Sometimes I find myself mindlessly pressing ctrl – t, <name of news site>.

And sometimes it doesn't matter: waiting for someone to reply, for a compile or upload to finish. But often it is a waste of time.

I recently realized that while it is hard to break the first part of the habit, and removing all the triggers is impractical, I can easily stack another habit on top:

I have now trained myself so that whenever my fingers type that pattern they also automatically type ctrl – w to close the tab before even loading it.

I did that by intentionally repeating the first part of the pattern, then closing the tabs and rewarding myself by smiling.