The behavior I wanted to change for this assignment was choosing to read a portion of a book before bed instead of scrolling aimlessly on my phone or laptop. I tracked this behavior for a week, and documented it both by noting down when I read before bed and by tracking how much progress I made in the book I was reading!
I found that the social nature of returning to campus after break and a holiday weekend made it much easier to spend the night with my friends and/or return to my room late. Every time I spent the evening doing some sort of activity, I was “too tired” to devote any mental energy to my book and would instead open up TikTok or Twitter while brushing my teeth. Furthermore, I ran into a few external factors in the past week: I took a group of friends rollerskating, and one of them broke her wrist, resulting in my spending most of Saturday night in the ER with her. The exhaustion from that night, and the lack of general routine I had starting the quarter, made it difficult to resume my attempted behavior change for the rest of the weekend.
I thought this experience was a great starting point for initiating this behavior change, but if I were to attempt this again, I would probably aim for general consistency. For example, I would allow myself to read at any point during the day, instead of just at night, and I would like to be less rigid with the volume of pages I read (sometimes just a few are enough!). A friend also recommended alternating books, and I wonder if doing so would hold my attention more effectively, so that this behavior change is also more beneficial!
