How I developed a reading habit Tip #3: Habit Replacement with Social Media / YouTube #powerofhabit #atomichabits

 

“How do you find time to read?”

Here is my strategy: By replacing all my social media habits with reading e-books instead. Every time I feel bored or restless and have the urge to check out social media throughout the day, I open my Kindle app/device instead to read an e-book.

This is actually an application of The Habit Loop, as mentioned by Charles Duhigg in his book, “The Power of Habit”:
“First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future: THE HABIT LOOP.
Over time, this loop—cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward—becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges.” (End Quote)

Planting a new habit - into your already busy daily schedule - can seem daunting. So, all you have to do is swap activities with your existing personal cues.

As of 2019 and 2020, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 145 minutes per day (Tankovska, 2021). What if you could swap that with reading. Imagine how much you can get out of 2 hours of reading every day!

The trick to understanding this is to realize our own personal triggers (i.e. cues) that lead us to falling into our bad habits. For me, personally, that trigger is boredom and restlessness: I feel the need to keep engaged by going into quick bursts of dopamine excitement and gratification. Hence, I would open social media or YouTube.

What I realized was that social media is like a quicksand trap when it comes to free time: once you get into it, it just sucks you in further down the rabbit hole. Even if it doesn’t suck you in deep, those little short bursts stack up: 2 minutes here, 3 minutes there, scattered throughout the day can easily stack up to an hour.

Thus, the best thing to do is don’t even step into that trap. Instead, recognize your triggers, and change the "Action" routine. Instead of social media, I open the Kindle e-book app on my phone, or the Kindle e-reader device to do some quick reading, then get back at whatever it is I was engaged in.

Here’s the thing about reading: just like social media, small bursts of time begin stacking up. Couple of paragraphs here, One page here, half a page there.
And just like social media, if you made the right selection of books, sometimes you make surprising discoveries that fill you with the urge to “know more” and dig deeper into the rabbit hole. Before you know it, in a few weeks’ time? Boom. 200 pages done. Book finished. Next.
Food for thought:
إِنَّ الْحَسَنَاتِ يُذْهِبْنَ السَّيِّئَاتِ
“Verily, the good deeds erase the evil deeds!” (Surah Hud 11:114)

The third major component of the Habit Loop is “Reward”.
Stay tuned for Tip #4: Make it Satisfying!