valley.
Just like my alarm clock, I moved my phone to the opposite side of the room. Hence, the temptation is taken away to just check one thing. As a result, my ass is out of that bed and in motion at the scheduled start of my day. I felt the benefit almost immediately and I felt more productive, as if I was moving at normal speed as everyone else was in slow-motion. I guess this is was what happens when you’re not limbically hijacked. After all, my brain works differently than yours and hence is an incredibly valuable asset that needs to be ferociously protected. The limbic hijackers are going to have to fight tooth and nail to regain this cockpit!
Additionally, I had developed a habit that I disliked of watching YouTube videos, especially YouTube Shorts. I am ashamed to admit it, but the algorithm had seized me. It got to the point where these videos were like goddamn potato chips; it’s never just one. Furthermore, I began to not even like what I was watching either, doubly so if the video was sent to me by somebody else (Gee, why does it feel like that I’ve talked about this before?). While I’m a sucker for long-form educational content, I found myself quickly getting restless and bored, being unable to sit through a 45-minute-long video with an interesting premise. Something had to change.
Again, I’m hardly alone. YouTube’s business model incentivizes it to maximize time spent on the website. The more video someone watches, the more advertisements one will watch, and that is a lucrative deal for the Google-owned platform. And make no mistake, YouTube’s algorithm is damn good at what it’s intended purpose is, as everyday mankind collectively spends nearly a nine-figure sum of hours on the site. YouTube is second only to its parent company in terms of visitors, thus showing that The Matrix truly does have most of us…
So, I started treating YouTube the same way that I had treated BlueReddit. I had blocked BlueReddit in my computer’s control file, thus ensuring that I’m unable to even visit the website. After deleting my profile, I had the initial urge to log back in, though that itch subsided a lot faster than I thought it would. However, I fought the idea of blocking YouTube at first, rationalizing it to myself Well, I need it to hyperlink to my writing (hint). I decided that enough was enough and chose to rip the band-aid off and block YouTube on both my laptop and phone. Again, the itch to watch just a few videos only lasted a few days, and by the time that weekend had rolled around, I had far more time on my hands. In one day, I read nearly 90 pages of The Coddling of the American Mind. It felt as if the days had essentially slowed down, rather than spiraling out of control.
Thankfully, it only took a few days for me to start seeing the positive impacts of these small lifestyle tweaks. My old chemistry professor was right, the brain is certainly malleable. Silicon Valley has weaponized this fact and has consistently used it against us. However, our brains are malleable in positive directions as well. There’s even a tried-and-tested process to follow for breaking bad habits, and the great Charles Duhigg showed all of us how to do it.
I’m done wasting time…
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