make a tiny fortune teller (and cure your doom scrolling)
anti-scroll side quest #02: because "scroll less" is terrible advice if you don't know what to do instead
you know that feeling where you finally sit down after a long day, the tv is on, and before you’ve even consciously decided to, your phone is in your hand too. and more than an hour disappears into tiny dopamine crumbs, someone reorganising their pantry, a woman in chicago making soup, half a movie recap, and you genuinely could not tell anyone a single thing you watched afterwards if they asked. and somewhere around the 60 minute mark, your body starts sending up a small flare. you’re not relaxed, you were never relaxed, you just stopped noticing you weren’t. we’re not lacking entertainment anymore, that’s for sure. but we are lacking better alternatives that are easier to fall into than the scroll is. so this month i made you something.
and hey, welcome to another anti-scroll side quest ✿ #02
aka: what to do when you’re tired of scrolling but not quite sure what to do instead. it’s a tiny project to help you stop scrolling past your life and and step back into the one in front of you. you can catch up with the full series so far here here
✿ anti-scroll side quest #02: make a fortune teller full of tiny cures for your modern boredom
this month’s project is based around a fortune teller (or a cootie catcher as i think they’re called in usa). yess, the one you probably haven’t held since you were nine and folding in the back of maths class. except instead of “you will marry a footballer and have 12 children” it tells you what to do instead of scrolling, based on the actual mood you’re in and how much of yourself you’ve got left to give it.
the mission: build your own tiny fortune teller, fold it, keep it close, and use it whenever your hand reaches for your phone before your brain's caught up.
side effects:
you stop outsourcing all your entertainment to algorithms
evenings start having a shape again instead of just dissolving into whatever’s next on autoplay.
you develop a small, slightly ridiculous expertise in something, old hollywood scandals, your local bakeries, the moon phases. nobody asked, you just know now.
you accidentally acquire hobbies
your phone loses some of its main-character energy.
✿ the magic of a fortune teller (and not just a list)
the thing about the "things to do instead of doom scrolling" lists (as well-intended as they are) is that they ask too much of us at exactly the moment we have the least to give. because you don't always reach for your phone for the same reason. sometimes you reach for it when you’re feeling kinda lonely on sunday evening, or you brain is feeling soupy, or you just wanna feel like a person again, or when you’re tired but also not ready for bed just yet. each of those moods needs a completely different kind of help, and a single flat list can't tell the difference between them, so it ends up either too ambitious or too vague to actually use.
a fortune teller can. you pick the mood, it asks one more tiny question, then it points you towards a small, specific thing to do next. no scrolling through your own list trying to decide or accidentally spending fifteen minutes researching hobbies instead of having one. the decision gets made for you, which, honestly, is often half the battle.
✿ what you’ll need:
paper, fun pen, and scissors
plain, colourful or usual printer paper, a pen with a bit of personality, and scissors for trimming the square. nothing fancier needed.20 to 30 minutes
enough time to actually sit with your four moods and tiny prescrptions rather than rushing them (explained below).fortune teller canva template (optional)
if you'd rather skip the folding-from-scratch bit and go straight to filling in the blanks. it’s linked below <3honesty about the weird little things you actually enjoy
aka: stuff that makes you forget to check your phone for a bita little treat for your trouble
biscuit, snack, dramatic little beverage, your call
