Description
Watching less than 2 hours of TV a day frees up time for productive activities and may improve your mood.
How to Do It
Limit yourself to 2 hours of TV a day. When keeping track of how much TV you’ve been watching, remember to include video streaming services like Netflix and Youtube.
Time Commitment
NA
Why it works
- When you are watching TV, you are not doing work. Watching less TV frees up time to be productive [3].
- Watching TV for a long time may make you anxious due to inactivity and overstimulation [1]. Therefore, limiting ‘screen-time’ may help reduce anxiety.
- Binge-watching behavior is correlated with symptoms of depression [2]. Therefore, limiting the duration of watching sessions may improve mood.
Suggested Frequency
Daily
Side Effects
If watching TV is how you spend most of your leisure time, do not stop watching TV all together, just mitigate it. Having leisure time can be good for productivity [3].
Gurus/Celebrities/Doing it
Mark Zuckerberg
Keira Knightley
Madonna
Jesse Eisenberg
Category Health/Productivity/Focus:
- Mood
- Productivity
Notes
- For the time that you do watch TV, maximise your enjoyment by focusing on the show, rather than using your phone [5].
- If you are struggling to fill your time after cutting back on TV, try reading instead. Most successful people are avid readers.
- You could include 2 hours (or less) of TV watching time in a daily plan. If you track how much time you spend watching TV, the fact that your time is being wasted will be more obvious to you and you will be less likely to binge on tv.
Supporting Studies and Articles
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