How I Stopped Mindless Doom Scrolling As A Chronically Online Software Engineer - Less Time Scrolling, More Time Doing Things I Enjoy

I am chronically online. I always have my phone within reach and usually a laptop (often 2!) within a few feet.

I work as a software engineer by day and moonlight as a Creative Technologist / YouTuber when I have time / energy.

This means I'm often on my devices to accomplish the things I want / need to do - whether that's coding for work or researching a topic or writing my next post.

This also means I have easy access to social media and other apps that are hyper engineered to get you to spend more time scrolling and consuming content (trust me - I worked at Instagram as a SWE for 3.5 years).

The problem is scrolling isn't typically how I want to spend my precious time. More scrolling means less time for things I actually want to do - things that are engaging, fulfilling, and exciting long term.

So here I'm going to share some strategies that I've implemented to successfully moderate my scrolling to a level that I am happy with. Less time spent scrolling, more time doing things I enjoy.

Quitting social media entirely did not work for me

Quitting social media entirely is often recommended in less screen time forums, books, and blog posts.

While this certainly would work, I found it didn't work for me. I first read about this in Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and tried it out for a few months by deleting my social media apps (read my takeaways from the book).

The initial results were pretty shocking - I discovered opening up my phone to look at Instagram was habitual. This manifested by me blankly staring at my phone but not sure why I was looking at it whenever I had a few minutes of downtime. I eventually realized I was habitually trying to open Instagram but because I'd deleted the app my muscle memory short circuited because it couldn't find it. Which seems pretty bad and kind of sad and quite a bit scary!

Over those months I lessened the habit - there was less looking at my phone for no reason and more doing other things to fill my time.

But I started to feel a bit disconnected and uninspired.

Like it or not, social media is one of the greatest inventions of this century - unlocking unparalleled ways of communicating and sharing ideas. I found I was missing new ideas from online discussions, missing out on connection updates and conversations, and missing a lot of group messages (a lot of ppl in my circle used FB / IG messaging for groups - esp as I am a proud green text).

So I wanted to find a way to get the benefits I was missing but without the downsides. Here's what worked for me.

Time block problematic apps to limit access during the day

My number 1 most effective strategy for stopping doom scrolling is limiting my access to problematic apps. This allows me to access the apps for their utility but limits the downsides - sucking up my time and attention when I have other things I'd rather do.

There are two main ways to time block apps, both of which are complementary:

• Limit access times - Only access Instagram after 1800 on weekdays
• Limit usage time - Only 1h of Instagram per day

My current approach is to simply limit access times. This implicitly limits my usage time due to how I time block my calendar (which we'll discuss later), prevents me from getting distracted from doing my most important tasks during the day, and provides a bit of flexibility if I decide to spend a bit more time on socials (like if I'm batching responses).

I don't block ALL scrolling apps, just the ones I've found problematic for me. I've found that some scrolling is inevitable as more and more apps implement their own version so cutting off access to all of them simply means pushing you towards apps you haven't scrolled yet. For me, some scrolling is okay and some scrolling apps are so useful that blocking them gets in the way of what I want to do.

Some examples of scrolling apps I have NOT blocked:

• Reddit is useful for researching discussions (I do less scrolling, more searching for discussions via Google so not a problem for me)
• LinkedIn is useful for me in a professional capacity - looking up people's backgrounds and responding to comments on posts. I find LinkedIn posts / convos generally boring so don't have much urge to scroll on there.
• YouTube is useful to me from a hobby capacity. I don't scroll YouTube so not much of a problem and I like to watch videos I have saved and check in on my channel so don't block it.

My current limits are:

• Apps: Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram
• Allowed time: None during blocked access periods, unlimited during access periods
• Blocked access periods: 0000 - 1800

This limits my scrolling during sleep times and during the day when I'm at peak energy / focus so I can ensure it doesn't get in the way of my more important tasks. In the evenings when I'm chilling, I can scroll and reply to people.

To block access periods, I use:

• Laptops / Desktops - Stayfocusd Chrome extension
• Phone - Built-in Work Mode (I use a Samsung Android but I believe most modern phones have a notion of a focus mode with similar settings)

Time block your calendar so you always have a main thing to work on

I've found that social media / doom scrolling often creeps in when you don't have a specific, important thing to be working on.

By time blocking your day you can ensure there's always something important to focus on. Once that's done, you can use your free time as you wish which may mean scrolling (but often not).

In a typical day, I carve out time blocks for my most important activities:

• Sleep
• Exercise
• Side projects
• Work
• Chores
• Free time (this is where scrolling usually goes)
• (and more recently) feeding + putting my child to sleep

For more: How I plan my day as a Senior Software Engineer - A Simple Scalable System for getting the most important thing done every day

It's not 100% effective but usually if I have a specific, important thing to be doing I won't just stop and scroll. I'll do the important thing first then stop and scroll.

For my calendar and time blocking, I just use Google Calendar with color-coded blocks.

Keep a todo list to ensure you accomplish everything you wanted to before you start scrolling

Time blocks are great but the whole idea is that you will finish the thing within the given time block. This means every time block will likely have some spare time around the edges.

As discussed, this spare time is dangerous as this is often where doom scrolling creeps in so we need a way to keep track of specific, important things we want to do before we veg with scrolling.

I do that with todo lists:

• A Daily todo list - My must-do items for the day which I try to time block into my calendar.
• An inbox todo list - Could do / Should do items / actions that I log throughout the day that I may want to do soon.

I time block my must do items in my calendar to better ensure I'm prioritizing my time to get them done. But in those off times I may pull forward an inbox item to get done if none of my must dos can fit in the typical 10/15 minute flex time around the edges.

This doesn't prevent mindless scrolling outright, but I've found having alternative options has been a great way to replace the scrolling habit with something a bit more productive.

For my daily todo lists I use Notion. For my inbox todo lists I use Trello.

For more on my daily todo lists, see: My Simple Daily Todolist as a Software Engineer - Maximize Productivity, Minimize Waste

For more on Trello as an inbox, see: How I run my Project Backlogs with Trello

Bonus: Keep a list of content to consume later instead of scrolling

The whole idea of scrolling (imo) is to find useful, interesting things to consume. We get addicted to it because that is more enjoyable than being bored - waiting around for something, going to the bathroom, eating lunch alone. The problem is not the content itself but the endless nature of scrolling which sucks up time / focus without much in return.

But there will be times when you're bored and want to consume some useful, interesting things. That's totally normal and I think is actually more useful than blankly sitting in a waiting room for 30 minutes flipping through whatever magazines they have in stock (if any!).

What I do to use this time effectively without engaging the scrolling habit is keep a list of things I want to consume when I have more time. These are often things like Reddit threads, blog posts, or videos that I've come across during my scrolling windows or have had recommended to me that I want to consume but didn't have time / focus for it at the time. So when I have the urge to scroll in my downtime, I can instead pop out my bookmarks and pick one of the ones near the top and start consuming.

There's less scrolling because all of these are items I want to consume which leaves more time for me to consume the content which typically means I enjoy that time more (what's the likelihood the random magazine in the waiting room has stuff I'm highly interested in inside it?).

For bookmarks I use Raindrop. I used to use Pocket before it got shut down and Raindrop came highly recommended. It's pretty good and works across all my devices - phone apps and laptop/desktop via Chrome extension.

I also always have my Kindle app on my phone loaded up with a book (often sci fi / fantasy - currently reading the Wandering Inn - but sometimes non fiction) for when I have a large chunk of time to read.

For news, I try to stay away from headlines / notifications. Instead I get a few of those daily briefing summaries from places like NYT, Reuters, and NPR and read one when I'm curious about world happenings. These typically only come in once a day and are pretty short which limits time / attention sunk into it.

Next

I still scroll ~daily but it is with much more mindfulness and intent in how and why I scroll. I scroll socials to get new ideas, discuss shared interests with people, and share my own creations. Overall socials have been a net good for me - they've helped me connect with people all over the world who have shared interests, something I likely couldn't have done without them (there just aren't that many F# enthusiasts in the world so the likelihood of finding them IRL when I work remote is pretty slim).

I've found that I typically scroll for ~30-45 minutes per night with these moderations in place. Then I hang it up and focus on other things that are more fulfilling to me. I realize that this is still probably more than is healthy but the tradeoff seems okay to me and is much better than the 1-3 hours a day I used to spend.

Hopefully some of these tips help you balance your scroll times.

If you liked this post you might also like:

• My Simple Daily Todolist as a Software Engineer - Maximize Productivity, Minimize Waste
• How I plan my day as a Senior Software Engineer - A Simple Scalable System for getting the most important thing done every day
• I Quit Coffee for 90 Days - Here’s How It Affected Me as a Software Engineer