scrolling by
on losing and building on habits
To my dear Musers
I’m writing to you from my neurologist‘s waiting room. He’s running over 90 minutes late, which is not unusual. What is unusual is that I forgot to bring a book, knitting or anything to distract me. So, here I am writing to you.
This year has seen me sharpen my focus on habits, or more precisely, about changing my habits: building on the good ones, losing the bad ones.
One of the habits I’ve been losing is my attachment to social media. I turned my notifications off a couple of years back knowing that it was something that wasn’t great for me to be pinged all the time, the trouble was that I was then checking it on a regular basis to make sure I hadn’t missed a message. Once I was there, and I’m sure you know how this goes as it’s programmed against us, I began scrolling.
Social media is here to stay, there’s no doubt about that, and as someone who has formed so many connections through my socials, I don’t want to lose that. The habit I wanted to lose or minimise was the non stop scrolling. So, I began tracking what I was doing with the help of the Toggl app. When I went on socials, I had to turn the app on to track my time.
I know I’m not the only one who has lost hours of their life to scrolling, I hear it all the time from my coaching clients, but seeing it in a number at the end of a day was enough for me to make a decision to pull it back.
Scrolling is an easy choice when it’s just us and our phones in a waiting room. Now, in moments like these when I’m stuck waiting for something with nothing other than my phone (this is the last time I’ll do that), I have to find other ways to entertain myself like writing a newsletter, writing in my notebook, chatting with a stranger or eavesdropping.
Professor Samuel Harvey, Executive Director of Black Dog Institute, said that when it’s used as a way to connect and communicate, it can lower levels of depression and anxiety as online interactions with in-person peers and friends can enhance mental well-being by improving these connections. He was talking about young people in this post, but the same can be said for anyone, I think. He went on to say in the article that:
…using social media mostly to scroll or passively view other people's content was linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety.
I know I’m not the only one who has doomscrolled and felt a ball of anxiety or comparison-itis coming on. I still scroll, but I’m getting better at stopping myself from the endless scroll until, as one of my darling friends said, I get to the end of the internet.
One habit that I’ve been building on is tidying up each day. I’m not just talking about the physical tidy, I’m also talking about the digital tidy: inbox and open tabs. I have a rule now to always keep my inbox to one page (less than 50 emails) which means that I need to deal with them a number of times a day and make quick decisions: respond, forward, file, delete. With my open tabs, I now have a habit of closing them down as I go instead of having over 100 tabs open at a time.
What habits do you need to do more of and what ones do you need to do less of?
Other things
In between study, work and family commitments, I’ve been in the garden, clearing out the weeds, fertilising and planting. Yesterday, I filled gaps and made land grabs with local native ground covers, tussock grasses, small flowering plants and shrubs. The peach, apples, pear and cherry have blossomed, heralding what I hope will be a great crop. The scents of freesia and sweet pea greet me as I open the door and I couldn’t be happier. Soon, my roses will bloom, if the aphids don’t get the better of them. My garden is my place to haphazardly create beauty.
Reading
In the last month, I’ve read:
Girl Falling by Hayley Scrivenor - a great and gripping read set in the Blue Mountains in preparation for being there next week. This was recommended to me by my cousin who grew up there. She loved it and so did I.
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart - this title came up in my Creative Writing Workshop. We were talking about cracker titles and first lines.
mentioned this and I found it at the library. It was written in 1945 fictionalising Smart’s passionate love affair with poet George Barker. Her writing is wonderful. Do yourself a favour and find her work.Atomic Habits: an Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear - there may be a theme here…
I’m currently reading:
Three Wild Dogs and The Truth by Marcus Zuzak - I went his launch and loved his wonderful storytelling-way of meandering around every question that Sian Prior asked.
What’s on your bedside table? What are you reading and loving?
Watching
The Perfect Couple - it was okay, but there was something missing with it.
Emily in Paris (don’t judge me)
What are you watching and loving?
Five things
Hail. If you live in Melbourne (Victoria or Tasmania), you know what I mean. There’s been some crazy bursts lately.
Spring always makes me think of my dad and how he would say at the start of every spring:
Spring is sprung, the grass is riz.
I wonder where the birdies is.
They say the birdies on the wing, but that's absurd.
I always thought the wing was on the bird.If you missed my last event ‘Four Steps to Creative Freedom’, it’s on again Tuesday 17 September at lunchtime (12-1pm AEST). Come along if you’re free.
We shouldn’t need the reminder, but it always takes someone close to us getting a positive diagnosis to do that. I had the reminder this week. In case you do, get your boobs checked.
I loved
’s latest newsletter as it reminds me of why I decided to take on the job of managing a school library six years ago.
What has caught your eye lately?
Thank you dear Musers for reading. Spring is nearly here!
Til next time
x M
I need to curb my scrolling and read more books. Thank you for the reminder. It’s one thing to have that niggling away in the background and quite another to see it in print. Elizabeth Smart is now on the list.
Thanks for the recommendations. I'm not going to look for Elizabeth Smart!