It's not that I don't have time for the things I want to do — exercising, writing, reading, spending time with God, cooking, and more. The real issue is that I don't know how to protect my time and attention from temptation, which, for me, is short videos on social media.

I would scroll through reels for hours, unable to stop myself even while knowing I should. I kept telling myself I would stop after just one more video. But deep down, I knew I was trying to deceive myself, as I knew I couldn't stop. Instead of feeling relaxed, which was my intention when I opened the app, I ended up feeling worse.

So, I deleted all social media apps from my phone. This helped, to a certain extent, until I needed to access information from them. For instance, checking a recipe on Instagram. I would download the app again, telling myself I would delete it immediately after viewing the post. What frustrated me most was how easily I forgot my original intention. The moment I opened the app, I found myself endlessly scrolling again.

I still don't have a perfect solution for protecting my time and attention from these addictive reels. However, a combination of the following strategies has helped me regain a certain level of control when I need it.

• Deleting social media apps from my phone. Although some claimed this extreme, I found it incredibly helpful as it kept these apps out of sight and prevented me from opening them out of habit.
• Allowing only sound notifications from a few important apps, such as work-related messaging groups, and putting my phone out of sight when I need to focus. Initially, this was difficult. If my phone were in another room, I would keep thinking about checking it. And this was not always practical when I was outside. What worked better for me was placing my phone behind my laptop or inside my bag, where I couldn't see it directly, which significantly reduced the times I reached for it.
• Hiding Shorts on YouTube. I often use YouTube on my laptop to listen to music, but before I found what I wanted, I would get distracted by short videos and start scrolling. Hiding Shorts has since minimised the chances of this happening.

Most importantly, I came to realise that I cannot do this alone. Beyond experimenting with different methods, I ask God for strength and teach me how to stay away from temptation and guard my heart from giving in.

Although I still sometimes find myself scrolling reels for hours, these strategies have helped me protect my time and attention when I need them most, such as during the school term and exam periods.

Understanding what causes you to spend your time in ways you do not want to, and taking one intentional step to guard against it, is more important than trying many strategies without clarity. For me, it is Instagram. So I deleted it and now avoid downloading it unless absolutely necessary, which rarely happens.