I need to stop playing Solitaire

[simont]

It's a habit I've formed over the last year or so: if I'm sitting at a computer and trying to have a good idea, or make a design decision, or think about anything that isn't immediately obvious, I'll start a game of Solitaire, just to distract the surface levels of my mind from the immediate problem and allow my subconscious to work on it undisturbed.

This occasionally works, but more often I just waste a lot of time playing Solitaire and don't get anywhere with the other problem. So I've never been convinced that on balance it was a useful habit.

However, I've just sunk to new depths. I started a game of Solitaire, and half way through I realised it was going to be one of those borderline games that doesn't come out easily and isn't obviously impossible, but instead requires a lot of thought. And before I knew what my fingers were doing, they'd clicked over to the GNOME menus and started up another game of Solitaire, to distract me from thinking about the first one.

So I think enough is enough. Anyone got any good tips for breaking strong habits?

Comments

[cjwatson]

Damn you! I read this post and was immediately seized by the irresistible urge to play Freecell, which I haven't suffered from for ages. So I'm afraid I'm no help. :-)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Not much help here either. Of course, you could have closed the first solitaire window. If you can manage that, then you won't feel quite so bad.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Uninstall the solitaire program.

[angoel.livejournal.com]

Recompile the solitaire program so that one time in ten, it runs 'rm -rf /' as root. That'll make you a little more wary of playing it.

[keirf.livejournal.com]

Shock aversion therapy.

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

Ditto Minesweeper. I accidentally broke it yesterday, which has at least stopped me playing it.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I play Spider Solitaire a lot too. I play it pretty much on autopilot, though; I don't feel I'm likely to improve my technique any more, so restarting difficult games is basically just a way to try out options which are on average suboptimal, but might be better in this particular game.

Way to break the habit? Play something else instead, like nethack or angband :-) Or perhaps, try forcing yourself to play it for longer than you actually want to, or when you have something else you'd much rather do - as a sort of aversion therapy? I don't know really. For me, these sorts of avoidance behaviour only really occur when I feel unmotivated generally anyway; when I feel positive and motivated about life as a whole, I don't feel the desire for displacement activities.

[sparrowsion]

I've become terribly addicted to Net. To the extent that I'm seeing it/playing it in my head when falling asleep (or trying to). This is bad.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I made a New Year's Resolution to spend no more than 15 minutes playing minesweeper on the Palm, because I was horribly addicted to that. I started playing Solitaire instead. Then got addicted to playing Solitaire. Hmmm. I think I may have to actually delete both games -- I can always get them from somebody else if I want them back, but deleting them might help me make the mental break.

I feel like I should be suggesting (or doing!) something worthy like "go for a run instead" to clear the mental fog, but I've not actually found anything that really helps. So, er, this is more a sympathy and "m3 t00" post than advice, sorry.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, the slightly obsessive streak that makes one lock into a habit is precisely the same streak that makes most of us good at what we do. This doesn't help break the habit, though. There aren't solitare self-help groups out there, though. It isn't inherently a destructive behaviour, so you're unlikely to get rid of it in a hurry. Sorry. I'm terribly addictable too. Fortunately I don't have Spider Solitaire on my machine, otherwise my D.Phil. would stand less of a chance than it does already.