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For some, NoSurf is a movement for netizens to self-regulate compulsive internet usage. For others, NoSurf is a community of people who are focused on becoming more productive and wasting less time mindlessly surfing the internet.

This community consists of people who for whatever reason are interested in reducing their time online. People that game online, smartphone addicts, people with concentration problems, and many more types of people.

In this community, people ask each other for tips or feedback, they support each other and they share progress or bad days, anything that a community usually can offer.

On the Discord server, people share their #daily-updates. They share what they struggled with or what went well that day. I listed some interesting quotes:

#daily-updates

<aside> 💬 The week so far has been mixed Monday I failed around 11 AM Tuesday and today Wednesday I pushed through with the day and were really effective! But when I only had like a task load amounting to one hour, I thought to myself: let's just have this break… And so I didn't complete my last tasks, and I surfed the web for like four hours, thus wasting my precious evening when I could have done something meaningful and fun. Maybe others here to have the experience of tripping before the finish line (or deceiving oneself/letting guard down)

</aside>

<aside> 💬 Today was my supposed to be my leisure day, free time after lunch, Yet I don’t feel happy. The pandemic is making things boring, I’m so alone, and one of my hands is hurt, so I couldn’t even play a legitimate fun video game. Just sitting here, the mind is wandering about, I think of all the different sites, news, forums, YouTube and so on. I know that they are meaningless and unfulfilling, but what am I to do instead right now?I got nothing fun to do it seems like. Currently watching a Netflix series. I can be productive at times, but cant seem to have meaningful time. Am I uncreative? What should I do? Life might get better in the future, especially if I play my cards right, I know that. But as things are now in this situation, even when I am supposed to have fun, I feel semi-miserable. Things have been worse, and I know that I should be thankful to be kind of healthy and alive and so on but I just can’t practice that philosophy, or I just can’t feel it...(edited)

</aside>

<aside> 💬 I got the non-useful screentime on my computer down to zero but the screentime on my phone is the highest that it has been in a while. I was fed up with this and decided that this needs to stop. I got the app lock me out for my phone and created a filter that blocks the internet and the appstores (so that I cannot download another browser) for most of the day. Interested to see how this goes...

</aside>

<aside> 💬 For the past 5 days I've been free of reddit and youtube completely. Unfortuntately I have found other ways to procrastinate with tech so I wouldn't say my productivity is up

</aside>

<aside> 💬 I read a flesh and blood book for an hour last night. It was honestly nice to look at something that wasn’t glowing, for once. Just gotta keep telling myself these are better options than my phone, or laptop.

</aside>

<aside> 💬 These days i'm on "sad season" (cyclical periods of time) and it shows. I've been using more phone/surfing than usual. I need to focus more.(edited)

</aside>

<aside> 💬 Don’t know if bad updates are allowed in this channel. I’ve fallen into a slump, been using the internet all day everyday for the past week, sleeping late at night or during the day, failed an assignment because I just didn’t submit. I’ve fucked up, but I’m going to get my act together today. Will update later

</aside>

<aside> 💬 No matter what I do, each day I end up surfing reddit or youtube. It makes me feel sick thinking how unproductive I've been today. I wish I had a modicum of self control.

</aside>

<aside> 💬 This week, I've been pretty happy about the way I've been working. Started to become more conscious about how to focus my attention and have been working on Python as well as relearning a bit of math. Started realizing that by focusing on one thing, I somehow learn a lot better so I want to continue working on that.

</aside>

<aside> 💬 I only half succeeded yesterday. I did spend a good amount of time working on my "goals", but then I also played a video game for like 5 hours straight. While it was happening I told myself "see, you're doing addictive behaviours again", but I kept playing anyway. oh well, today is a new day. time to make more progress on my goals.

</aside>

#goals

<aside> 🎯

Here are some of my goals for the next 3 months (March - May) +Develop my personal blog more (write 1 entry / week) +Get back in running shape: run a sub-25 minute 5k +Take long bike rides on the weekends (20-50 miles) +Read books - permanent record and skeptics guide to the universe. (30 mins - 1 hr / day)

• Help my family around the house by cooking/cleaning / walking the dog
• Declutter and minimize my personal belongings to live simply. +Keep an updated spreadsheet tracking my monthly expenses, aim for a high savings rate. +Attend church on Sundays or take an hour to meditate +Maintain social interaction by hanging out with friends or calling once a week

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 I've been falling off my habits and plans so here is to going back to it

• No PMO
• Read book for 30 mins
• Practice ASL for 30 mins
• Run at least 2 miles
• Screen time less than 3 Hours a day
• Meditate for 30 mins right after waking up

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 In the next three weeks to three months, I'd like to:

• be playing 30 minutes of piano daily
• eating 3000+ calories a day
• continuing to walk my dog for 40 minutes every day
• restarting my daily running, rowing, and weight training routines that i stopped due to unhealthy weight loss (wasn't eating enough)
• getting a consistent seven hours of sleep every night (I've been doing this
• reading around 60 to 100 pages of a book a day
• spend 30 minutes learning or working on code, specifically for data analysis w/ python or r, daily
• write a daily debrief in a journal every night
• become more consistent in my hygiene habits (I am already very consistent here and have amazing hygiene, but every once a week or so ill skip my daily shower, and I'd prefer I stop doing that)
• have completely stamped out any vestiges of surfing addiction
• spend some time every day working on practice algebra problems (I'm pretty good at math and calc, but I still have some problems with certain algebra concepts that I never learned or never reinforced)

my long term goals for the next five to four years are as follows:

• transfer to a top university in my field of study for undergrad / get into one of those universities for graduate school
• read 250 books
• run a marathon
• bike 100 miles in a single day
• bench press 250 lbs
• maintain a college GPA of around 3.7 to 3.9 (a four is essentially impossible in engineering at my school)
• code and publish a personal website
• learn how to read and write Farsi (I am Iranian-American, and am able to speak nearly fluently - just never learned to read and write)

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Routine goals:

• Wake up around 6:30
• Instead of picking up phone, do a quick body check and get up
• Practice at least 30 minutes of yoga everyday
• Be mindful about eating when I'm alone or share my lunch time with someone else
• Read a chapter of a book
• 15 min of studying French
• 30 minutes of studying anthropology, if possible
• Go for a run with my dog
• Wind down through journaling, meditation and some light music.
• Be in bed around 22:00

Long-term goals:

• Improve my attention span when reading
• Develop a better body consciousness through exercise (and help my puppy lose weight hehe)
• Avoid binge eating (which is something I do whenever mindlessly surfing)
• Improve my French skills
• Widen by bibliographic knowledge just enough to design my masters research project **

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Weekly goals starting today:

• Sleep at 10:30, wake up at 5:30
• Do notes in the morning until my first class.
• Exercise daily, but this time, follow a certain routine instead of just doing what I want
• No snacking while sitting at laptop
• Less music; only when doing homework, not when taking notes (this is going to be really difficult)
• Read 1 juz at least daily

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Weekly goals starting today tomorrow

• do a morning session w/ Anki daily
• daily Wim Hoff breathing session
• tidy > 10 minutes daily
• wash the dishes daily
• concentrate during live lectures
• code on my side project.
• study >= 1 hr for college
• sleep at 9:30

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 3 months goal : -Getting a better paying job

• Consciously taking out time to spend with my parents and family

3 years goal:

• Having a real and close relationship with my family
• Becoming a capable,responsible & independent man -Having friends and a social life -Having fulfilling hobbies

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 So my short term goals for this year are : > start writing (in French and English) and improve my writing skills , read a book per month and analyse it.

take care of my body by doing exercises and eat healthy food keep progress at chess , I want to reach an advanced level by next year and to play in a tournament meditation 30min per day keep an eye on politics from time to time to stay informed I’m a fan of violin music but i still have no idea about the learning process so maybe someone here can inform me

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Goal 1: Solidify a habit of meditation. 5 minutes daily. A little bit of stillness is essential. To calm down.

Goal 2: Journal on my phone. I know it is counterintuitive, but it's what I have right now. Once I get a pen and a personal notebook I will make the switch. Once a day is fine.

Goal 3: Go outside at least once in the days where I do not have to attend the gym. More often than not, in my rest days I tend to get stuck at home on my phone. I want to change this with going outside every once in a while and feeling nature at its best.

Goal 4: Whenever I have a temptation to reach for the addictive apps, stop and think why am I doing this. Solidifying a habit of mindfulness with my phone will be important in reducing further relapses.

Goal 5: Communicate more frequently with loved ones outside the country.

Goal 6: Make sure my consistency streak with the gym doesn't break.

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Short term goals

• Establish a sleep schedule and wake up earlier and earlier until I can consistently wake up at 6AM (3 days 10AM, 3 days 9AM, 3 days 8AM, and so on until 6AM). I woke up at 10AM today (usually I'll wake up from 11AM to 1PM), so that's a start!
• Take a 30 minute walk every day. Used to do this a few months ago, now only doing it irregularly and once every few days. Use this time to reflect a bit about life too
• Find a hobby. I used to be a huge math nerd, still like math but not as much anymore; I've also considered learning programming, I know some Python already and the idea of being a game developer is really interesting to me
• Spend some time on my studies every day (min. 4 hours, unless I've burned through my assignments for the time being; won't be too strict about this at the beginning, since I want to explore what I can do without YouTube and timewasters first so I can convince myself I can have fun without them instead of forcing myself to do assignments I might not want to do at first and make it more difficult to achieve my goals)

Long term goals

• Develop my hobby, and if possible aim to study a career or get a job related to it.
• Learn a new language. Prior to nosurf, I was learning Japanese (although my study schedule for that was also quite irregular), but now that I don't have my main motivation for learning the language (Hololive), I might consider changing it to Mandarin (also learned this language in my previous school, but that school had some organization and management issues so we only got to around HSK 1 level in 3 years lmao)

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Dedicate the first week of the month towards downloads. Strictly no YouTube procrastination as to prevent a porn relapse. Anime should be downloaded for offline viewing, as well as games No internet to be used on Android phone except for updating existing apps No smartphone in bed Plan a morning routine that focuses on getting ready for the day ahead Limit game time to 1-3 hours a day Learn how to take a break Live in the present moment Watch an episode of an anime a day, for a maximum of 2 series per day, and only on weekdays

</aside>

<aside> 🎯 Weekly goals starting today

• Continue to keep my phone screen time under 30 minutes
• Limit unproductive time on the internet to under 1 hour
• Incorporate some sort of movement once a day
• Continue waking up by 5:30 am -Upgrade my resume and cover letter template.
• Eat healthy 80% of the time

</aside>

#self-improvement

<aside> 🤝 How do you fix a day that started bad? (eg. surfing the web after waking up, slacking off for hours, postponing work)

→ showering works for me. You could also try meditation similar to what Newt mentioned

</aside>

<aside> 🤝 does anyone here have internet behaviors that correlate with depression? ie when depression is worse internet use is up. Have you found ways to manage?

→ I don't consider myself depressed, but I find I use video games and the internet to cope with negative emotions. I imagine its very common for all kinds of addiction. I'm building a habit for going on walks in the evening or in general when I'm feeling bad. Would recommend

</aside>

<aside> 🤝 How do I quit? My daily average on my phone is 11 hours per day

→ I like to put my phone as far away as possible. Right now it is downstairs out of sight on a high shelf. Get the forest app - it encourages you to stay off your phone

→ If you have android, you can disable timewasting apps like YouTube in settings. Basically put as many barriers as possible to wasting time on your phone It's going to be really hard and you are going to get cravings so it helps if you can stay busy at first while trying to quit. Good luck

</aside>

<aside> 🤝 Hard to find 'real-world' hobbies and find it difficult to sit with stimulation Any solutions?

→ Based on the book I'm reading, don't sit. Get up, and go clean your room! (I'm guessing it's because You'll bump into a lot of memories and that will remind you of goals and activities that you achieved or wanted to achieve or even just enjoyed doing.)

→ For hobbies, what about making a list of themes and things you like ( cats, music, history of paintings ...), find a bunch of hobbies matching that and try each a little. Don't get to excited and buy a bunch of expensive stuff, just try it on a very small scale. If you like it, good, if not, go to the next hobby on the list ?

→ what are you currently getting out of the internet? find that in hobbies. for me, I was getting novel information from sites like reddit and now I try to get that from books.

—→ For me it’s squashing away loneliness (when I don’t see my friends), boredom (when I wake up in the morning/waiting for something) and escapism (if I’m in a hard situation/dealing with uncomfortable feelings) I also find it difficult to sit with my thoughts and need simulation constantly - typically YouTube helps with that and reading random information is the same, not a huge social media person

</aside>

<aside> 🤝 I never understand what I'm supposed to do while meditating... Do I simply have to breath and focus on my breathing? For how long do I have to do this? Can I lie down on the bed?

→ check some of this guy's videos out, they're super helpful

</aside>

<aside> 🤝 How did any of you get back into reading after excessive internet usage? I've gone on internet breaks before, but this time I want to fill my time up with reading. I haven't read a book from cover-to-cover since high school and I really just don't have the attention span for it anymore.

→ I've recently got back into reading, and its really all about training yourself and your brain imo I don't think its realistic for anyone to be able to snap their fingers and sit down to read for hours on end after not having read for ages it sucks, because id start to read and want to read more but couldn't because I kept getting distracted when I was first trying to start reading again. You just gotta train your brain to be able to read again takes time. So long as you enjoy what you're reading and you're able to avoid getting on the internet when you get distracted, it should become easier and easier to read for longer amounts of time while retaining more info

→ I'm getting back into reading after not reading for years as well. I started with library books, there's more incentive to read because you have to give them back lol. But yeah it takes time to retrain your attention span, maybe start with shorter books?

</aside>

<aside> 🤝

</aside>

<aside> 🤝

It's difficult controlling my phone screen time, the only thing left that I can do is start uninstalling my social media apps but some connectivity is required in my life

→ Like someone said in #general-chat, if this is genuinely the means of human contact and your not a lone-wolf who can live by themselves alone, then finding a balance using screen time is the better option. If your screen time was 1hr (insert social media platform) and you had a genuine conversation with someone then that isn’t the problem, it’s when you pretend your multitasking and diverting your attention from the human contact which was supposed the point of these platforms initially. If I call you for example and we have an awesome or meaningful conversation, I would subtract that from screen time because I would only be communicating with you in this example, screen time doesn’t account for meaningful interaction which you would have to subtract on your own basis to get a more representative picture of your monotonous usage.

</aside>

#succes-stories

<aside> 🏆 Power's been going out here so I've been able to practice not using the phone. Using books to do Python programming right now since they're offline so that's good :D

</aside>

<aside> 🏆 Spent the last week or so with my laptop disconnected from internet, and phone with a child-content lock. Got stuff done all day everyday, screen time average almost doubled (digital textbooks), but the important part, surfing, was averaged down to less than 15 minutes a day.

It was a small inconvenience to use a USB to transfer some files to my laptop instead of an online cloud storage, or to go to the library computer for online meetings, and that is such a small price to pay to have literally 0 internet surfing temptation. Even helped me get all my daily exercise in.

Kind of surprised to realize that I basically don't need internet at home, and i work more effectively without it, both in study-work productivity, and the all-rest-of-life productivity.

</aside>

<aside> 🏆 I have nearly managed to stop reading the news. Well, with a few exceptions since I work on a local newspaper. But from reading basically everything, at least 5-6 times everyday. Tons of negativity, barely anything positive. Our local newspaper has barely nothing negative, but two of the biggest newspapers in Sweden has mostly bad news we can't control.

</aside>

<aside> 🏆 My screen time went from 9-13 hours to 2-7

</aside>

<aside> 🏆 Small win but I've been getting better at sustaining focus for difficult (for me lol) C language homeworks and labs for one of my classes. I usually will just open the assignment and look it and then get distracted by other tasks/thoughts, but I started making myself a little post it note labeled "distraction thoughts" that I quickly jot down to look at after I finish my work block

</aside>

<aside> 🏆 I'm 14, and like any other humanoid apart of my (terrible) generation, I used to be on my phone ~5hrs a day. I struggled with it a lot during quarantine. Skipping homework and all. I recently started using an app blocker with a "strict mode". My grades are at almost all-A's. I can do anything now. I'm so free. I've started investing in the stock market, I mountain bike again, I play the drums, I learned circuitry, python, and C++ and build robots, and I'm developing an app for the app store. I'm not smart, I'm just ambitious and newly-freed. Eliminate bubbles of terribility (like your phone) from your life to the greatest extent possible.

</aside>

<aside> 🏆 It’s amazing how much time you gain by leaving Reddit for a week. My original strategy was to not browse Reddit at all Mon-Sat, and then just check out the week’s top posts on Sunday. Sunday came, I logged into Reddit, browsed for five minutes, realised “Wow, I don’t care about any of this!”, logged off and went for a walk. It’s still a bit too much for my taste, but I am starting University in two weeks, so I am sure that once I get studying, I will be able to reach my goal of an average screen time of less than two hours.

</aside>