Dear Gabby,
I’m always on my phone, caught up in social media. I leave all my homework to the last minute, despite having plenty of time to do it earlier in the day. I have zero time management skills and I need to learn to limit my time on the phone, but I have no clue where to start. The phone is also affecting my sleep – I have insomnia as well, so it doesn’t help when I can’t control my desire to look on social media when I’m lying awake at night. I feel like my phone is causing a lot of other problems in my life, but I feel so attached to it. Help.
Procrastination
Dear Procrastination,
Procrastination is a habit, believe it or not, and it can always be broken, no matter how hard it seems. In the case of a phone, start out by turning it all the way off once you safely get home. If that’s something you can’t do, I suggest you try turning off notifications. I know, for a lot of people that seems like something they’d rather not do, but it’s worked for me in the past. Try starting your homework and rewarding yourself along the way with phone checks. Finish a complex algebra problem? Tweet something. Wrote the first paragraph of your essay? Watch a YouTube video. However that requires a lot more control than just turning the phone all the way off, and that’s probably the best course of action. When it comes down to it, you have to choose to turn that phone off. Without that spark of motivation/grit/determination, whatever you want to call it, you won’t be able to break your habit. Now it’s up to you. Good luck!