Ask HN: How do you fight YouTube addiction and procrastination? I'm struggling

Procrastination is not a time management problem; it's an emotional management problem.

What it comes down to is not having belief in what you do, so you do other things. You might feel trapped, so you pass the time with stuff like YouTube because that is the most compelling thing available to you. A man will walk on broken glass with a smile if he truly believes in what it will accomplish.

When I was younger, I was into video games because they gave me a sense of accomplishment and progress compared to high school, which I found relatively meaningless. I called it progress quest.

When there is a rare game or youtube topic that really obsessively catches your attention, like Factorio, pay attention to it! It helps show you what drives you, and you can try to leverage that into things you find healthier.

Also, it might be worth it to look into ADHD testing if this has been a persistent pattern your entire life.

I'm a programmer, a creative person, working on my projects, and regularly I need a short break, so on every break I usually lay in bed and checked the news and I often ended on YouTube watching more videos, wasting hours every day. What eventually helped me was use css to replace entire YouTube (and other doom scrolling websites) with a motivational picture that says:

"One day, you'll realize that your dream died because you chose comfort over effort. Don't let that regret haunt you forever."

And it worked.

The css for yt looks like this:

    body {
     min-height: 100vh;
     background-image:url(https://example.com/effort.jpg);
     background-size: contain;
     background-repeat: no-repeat; 
     background-position: center; 
     background-color: black;
    }
    p,div,h1,span {display:none}

It's been 6 months and it's still working.

I eschew social conventions, treat my goals with skepticism, and consider "learning" bogus if it's scholastic and isn't any fun. Thus I can do what I actually like, and the problem is solved.

I am cautious if anybody uses the word "healthy" outside of the context of actual diseases like pleurisy and conjunctivitis. I am aware of a below-the-radar societal battle over way of life, and proper conduct, and the battleground is haunted by specters of ideas like sin and saintliness. It's these fraught issues that cause "media addictions". The nature of the "addiction" is doubt and unhappiness over the thing you want to do, where the saintly walking-over-broken-glass things you imagine you ought to want are set against a reactionary avoidance of them, and the meaning of "want" is lost in the turmoil.

I haven't watched Youtube for ten years, but I will do other unproductive things "endlessly". (If anybody cares, I can report that the Backrooms mod on C:DDA has a layer of soil above the main level, and it's possible to break out into the open air and build a car up there. That's mostly what I did over the last two weeks.) I would like to be so firm in my convictions that I can say "and I don't care", but sadly I keep coming back to the idea that I should make some games, or write, or do art. Those are prestigious, pious things to do. It might turn out that my feelings are correct, and I might return to a project and complete it. But I might also be wrong about these self-aggrandizing ideas. I might keep coming back to appearing to be creative only as a kind of defense against appearing unworthy. I might actually idle my days away in a farty, unproductive manner unto death, and that might be what I should do. Whose moral standard is it here? Mine, yours, society's? "Do what you like", if you can wholeheartedly figure out what that means - that's the problem.

YouTube is easy to block. Just clear all your history and disable history. This stops home screen recommendations and also disables YouTube shorts

    youtube.com##:matches-path(/^\/?$/) #page-manager

  1. In the left navbar, click "Settings > Distraction Free".
  2. Enable the "Subscriptions Page > Hide Subscription Shorts" switch.
  3. Enable the "Channel Page > Hide Channel "Shorts" Tab" switch.

    "display: none !important;"

I've come to accept unproductive downtime as a counterbalance to highly focused times. If it becomes too extreme, the best bet is to unplug totally. Schedule some tasks out of the house, preferably in nature.

Before you begin, take some time to outline the tasks you need to complete. Now when you return to the home office, you are only there for one reason.

If problems persist, you may need to find more interesting projects.

For the distractions, one thing that helps me is removing easy access to them.

Just like having junk food in the house means that I will tend to eat junk food (but I won't go buy junk food on impulse)...

* Remove the time-wasting capabilities from your devices (e.g., uninstall apps, set up uBlock Origin blocking rules for anything TikTok-like, block HN for a week).

* Make dedicated distraction devices hard to access (e.g., unplug gaming rig/console and store it away for a week/month, same with the living room TV/screen, sell that handheld gaming device).

Also, once you get some momentum on a better activity, it's easier to stay doing it. You might have to lock away all your distractions for a few days before you can get immersed in that coding side project (or writing that novella, or that new workout routine). But then it can become a go-to activity that you do automatically, and maybe even think about at other times, rather than defaulting to doomscrolling.

(I don't claim to always do this myself, but when I do, it works.)

It sounds like you're working 8 hours/day and unwinding the rest of the time?

I never had energy for side projects with a full-time job. Just because some do doesn't mean it's for everyone.

Maybe there are higher value ways to relax than doom scrolling but I don't think being "unproductive" beyond 8 hrs/day is a bad thing.

Hopefully you can also find work that is stimulating and gives that sense of accomplishment.

Install the Freetube client at home ( https://freetubeapp.io ) and stop relying on YouTube's shitty algorithm to provide you with content. Go in search of the content you want... it's more work, but you're gonna find yourself happier with the end results.

Despite the title, I don't think YouTube is the main issue... You can replace it with tiktok, twitter, your favorite video game, watching TV... and that still sounds unproductive and unhealthy. In fact, I'd rate short videos and fragmented social media content worse digital distractions than YouTube.

To help me disconnect, I set my phone to turn on power saving, grayscale, dark mode, and max redshift after 11 PM. It makes it so annoying to use that I can just put it down.

Don't worry too much about being unproductive outside working hours. Worry about unhealthy habits that will eventually harm your productivity.

Sports. I do 2h of strength training every Mon/Wed/Fri. You work with barbell, not machines. Requires all your mental and physical focus. That pretty much will soak up any “free” after-work time you have on those days. Then on Tue/Thu you can do social activities. Any time spent not working/sport/social activities I spend “whatever” which means watching a show, reading a book or doom scrolling - but it won’t a lot of time left for it. And honestly at that point you probably have a pretty well balanced life that “doom scrolling” is not an issue.

1. Buy a Bloom card or similar device.

2. Block ALL algorithmic feed apps AND websites on your phone using the card/device (tiktok, instagram, facebook, youtube, etc.. even linkedin).

3. Set a 24 hr block schedule, no breaks. No half measures. Go hard mode. Cold turkey.

4. Leave the card / access device in your car or somewhere not easily reachable in your home.

5. Install social focus extension on your computer browser.

6. Sometimes you will fail. That’s ok, start over and keep trying every single day.

First step is recognizing the problem. It'll now be easier to recognize when you've slipped into that mode and stop.

Second step is breaking the habit. Literally, you need to start spending that time on something else. Your behavioral autopilot automatically gravitates to browsing Youtube - you need to rewire that to something else. For some reason it's really difficult the first couple of times and then gets easier.

Third step, once you're starting to feel like you've made it out, is understanding that there are circumstances out of your control that will lead you back into those old habits. Maybe work was draining or relationship problems hit - whatever it is, you'll feel like you deserve a break. You need to recognize those moments and have a plan ready for those moments. You absolutely deserve that break, but falling back into that habit is literally self-sabotage, and you'll feel worse after.

Fourth step, rinse and repeat. I've never made it past this step.

When I was doing a similar schedule, it was a failure of introspection, and a mounting number of unprocessed emotional issues, and unconfronted personal problems.

The way I got over it is that I have started realizing, confronting, communicating these issues. I "sat down with myself" daily just to think for 15 minutes, without any distraction like youtube. Communicated what I though were my problems to my partner, friends, parents, therapist, forums, LLM.

Over time, patterns emerged, either by others pointing them out to me, or them occurring to myself. The patterns became higher and higher level, and I had more and more power and agency to fill in my gaps, and those in turn made my problems smaller, manageable. Challenges, even.

I also picked up hobbies that nurture the specific parts that I was lacking. For example, I had a very hard time to persistently care about living things. But after a leap of faith I successfully kept a plant alive, and I slowly build a hobby around this.

Funnily enough, youtube helped in this, because I also shaped that so that the helpful videos remained. While doing chores, self-care and other such things, I listened to a lot of mental health, lifestyle, introspective, hobby content, and these were wonderful sources of inspiration.

In a way, having a bluetooth headphone also helped a lot. It helped to bridge the gap between the digital world, which was my only comfort zone, and the "irl", which was like the cold, hard, overwhelming rest of the world that I didn't really want to deal with.

It's not for me but for my kid, but YouTube got banned in our house.

However, we really missed two channels - Zebra Gamer and Art For Kids Hub.

Actually, she missed more than that, but I didn't think the other channels she missed were really good for her - think annoying gamers with questionable behavior whose content is clearly trying to gain your attention every 15 seconds with insane alert sounds. (Just in case you're looking at a second screen instead of them? idunno folks, but it's unbearable to me).

So I made a script that downloads all the content on the selected channels beyond a certain date (all of it was too much to store), and I serve it on a Jellyfin server.

No algorithm, no unlimited content to browse, just a large but finite selection of content from a selected list of channels (only 2 in our case!) which only updates when I run the script.

I am a huge procrastinator, so I have to do some elaborate stuff to get myself to do things. Anxiety producing methods don't work very well because I just feel overwhelmed and that doesn't help things. The best technique I've found that consistently works is to write down the things I have to do today in my phone and to close my eyes and visualize getting them done repeatedly. I imagine myself doing the actions one after another that I need to do to complete the task. I do it multiple times in a loop until I lose my fear of it. I write down the steps if it's long and I can't keep it in my short term memory and go through that.

I can relate. I've made some changes in my life that helped avoid Youtube.

The single most effective thing I did was during my week off when I put my phone in a drawer and mostly stuck to my apple watch for notifications and a keycard for my car.

Obviously I need my phone for work, so I've been trying other things to reduce its importance in my life.

I moved the TV from the room with the sofas to the room with chairs. I wind up spending more time in conversation with my wife or my friends on those sofas, rather than "Hey check out this video I saw..".

I've also replaced my phone with my watch for stuff involving unlocking car, and using a mostly-offline Linux handheld device with custom apps to replace stuff on my phone. You'd be surprised how many things don't require internet access; books and videos can be cached, and other things (paying credit cards, etc..) can be done on a desktop.

Go to /r/nosurf to read about it and see that you are not alone.

The short answer is the only things that do help are:

- therapy and medication to help stabilize and strenghten your emotion Control

- going cold turkey on addictions , removing them entirely for at least 30 days. This must be hard removal, not apps that block stuff but can be circumvented. Removal of block should be as hard as it can be

- go for 12-steps internet addicts anonymous groups. 12 steps are proven to work

- find a new hobby when going for 30days cold turkey, plan it like vacation

Oddly enough, Youtube is not among my many addictions. I'm mainly interested in technical topics and can't stand watching a n-minutes videos when I can read a blog with more detailed info in n/10 minutes. For very very VERY interesting topics, I may ask some LLM to summarize the video for me.

If your addiction has gotten this far, it's time to start labeling it as just that, and there's no shame in it.

At a certain point you need to accept that you will not be able to willpower your way out of it. You need systems and strategies in place that cut you off from your addiction.

That can look like a lot of things that I'm not going to try to stuff into an HN comment but here's what works for me:

- Leaving the house with a dumb phone. I recommend using an old smartphone that is meticulously stripped away from bad things over purchasing a flip phone. You're eventually going to need to call up an uber, scan a QR code, and other such smartphoney things you need a dumb phone to do. Leaving your environment is also key. If you must, bring your actual phone with you, but fully powered off.

- Using a feature on your phone to cut yourself off from YouTube on a scheduled basis. Most phones have something like this by default, but there are also some third party apps that take it a step further.

- Have something you enjoy to take the place of YouTube. Entertainment is healthy to an extent. Taken too far, it becomes a distraction from cognitive processes you need to be regularly engaging in, to say the least.

Set goals; prioritize; follow the list in fuzzy, reasonable sequential order.

The recipe is, and has always been, to delay gratification. Duty comes first.

Delete your watch history and switch off watch history - then you get no recommendations on the home page.

That's a nice balance for me - it leaves more options than completely blocking it but it protects me from being bounced around by the algorithm.

A couple of things that have been effective for me:

1) Block said online service using the hostfile until addiction becomes manageable / goes away. Repeat as needed.

2) For work, keep a notebook. Review and set goals at the start of each day or week. Review and update notes / goals at the end of each day and week. Your own agenda, your game to keep yourself motivated.

Now, since your addiction is blocked and you have something to do, you'll at least get it done before turning to your addiction to kill time / unwind.

This may not be helpful, but I have found it difficult to limit screentime. Tried it many times, never sustained it. "Fastening" for a week or two was much easier and had sustained effects. See other comments on how to lock yourself out of YouTube. For me it was just a matter of disabling the app on my phone, but it does not seem to be that easy for everyone.

Disable history.

When it is disabled the yt screen will not contain any recommendations and will actually be empty. After you do this, you'll find yourself dozing off to yt on occasion and reaching a blank screen only to realize you didn't actually come to watch something specific but more as a force of habit and you'll lose the trigger. I recommended this to a couple of friends of mine and they all say it worked wonders.

I'm not sure if you only have to disable history or some other options as well, but basically you want a blank screen when you reach yt. You can still have subscriptions, but the idea is that you intentionlly look for what you want to watch instead of having the yt screen recommendations offering videos and you choosing.

I have found that a useful method for getting distractions off my work laptop has been https://selfcontrolapp.com/ (if you're on mac).

Go to the gym. Start a social hobby like salsa dancing or a casual team sport like kickball/cornhole/flag football/bowling etc. Join a run club. Do active social activities. Stick with them and don't get discouraged when you're new at it.

I just started creating my own bad content instead of consuming others bad content. It feels more productive.

I'm so burnt out from "trying to do more" I'm actively procrastinating because I have no more emotional energy due to circumstance. You might be in the same boat. Giving yourself a break is okay too,you might then get bored of it and do something cool.

If you have an android phone try one of the blocking apps. I found "Stay Focused" to be very efficient. With strict mode i wasn't able to circumvent it any other way.

In general with all forms of addiction: your mind is crazy good coming up with excuses. So give the key to change your setup to someone else. E.g root access :)^^

I’m in a similar rut. For me, it seems to be a response to changes at work, where I don’t know why we’re doing anything we’re being told to do, and if all feels quite meaningless. My response has unfortunately been a mental shutdown.

(1) Use ublock origin to block reels, comment section and other features

(2) Wipe history and only watch productive topics on your account. Watch all other videos on incognito - I set up violentmonkey scripts to help. Here's a cool secret: your feed will ONLY be related to the videos in your history. My feed is now ONLY ML and music

(3) Delete the app on the phone. Only use youtube through firefox (if you have android) which allows the ublock extension

(4) Alternatives like newpipe helped before I stumbled onto this solution

You still need a little willpower. Find the strength to not use youtube for 3 weeks. Then it becomes much easier

Edit: clarity

I use the Add-In "Un-trap for youtube". It can block recommendations, redirect the main page to your watch-later-list and disable shorts, among many other things. It doesn't solve the core of the problem by itself of course. Sometimes I find myself procrastinating here instead...

Go to the gym. Physical exercise will do wonders for mental an physical help.

You can still listen to podcasts and YouTube whe on the treadmill or listen to your favourite albums.

As a coder myself i always thought gym wasn’t for me but i finally tried and i wish i started 20 years ago.

I’m now a better person i have less time for distractions and everything i do including watching youtube i do with more focus and purpose.

If you have too much time in your hands its easy to waste.

Go to gym!

I created a side project to deal with this, but honestly, I’m doing a bit of rewrite and it should be considered beta.

https://scrolldaddy.app

It helps to clarify your goals and what it is you want to do with your life, otherwise you’ll always have this ambiguous sense that you’re not progressing in the way that you want.

What do you mean by “productive”? What would progress look like for you? And towards what?

Remove the YouTube app from all devices. Block the YouTube site with an ad blocker.

Done.

99% of all content on YouTube is crap anyway. Better things to do with your time.

Biological factors like maintaining adequate blood sugar level (intentional living requires bioenergetic resources) are important.

Put a restriction on your router or on a pi-hole and put the settings behind a big password. Then write the password down and give it to a friend/colleague and tell them to only give you the password out of hours.

This was definitely one of the most important discoveries of my PhD.

Create a todo list and try to complete it each day. We waste hours every day on our phones doing nothing productive.

https://www.rxjourney.net/how-to-be-more-productive

I make specific achievable plans to do something else instead. Preferably things that leave me with a sense of accomplishment. Even dumb things like taking a walk or cleaning something.

Well what would you consider a worthwhile activity that you're not currently doing / doing enough of. It's more so a question of why you aren't doing that

Flip phone solve it at work.

I've turned off my history on all logged in profiles, to get YouTube not giving me recommendations! I had a constant humm of YouTube content in my background during work. So when I was offered due to the EU to turn off my recommendations by turning off history I grabbed the offer. It is just enough for me to make my YouTube consumption intentional and avoid it. I've experimented with having a non-logged in browser with recommendations but occasionally it manages to find my poison, so after I nuke the cookies it is back to intentional usage of YouTube there too. Because the worst part of the YouTube, it gives you useful stuff that improves your life, but it also just sucks you into a black hole of content.

Also it is true that these things with procrastination and addictive behaviors are very much emotional issues and so on... and in my case whenever I notice that I'm avoiding dealing with my emotions and the hard stuff with YouTube content black holes I do the resets.

Good luck

Turns out that the future was better pocket TV

YouTube is mostly ads even with an adblocker and while many great videos also exist most of them are low quality..

You work too much.

Hmm what else are you planning on doing? Start there

This was even a real problem back in 2007 !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KozkP0mHjQ

Other than putting screen timers on all my apps, I've found that physically leaving my phone in other rooms to be helpful. Also recognizing it as a problem and acknowledging "Agh, I'm doing it again" when I get caught in a doom scroll hole at least puts some counterweight to the problem.

I also keep my laptop by my couch so I reach for it vs my phone. I hate typing on my phone so I end up just clicking on a dopamine drip app rather than actual reading / work which I tend to do more readily on a laptop or desktop.

It is a behavioural problem at the end of the day. Which means it will take discipline and accepting some feelings of discomfort up front to change for the long term.

It will sound cliché, but if dark thoughts come to you, if you start feeling like whatever else than Youtube is worthless, etc... it might we worth finding someone qualified to listen.

If it's mild, and you just fell like you're too easily drawn into whatever the algo feeds you, well... it means the dopamine dealers at Alphabet are doing their job "right". Your job is know to try and cure the addiction.

This is not like "spending you days on cable TV" - YT has infinite content, with no occasion for boredom. Everything is always going to be 100% interesting, captivating, infuriating, etc... And if it's not, the "next" rush is a click away. Your brain is fighting an unfair battle.

Thankfully, "cold turkey" should not have any critical downside, so you could try.

Just being mindfull of how long you spend can help.

Leechblock NG has a helpful mode where you just restrict how long you can spend, before being locked. [1]

Any extension that removes the "suggestion", "shorts", etc... would put you in a better spot. I use Enhancer for Youtube for that [2].

I also find that many of the most interesting youtubers happen to be on nebula.tv, which clearly is way less designed for binge and addiction. [3]

And of course the usual stuff apply - find something or someone so great that you're rather spend time with them that on YT.

Also, at some point, I hope someone will run on a platform of "not letting advertisers completely rot people's brain for a few clicks". Even meth dealers have to sleep and watch they back.

Good luck !

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...

[2] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/enhancer-for-youtub...

[3] https://nebula.tv/featured

Get help from a friend or friends that will help hold you accountable to staying off YouTube.

You might want to get screened for adhd. You might just be fighting an uphill battle.

By not watching it.

I know how I sound, but... For me it's the only approach possible. I cannot moderate myself. The only way for me is to quit cold turkey.

For many websites, I had to attempt this many times because I would fail. But I don't see any other way.

Do you like your job? Do you feel aligned with it?

Go full North Korea at home. This means building your own parallel universe of culture. This means music you don't have to stream, books you don't have to stream, video that you don't have to stream and some reference works such as a dictionary.

No WiFi or mobile phone data allowance means you have to leave the door every time you want anything on your phone or computer. You would be surprised by how well this works. If you download something to watch later as you go shopping in an actual store on their WiFi, you can get your emails and messages from apps download at the same time.

Keep a list of things you need to use your favourite search engine for, and just work the list when you are in town.

You would be surprised at how easy it is to go all day Sunday with no data.

Obviously if you are work from home, this won't work. Being contactable primarily by phone or SMS works great for friendships, it is good to talk and more of that gets done if you go fully North Korea.

You can also go further to make your home a sanctuary, keeping it clean with shoes off at the door is a start, keeping only healthy food is another way to get that serene vibe that you desire.

Your routine seems completely normal. This is Not Youtube addiction and procrastination. You work 8 hours - that's already your productivity. The idea that your personal time also needs to be optimized and highly productive is tech bro nonsense.

After a full workday, your brain wants easy dopamine. That is being human. You're not a startup. The people posting about 5am routines are just performing productivity online.

Maybe go to bed earlier or be more mindful when it comes to digital dooms scroll.

Exercise may help. Some people are naturally low in "focus" biochemicals -- so exercise can boost your levels of those biochemicals.

Exercise also helps you sleep better -- sleep issues can also interfere with focus. And eating right is probably helpful too. It's the advice they give everybody who needs more energy -- but I think it can all be especially helpful for focus issues.

i’ve used freedom.to at times to just turn off all distractions, works pretty well

Have a purpose. When you're gungho to do something or get something done, and you have tremendous drive to do that and not procrastinate. Do something you enjoy.

Here's a test for you.

If I were to offer you $10 million to do anything you want during your day, what would you do? Would you accept the money? Of course you would.

What if the consequence of accepting was that you don't wake up tomorrow morning? Obviously you say no. But you just found out waking up in the morning is worth more than $10 million.

Since you are already on youtube.. watch the HealthyGamer.gg videos. Here is one on procrastination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBifDZwPiI4

I wish I had YouTube addiction- there's little good to watch lately.

Youtube Enshitification, as it became more polished and commercial.

The best advice I got on breaking a bad habit is that you can't do it by ordering yourself "don't do X" which takes will power and teeth-gritting effort. Any success with this method will fail over time. The problem is that it is like telling yourself to not think about pink elephants which makes you think about pink elephants.

So the trick is to set the rule [don't do X, do Y instead] and immediately stop thinking about X and move on to Y. Just shut down the "do X" thought and shift to Y. "Y" can be anything even the absurd like patting the top of your head 5 times because it breaks your subconscious programming. In fact, the absurd Y's seem to be more effective BECAUSE they a silly or ridiculous. Of course, as you gain skill at this method you can start using more productive Y's like doing 10 pushups or do a quick household chore, do a small task on your to-do list, etc. Once the subconscious program is broken then thoughts to do X will fade and you can move on to X2 that you want to change.

I deleted all my socials more than a decade ago and never looked back, to be honest it's expensive, this august I've spent a lot of money going out almost every day, but I also think it's because it's hard to stay in when outside the weather is great, also gym was closed, but I think getting rid of social completely it's the only way to go, when they are engineered to monopolise your time, there is no limiting

Schedule other activities. If you are merely being restrictive, you might find yourself sitting there obsession about what you aren't consuming but reflexively want to.

Going outside facilitates this

Find higher quality slop to fill your time. HN or TPOT, for instance.

You are weak and aimless, because being aimless makes you weak.

When you look at life, ask yourself what brings you most joy in life, what makes you feel most alive, find your direction, and avoid the petty traps designed to enslave you.

Find your discipline, challenge yourself, and find like-minded people without your phone as a filter. The cost of social connection increases exponentially with malign influences as it becomes digital. Learn the education and related skills of discernment which have been purposefully withheld from recent generations. Seek and base your actions on actual truth, not rhetoric.

The first step is recognition of the compulsion traps that have been set for you to enslave you to addiction.

Read a book, Robert Cialdini's "Influence", and you will begin to recognize the subtle factors in your own psychology that allow others to manipulate you towards detrimental ends without your knowledge.

Learn about what specifically defines torture, so you can recognize and eliminate such torturous and vexatious things from your life as intolerable.

Most of the things people have been brought up to believe today are true only in the narrowest of respects, and in a broader perspective are lies of omission, designed to blind you.

Evil didn't stop existing, people were just induced to willfully choose to be blind to it with carefully crafted convincing lies, and technique, and systematic indirect interference to tie you down leaving you without agency.

Reclaim your cultural heritage whatever culture that may be, and prepare yourself for the dark times that are ahead, which may move slowly but are coming.

Without joy, partnership, children, a future, there is nothing. If you aren't moving forward towards that, you are moving backward.