How to watch less TV
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In this post we’ll talk about how we managed to reduce the time spent watching TV and successfully gained a lot of time back in our lives every day. We’ll share what mistakes we made along the way, and show you exactly what we did to overcome the problem, so you can do it too.
Studying problems
We never managed to get the habit of studying going. We were wasting a lot of time on entertainment. We really tried to get the habit going but we always quit the daily studying after two weeks or even less.
Watching TV was always a more tempting, easier option, then the hard work of studying.
We often said, lets just watch a movie to relax, then we’ll study. But often 1 movie turned into 2, 2 episodes turned into 5. And then suddenly the day was gone.
Atomic habits
We were searching for a solution to our problem far and wide and then we suddenly found the concept of a habit. We started reading the book The Power of Habit that many people recommended. And while the book was really engaging and seemed to offer a great deal of knowledge, we somehow still couldn't fit it all together to find a way to study daily.
Then we heard of Atomic habits. That was the day everything changed. When we read the first chapter we immediately saw the tremendous value of the actionable advice in the book and started implementing it daily, one by one.
One of the quotes that really resonated with us is this:
"The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least. It’s easier to practice self-restraint when you don’t have to use it very often. So, yes, perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment."
Identifying bad habits
The thing of greatest value though, for us, was the part about the bad habits. We always thought we were simply too lazy to study. But the book showed us a different view on it - we finally saw what the habit of watching TV was actually taking from us and that it was playing a major role in our lack of motivation. It was just too simple - you grabbed the remote, sat down and could be entertained for a lifetime. Humans just weren't built for avoiding it.
The book Atomic habits talks about the 4 steps of getting rid of a bad habit:
- Make it invisible
- Make it unattractive
- Make it difficult
- Make it unsatisfying
Trying to watch less TV but failing - why didn’t it work?
We tried placing the remote in a box and then wrapping it around with some rope, just to make it a hassle of getting the remote out. It was also out of sight - invisible.
And it helped. For the first day or two. But once we got the initial energy to get the remote out of the box, it stayed out of the box for the entire day. Then on day two, we didn't even bother putting it back anymore.
Clearly we were ready to do a lot just so we got to the TV. So this concept was just not enough.
We realized that a system you have to reset every time is bound to fail sooner or later. As soon as you forget to reset it, your environment is right back to enabling your bad habits.
The story of the Netflix cyclist
All throughout this we kept remembering a story that was mentioned in Atomic habits. It was about this guy who wanted to exercise but couldn't get himself to do it. So he wired his exercise machine to the TV so that the TV was only on when he was cycling. Needless to say, the man lost a lot of weight.
This was the concept we strived for - we wanted something bulletproof. We made the bad habit hard to access but it wasn't enough - to make it actually work we would have to make it impossible.
So we stayed on this idea - constantly thinking of how to get rid of this habit or how to wire a good one on it. We simply didn't have the knowledge to wire the exercise machine to the TV so clearly we needed something else.
Time limited TV with a simple 2 dollar timer in a box
The book mentions a man that purchased an outlet timer to which he plugged his internet router and at 10p.m. each day the outlet cut off the power to the router, signaling it's time to go to bed.
We used to have a bearded dragon. For anyone who's unfamiliar with them, it's a reptile that you keep in a terrarium. They're cold-blooded and therefore require access to light and heat during the day. So you would have to turn the light on in the morning and off in the evening and that's where the timer came in handy. It was also very cheap - 2-3euros a piece.
So okay we've got the outlet timer, what now? It's a good idea but still it's quite easy to unplug the TV from the outlet timer and plug it into electricity, so this clearly wasn't a full solution yet. And then it hit us - if you were to prevent yourself from accessing the TV cable plugged into the timer, then you wouldn't be able to plug it into electricity. A very simple and effective design for that is a wooden box that is screwed together and requires a certain amount of time, energy and going through storage for the right tools. So we made it happen.
Making the box
We took the timer into the garage and grabbed a few scrap pieces of wood. The goal was to make a simple box that had a hole for the timer plug, a hole for the TV cable and that was all. We used 8 screws to close the box. 8 screws for such a small box is overkill, but we really wanted the box to be quite difficult to open.
Why it works
1. The box itself is way too much of a hassle to disassemble - you need to get the right tools, it takes some time, it "feels wrong" and therefore you have a high chance of changing your mind during the process. It's tedious.
2. There is no human factor to this - you don't have to decide each day when to watch TV and how much TV time to give yourself. It's predetermined. And there is no one to blame in the household for withholding TV - except for the box. But it's a box so the brain quickly sees that there is no one to blame and just accepts its new fate.
If you want to make it even harder or if you're still having trouble - you could use nails instead of screws but that prevents you from being more "soft and supple" as a quote in the book puts it and you aren't able to adapt the timer to your needs when it's actually necessary (e.g. daylight savings time).
You could also take out your tools so you don't have them nearby to make the process even more tedious.
Our TV time
Our TV is plugged into the timer with the wooden box and is set to work from 7p.m. to 9:30p.m. Just enough time to decide on and watch a movie. All of the other hours during the day, the TV is completely inaccessible and we like it that way. Our laptop entertainment though is available until 11p.m., but that's a whole other story...
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