Educational content can waste as much time as mindless scrolling —
Do you know what floods the internet around the New Year, apart from shopping sprees, exclusive travel deals, and subscription offers?
“Self-help content”
Around 1.8 million self-improvement videos hit YouTube alone during New Year’s week.
Till mid-Jan, our feeds are flooded with ‘advice’ enough to fill several lifespans.
- skills you NEED to build to upgrade your 2026
- here’s how to make 2026 your best year
- become unrecognizable with these habits in 2026
These videos gain massive views and engagement, right?
Sounds familiar?
But the question is, how much of it actually works?
Did you scroll away your 2025 just like that?
Or is it the norm every year?
Yeah, you weren’t scrolling memes, but you were scrolling empty promises.
Has “Advice Over Action” Become a New Form Of Procrastination?
Watching tens of self-improvement videos before 1st Jan, and making weekly or monthly plans, hours long —
And that’s how the year passes…
new content is uploaded,
new promises are made,
new plans are sketched,
and the cycle continues…
But why has this become a cycle in the first place?
Why don’t we realize that it’s time wastage?
Just listening to hours of advice, not following any of them…
Why doesn’t it feel like procrastination?
when it’s as useless as scrolling memes…
Redefining Procrastination:
I think it’s high time to revise what procrastination, wasting your time, and not following your goals truly mean.
“Procrastination means to unnecessarily delay or put off important tasks, and choosing to do easier or more enjoyable activities instead.”
Just watching videos, listening to advice, and making long plans on paper are easier than taking action.
However, these activities are nothing but an illusion to distract you from your goals.
Consider this:
- You readily acknowledge that mindless scrolling IS a time waste. (even if you do it)
- However, you don’t think the same way about watching self-help videos on YouTube for 2 hours straight because they seem ‘educational’.
- Similarly, planning seems a necessary step to work, not a time-waster.
If it can’t come in one way, it comes the other way.
How This Has Become The New Form Of Procrastination?
When you realize something is harmful, you will move away. Even if it feels difficult, once you understand it’s not good, you will at least try.
But what about when you can’t see what’s wrong? When what you are doing feels completely right?
This is what illusions are — those who hide the truth and fog reality.
You understand how social media apps are designed to keep you glued to the screens through over-stimulated content.
However, what about when you believe what you are consuming is “the good stuff”?
Not realizing that, while the content might be good, it’s not actually benefiting you when you are stuck watching without taking any action.
Have you ever noticed what kind of pleasure watching self-help videos brings?
- a sign of relief that at least you are watching something meaningful and not scrolling.
(hence assuring yourself that you aren’t wasting time)
- An odd pleasure that your life will also be like theirs if you follow all those perfect habits
(How similar these videos seem, a successful young woman or man sitting in front of the camera with a microphone, and mini vlog clips of their ‘perfect life’ playing with voiceovers)
What Is The Reality?
I am not targeting any individual creator or self-improvement content creators as a whole.
In fact, I also like to watch self-help videos from time to time, because some of the creators actually give golden life advice.
The point here is the cultural assumption that your brain is wired to believe:
- If you are scrolling something random ➡ you are lazy
- But if you are scrolling ‘educational content’ ➡ you are being productive
Because watching such content feels intellectually rewarding over other content.
The second creates a false sense of working, when in reality you are doing the same thing in both cases — no action.
After a long screen time, your mind is fogged to the point where it’s difficult to understand where to start.
Only the idea of work was entertained while the work remained undone.
The 1st January Dilemma:
The New Year has become more of a promotional season. New beginnings, fresh starts, and clean slates are marketed everywhere.
1st January is treated as a magical reset. Just start everything on it, and it will be great ahead.
But it’s nothing more than a date. No date is particularly blessed or has any inherent power.
What actually matters is what you do on that date.
If you do nothing, its becomes just another normal day. No different from any other day of the year.
If you think about it, major historical events also happened on random dates. They did not wait for the 1st of any year or month.
Countries formed, companies were founded, big achievements happened — all on random dates, and made them remarkable.
Progress doesn’t depend on calendar
This is a small yet powerful thing to understand.
When you can’t directly admit that you’re wrong, you find excuses for your behaviour to reassure yourself.
I will start after some rest, I will start exactly at 7 o’clock, I will do that after that, I will start that….
Random plans and schedules not followed by any action are no different from excuses.
Advice isn’t the enemy
Plans and dates aren’t the problem…
The problem begins only when it becomes a substitute for effort.
Closing Thoughts:
It’s important to break free from illusions like 1st January, which gives nothing but fake assurances.
It’s time to hold ourselves accountable in the mirror.
Evaluate what you have and haven’t done.
See what your life actually needs.
Self-improvement content can inform you, motivate you, or even inspire you — but it cannot do the work for you.
No creator has the perfect solution for your problems; only you have.
There are 365 days in a year; you don’t need to plan them all at once. Because nothing ever goes according to plan.
You just need to decide.
Decide what you really want to do with your time, energy, and life.
The decisions you make will shape your life, not the plans.