This email is brought to you by my team at Dispatch. Meet your new design team at 70% off. I figured out a way to make me 2x more productive with a simple habit change. First, some background… I've been grappling with an addiction—Twitter, my poison of choice.
I have a similar habit in the morning. Writing only before 7:30am. No phone, no checking bank accounts, no email scans. Just looking out the window and writing. This helps keep the Twitter habit at bay.
I've also been working on setting parameters with writing on Twitter: mornings only. And responding and commenting: afternoons only. Using Tweetdeck has helped me understand how much noise there is outside of who I really want to read and follow, which I use on my desktop, so I'm less inclined to scroll in the evenings when away from my desk. Seems to be working so far.
Another good hack, especially good for instagram, is to delete the app and only use the mobile web version. You still get to get the dopamine hit but the web version is sufficiently janky you don't spend hours mindlessly scrolling.
I got very addicted to playing a mobile game and it totally took over my work day! I blocked it during work hours and it’s actually had such a positive effect outside of work hours too. You’re right about acknowledging it first, it’s a start!
Great idea. Mine was YouTube. I would catch myself refreshing the main page and adding videos my watch later list instead of actually watching them. I just deleted the app altogether and canceled my Red subscription.
I try to do all analog work before 9am and not touch my phone after 8pm. And if I'm ever feeling frustrated or scatterbrained, I go for a walk.
I have a similar habit in the morning. Writing only before 7:30am. No phone, no checking bank accounts, no email scans. Just looking out the window and writing. This helps keep the Twitter habit at bay.
I've also been working on setting parameters with writing on Twitter: mornings only. And responding and commenting: afternoons only. Using Tweetdeck has helped me understand how much noise there is outside of who I really want to read and follow, which I use on my desktop, so I'm less inclined to scroll in the evenings when away from my desk. Seems to be working so far.
Another good hack, especially good for instagram, is to delete the app and only use the mobile web version. You still get to get the dopamine hit but the web version is sufficiently janky you don't spend hours mindlessly scrolling.
You invented the intermittent fasting for social media. :)
I got very addicted to playing a mobile game and it totally took over my work day! I blocked it during work hours and it’s actually had such a positive effect outside of work hours too. You’re right about acknowledging it first, it’s a start!
Nice! Time boxing bad habits is a great move
I need to try this. Twitter is my distraction. Thanks for the inspiration.
I recently had to come to terms with my social media use (my poison is Instagram!). I wrote about how I've been tackling it in my latest substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/tendtoself/p/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-145
Great idea
yes i do this one also… with insta… now im addicted to Linked-in hahah
This probably doesn't work well with ADHD, but I vibe with it.
Great idea. Mine was YouTube. I would catch myself refreshing the main page and adding videos my watch later list instead of actually watching them. I just deleted the app altogether and canceled my Red subscription.
I try to do all analog work before 9am and not touch my phone after 8pm. And if I'm ever feeling frustrated or scatterbrained, I go for a walk.
I drink black coffee and it takes hours before the highs wear off...