Temptation bundling

Taking your digital vices outdoors

pedalling fast to stuff my face with delicious garbage (sorry, I meant junk food)

Hi there,

Can’t get yourself off Instagram? Take Instagram outdoors and enjoy some fresh air while scrolling through your feed.

Five things to share:

1. Temptation bundling is combining an activity you enjoy with something you dread, for example, meeting with your annoying relative (dread) at your favourite restaurant (joy). Temptation bundling also works for enticing ourselves to do tasks we otherwise dread: Working out (dread) while listening to your favourite playlist (joy). Why not take the digital (dread/joy) to the park or the beach or the balcony (joy/dread)? After all, the demons hate it when you go outside, demons hate fresh air.

2. I have been slowing down lately. Rushing only to end up with… What now? What next? Slow food, yes. Slow walks, yes. Slow and long phone calls, yes, yes, yes. In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed is a book by Carl Honoré I have been reading and enjoying slowly.

3. I learned about temptation bundling from You, But Better, a podcast episode from Hidden Brain, in which behavioural scientist Katy Milkman explains how we can use our minds to do what is good for us.

4. A quote I want to share with you:

   “Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
   — Søren Kierkegaard.

   What’s all the rush for?

5. The case for slowing everything down a bit

   Our digital lives dispense with friction. We get the answers we seek instantly, we keep up with friends without speaking to them, we get the news as it happens, we watch loops of videos an algorithm chose for us, we click once and get any product in the world delivered to our doorsteps in less than two days… But these technological wonders do not seem to have made our lives or societies more wonderful. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, drug overdoses, and suicide rates are rising… Something is wrong.

That’s all for this week!

Thank you for reading, and please share with anyone you think may benefit.

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Until next time,

Mehret