How to finally overcome procrastination and get things done
Documenting my dopamine detox journey
For years I have been struggling to focus on the right things. Not only did I find it difficult to pick only one task out of many of my interests but also to get this one thing done.
Sure, procrastination can have many reasons. To keep it short, for me it is mostly the following two:
- Perfectionism (being afraid of what others might think about what I created, how I am and so on)
- Distractions (other things being more interesting or are just feeling better)
Perfectionism
To cure the first there is probably not much you can do other than to make creating and putting yourself out there a habit. Here some quotes from Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art” come to mind:
“Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”
“As soon as I sat down and began, I was okay.”
It sounds so simple yet I have to remind myself again and again that nothing is a big deal if you do it daily without having to think much about it.
Secondly, the only really stressful thing is if you know you have to do something and you realize it will bring you closer to your goals but you keep avoiding it. Instead if you just tell yourself that you will only write one sentence, work only five minutes on the project, or only do one set of Pull-ups it is easy to convince your mind to get to it and once you get started you will probably not stop there.
Afterward you are more likely going to ask yourself why you avoided doing the work for so long. Getting things done is fun.
Distractions
There have to be ways to make it easier to get stuff done though, right? How about we “trick” the mind into realizing that work is something we can enjoy?
With today’s possibilities there are also so many things trying to grab our attention. Every app is designed to make us addicted. Every Netflix show leaves with a cliffhanger to get us hooked.
“Have you seen the new video of x? Man, you are missing out.”
“I can’t believe President x said this about person y!”
These are just some examples of how people invest their time and energy into news and similar distractions. I am guilty of indulging in binge-watching YouTube and consume too much in general and therefore hardly have the right to judge.
These things are fun though. And why are they fun? Because they release insane amounts of dopamine which actually should be a reward mechanism by the brain. This makes sense for life-sustaining activities like eating, drinking, mating, and so on. But I think we can agree that playing video games is not something which will result in anything which betters our lives in the long run.
They were designed to get us high, by rewarding us for completed missions, by including surprises and by letting us live out the things we cannot do in reality.
Writing a book, getting your taxes done, or going for a run can hardly compete with the dopamine monster which technology has let loose on us.
And that is exactly the problem. The gap between the excitement you get is so big that it gets harder and harder to focus on what matters the more you consume.
But how can we solve this?
What do I suggest? To live like a monk?
Definitely not.
What I have experimented with and what I am planning to do in the future is more like a well-balanced diet. The same as it can be a torture to only eat “clean” all the time it is also not too realistic to give up on all excessive dopamine-releasing pleasures. You need some cheat days here and there.
Therefore, the plan is to abstain from the things which seem to be the biggest obstacle for six days of the week. On the seventh day I will have a cheat day where everything is allowed.
So what will I cut out and how?
- Netflix (and similar)
- Block website
- YouTube
- Delete the app from the phone, block website
- Social Media (only allowed for creating, not for consuming)
- Delete apps from phone
- News
- Delete apps from the phone, block websites
- Coffee (does not only make me feel more stressed but also contributes to bad digestion)
- Throw out the remaining coffee
- Fapping
- Well, just don’t do it…
- Junk food
- Buy healthy, so I won’t even have any “bad” stuff in the house
- Gaming
- Work on the laptop and not on the PC where the games are installed
Yes, I get it. All of this might sound obvious. But applying it, as always, is a different story.
Pain
At the end of the day one will only take those action steps once the pain of not doing the things you know you should be doing is big enough, which also leads back to a quote from “The War of Art”:
“Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance? Does Resistance have to cripple and disfigure our lives before we wake up to its existence?”
Let’s see how it goes for me. For now, it is just an experiment. I will regularly check back and report on the results.
By the way, the idea was sparked by this video by Alex Becker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBPsWni-3Fs
Check out further resources here.
