The easiest way to stop mindlessly using an app or website
by Parker · 23 things on Twos
- If you've ever found yourself mindlessly loading a website without thinking about, this short article will help you stop.
- What happens
- I've had this habit of loading YouTube, Twitter, and Medium, without even thinking about it.
- How it happens is:
- I open a new tab in my browser.
- I type the first letter or two of the website i.e. 'Yo' for 'YouTube' or 'Me' for Medium.
- I'll hit the enter key on my keyboard.
- This will immediately load the website I'm subconsciously opening.
- I use the Chrome browser by Google and it is so good that they know exactly what I want to go to with only a keystroke or two.
- How to fix it
- To fix this, do the same thing:
- Open a new tab
- Type in the first letter or two.
- Remove the suggestion for the first result.
- This will remove the history of them knowing you want to navigate to this page.
- If the top couple of results are for the same website you can remove the top few results, but in my experience, removing the top one does the trick.
- No more mindlessly browsing
- Now, when you open a new tab, start typing the website, and hit enter, you'll be taken to the second result which probably isn't the one you subconsciously wanted to visit.
- The second result will open, you'll be confused, and then you'll have successfully stopped the habit.
- I've successfully done this for YouTube, Twitter, and Medium and I spend significantly less time visiting these websites.
- Yes, it'll make actually going to those website harder because you'll need to type out their full name, but I do not see that as a problem as long as the bad habit has been fixed.
- Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
- Happy Twosday ✌️