Fighting the Dopamine

# journal

I’ve found it tougher and tougher to get into a productive and focused flow state at work, on weekends, or even when just relaxing. When I was a kid, my mom called this procrastinating. These days we call it an extreme dopamine addiction. My phone isn’t the only issues here. I have devices all over the house that can provide my primary source of “doom scroll” dopamine. I’ve broken other similar habits before, but something always takes its place.

I’m documenting some changes for some accountability and so that I can look back at this in a few months to see if anything has changed..

Unhealthy sources of dopamine

Watching long form videos on YouTube. I learn a lot this way. I also waste a lot of time.
Constant interrupts and having my phone on me 24/7.
There are plenty of others, but that’s the big one for me right now.

Life Hack / Settings Tweaks

Adjusting Slack Notifications (work) to stop at 5:30 pm
Setting up time limits on my biggest doom scrolling apps (iOS App Limits)
Blocking YouTube.com on my phone web browser (iOS Content and Privacy Restrictions)
Setting a limit on minutes for Youtube on my Home chrome profile, M-F (StayFocused extension)
Blocking YouTube engagement features by Running Unhook chrome plugin on YouTube on my desktop browser.
Checking out the ‘Phone Jail’ app my wife uses (brick.app)

What I’m hoping will happen

My mental ability to focus will increase if I moderate how much I let myself get interrupted by notifications.
I engage with a wider set of creative and challenging activities if I limit how much I let YouTube be on in the background.