gallowsgryph | Less YouTube

I don't normally watch YouTube on my MacBook. I keep it to my phone, which sits off to one side on its stand while I'm at my desk. I initially made that decision in order to get myself to stop endlessly scrolling through videos, and stop letting myself use it for background noise while I do other things. But looking at my watch time stats, that wasn't having as much of an effect as I'd hoped. What I want is for my attention to be on what I need to do when I'm working on something, rather than distracted by the moving pictures off to my left. If I'm going to watch videos, I want to actually watch them, likely with my uncle or mates, depending on what's being watched.

That's partly why I decided to rely on my phone for stuff like that. I have a system set up specifically for watching videos with family, but I only use it for that purpose when I'm intentionally doing so. I don't use it for background noise or anything, and in fact, it normally acts as a bit of a file server while idle, allowing me to take advantage of its HDD for videos I want to save. And it being an iMac, I can just connect with my MacBook to watch videos stored on it remotely if I'm in the mood to catch up on Super Sentai or Kamen Rider, since I watch those on my own. I can throw on my headphones, curl up in bed, and enjoy watching the goofy WTF of Gozyuger or Kamen Rider Gavv when I'm not in the middle of other things.

And yet, I was falling back on old habits that hurt my attention span. I'm no longer allowing myself to do so, though. If I'm wanting to watch a video, it has to be away from my desk, when I'm not working on anything else. I can always catch up on the vloggers and such that I keep track of when I can actually watch them. Yeah, it'll be a slow start, but reclaiming my attention span is more important than trying to chase inbox zero for something like that. I mean, this is why I stopped watching most livestreams, so I need to actually follow my own rules and advice if I'm going to make them for myself.