For a while now, I've been spending a lot of my free time playing video games and reading online fiction, and for a while now, I've considered it a bad habit that I should try to get rid of. Up till now, I've been almost universally unsuccessful at maintaining this resolve for any length of time.

My latest attempt consisted of making the commitment public to my closest friends, explaining the decision to them, and then asking them to help by regularly checking up on my progress. This has been more effective than anything else I've tried so far.

Usually, when I get the impulse to catch up on a story or whatnot, I will end up weighing that impulse against the fact that I ought to behave differently. Sadly, as is often the case when pitting System 1 vs System 2, even if I suppress the impulse several times, it eventually wears down my resolve. So far, what I'm experiencing now is that I end up weighing the impulse against the rather unappealing idea of explaining the fact to my friends, which has made it a lot easier to maintain my commitment.