Trimmings of the turning tide

Habits I'm cutting out in 2024

At the start of every year, I’m tempted to add a habit that will improve my life. But just by 1% every day, which will compound to being 37x better at the end of the year, per the tech bro manifesto.

In 2023, my goals included sleeping 8 hours daily, eating fruits every day, and running 1-2x a week. I’ve failed miserably at all of that. Most days I slept 6-7 hours. I never felt like peeling fruits so I waited till they just rotted in the fridge and then I threw them away (I’m not proud of it ok!). And running just failed to romance me the way I hoped it would.

So this year, I decided: screw it. Instead of setting myself up for more failure (read: add new goals), I am just going to trim down some habits. I already have some routines that keep my flywheel going, such as publishing weekly essays, journaling daily, and doing weight training 2-3x a week. I want to lean into these strengths instead of distracting myself with shiny new habits.

After taking a temperature check on my daily routines, I identified some impulses that are more of a reaction to external stimuli than behaviours I would instigate on my own. By doing away with these, I’m hoping to give myself a megaphone instead of letting my inner voice be drowned out by the outside noise.

These are the five habits I’m cutting out in 2024:

1. Cut out screen time between 10pm and 7:30am. My beige flag is that I look at relaxing Instagram reels before sleeping and opening WhatsApp right after I wake up. I’m embarrassed that my days begin and end with my phone. I’d like to slowly trim my screen time, starting with the hours bookending my sleep time. Bonus: once a week, I’ll aim to spend a screen-less evening.

2. Cut out instant online shopping. Apart from groceries, I’ll leave my wish list for 2 weeks in the digital shopping cart before checking out. This includes clothes, camera accessories, and painting supplies. This would hopefully trim out impulse purchases, like that copper cocktail shaker that has been sitting cozily in my cupboard for a couple of years. Yes, this means that I’d lose out on “flash sales” but maybe that’s the point?

3. Cut out blaming others for my emotions. I once had a rude email land in my inbox, and it made me pretty angry. I was steaming in my head, so I chose to pause before hitting “reply”. What resulted was a more thoughtful response than if I had let my feelings ravage the email exchange. Ashamedly, I have a lot less patience with my closest friends. I want to stop blaming them for my anger, sadness and frustration, and extend my gracious pause to them instead.

4. Cut out checking my weight. Ironically, I gained this habit from when I lost 2 kg from a period of anxiety. I didn’t want to gain those 2 kg back. I’ve been obsessively checking my weight since then, hopping on the scale every morning after brushing my teeth. I’m hoping to ditch the numbers in January and focus instead on how I feel in my body when I’m exercising, working, and going about my day.

5. Cut out listening to podcasts during my morning commute. I always want to keep myself informed at the start of the day, the same way my mom used to turn on CNN This Morning at 6am while I was munching on my breakfast cereal before school. The thrust of information has clouded out my own thoughts, so I’m curious what will happen when I spend mornings without a barrage of external influence. I hope to instead savor my morning walk to the train, listen to the subway announcements, and lose myself in thought.

This essay is part of a “group commitment” to trim out what doesn’t serve us anymore. Friends who are on this journey include: Lavinia Iosub, Harrison Moore, Linart Seprioto.

Thank you for helping trim this essay to its best shape:

Harrison Moore

,

Linart Seprioto

,

Priya Nain

,

Tommy Dixon

,

Rohan Gayen

,

Meryl Rowlands

, and

Lavinia Iosub

.

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Update log:

• 🕸️ Started - and almost done with - Spider-Man 2 (affiliate) on the PlayStation. It’s one of the few games I don’t feel motion sickness while playing. I’m on friendly neighbourhood mode, so the “invincibility” takes out a lot of the stress.

• ✒️

  nat
  called me from a stationery store to ask what her first fountain pen should be! I feel like I have attained fountain pen advisor status and I couldn’t be more proud.

• 👾 Spent Christmas playing Super Mario Bros Wonder (affiliate) together with my partner. It’s rare that we have ample time to play co-op games, so we made the most of the holidays.

• 🎥 Watched Beyoncé’s Renaissance in the movie theatre. What an experience! My only gripe is that the audience didn’t really get up and dance the way Taylor Swift’s do for her Eras in concert screenings. Is Beyoncé’s music too niche now?

• 📚 My shipment of Bibliotheca arrived. Despite being born and raised Catholic, I’ve never read the bible from start to finish.

• 🏔️ Early this year,

  nat
  invited us to pick one word for 2023. Mine was “discomfort”, thinking that I had a lot of growth to do, but that could only be done from a zone of discomfort. Perhaps it doesn’t make so much of a coincidence that my therapist loves to say “sit with discomfort”. So for 2024, my “word” is “journey to the centre of the earth”. Aka diving deeper into myself. I’m excited to see where this goes.