For this project, the behavior I chose was watching dramas/shows (on YouTube and other platforms). I measured myself from Friday until Monday, noting down in my notes app when I started and stopped, as well as any thoughts or reasons that I had in the moment. While tracking my behavior made me more conscious and sometimes tempted me to act differently (perhaps not watching so I would not have to track), I believe I ultimately still acted the way I would have if I was not tracking my behavior.
In the process my tracking, I found some patterns, such as the association with having food/drink in my room, so immediately thinking of watching as something to do while consuming whatever snack I had. I also formed a division in my mind between a drama I was watching with my roommate and dramas I would watch by myself before sleeping as a habit, which may have led to more overall watching in general. I also tended to watch after or before any activities I had planned in my calendar, especially if I could use the fact that I didn’t have “enough” time before my next event to start doing work.
If I did this again, I might want to write more detail about what motivated me to stop in addition to what motivated me to start watching, as I became less specific over time. I also would want to have more data from weekdays, as my watching habits seem to be considerably influenced by whether it was the weekend versus weekday. In this case, all four days were technically “weekend”-related days because we had a long weekend, so it would be valuable to learn more about my habits on regular weekdays. Presumably, I would feel more pressure to do work on weekdays and have less of relaxation/”it’s the weekend” mindset, so the amount of time I spend watching would decrease. Even so, I have developed a habit of watching before I go to sleep unless I have an extreme amount of work; while it is good that I have time to decompress, I also wonder how I can change my habits so I still get enough sleep.
