>Directly reduce the amount for motivation, willpower and energy you need to do things
I found that when I started using a zyn (oral nicotine pouch) when i left for the gym, my gym routine became a lasting immediately when it never has before. I would recommend not ingesting nicotine in any other context if you try this. note: nicotine is addictive, the pouches are probably bad for your gums, etc.
> [most people get more work done in locations that are set aside specifically for work]
I don’t doubt it, but I tried to force myself to live like this and it just doesn’t work for me. I just start to dread entering that area and it develops very bad vibes for me. I’d rather work from the couch or beanbag chair, so it feels like I’m just chilling and getting some work done while I do. I’m much more productive this way, which is too bad, since it means my nice ergonomic desk setup goes to waste
Oh I just saw you mention the nicotine thing later in the post. I should mention that it doesn’t at all feel like self-blackmail. Nicotine has a weird psychological effect where it causes habit formation. That’s why there’s a stereotype of former smokers walking around with a toothpick in their mouth.
Oh, those means of blocking apps that are trivial to disable are useless because yeah, you’ll disable them. I agree with that. There is an app called “one sec” (and others like it) which works in a smarter way, instead of blocking the app it just makes you stare at a blank screen for five seconds before it’ll open. This means that the lazy option is to just stare at the screen rather than bother disabling it.
I like (and use) one sec, but I'd be surprised if anyone stopped scrolling entirely because of it. There are usually deeper vulnerabilities that scrolling apps are exploiting that I think are resilient to 5 seconds of friction. To be clear, I'm talking about being able to spend exactly 0 minutes scrolling per day, not reduce the amount by 20% or even 50%.
For people who have tried apps like "one sec" and still haven't been able to nuke their scrolling entirely, I recommend keeping a written record of (their account for) why they opened twitter (or whichever app) every time they open it, and later treat those notes similarly to an equation to solve or a program to optimise.
One thing I'm trying to convey in the post is that this really does allow you to come up with way more powerful ideas. You wouldn't expect to be able to solve complicated math problems entirely or find complicated statistical patterns entirely in your head.
Some notes:
>Directly reduce the amount for motivation, willpower and energy you need to do things
I found that when I started using a zyn (oral nicotine pouch) when i left for the gym, my gym routine became a lasting immediately when it never has before. I would recommend not ingesting nicotine in any other context if you try this. note: nicotine is addictive, the pouches are probably bad for your gums, etc.
> [most people get more work done in locations that are set aside specifically for work]
I don’t doubt it, but I tried to force myself to live like this and it just doesn’t work for me. I just start to dread entering that area and it develops very bad vibes for me. I’d rather work from the couch or beanbag chair, so it feels like I’m just chilling and getting some work done while I do. I’m much more productive this way, which is too bad, since it means my nice ergonomic desk setup goes to waste
Oh I just saw you mention the nicotine thing later in the post. I should mention that it doesn’t at all feel like self-blackmail. Nicotine has a weird psychological effect where it causes habit formation. That’s why there’s a stereotype of former smokers walking around with a toothpick in their mouth.
Oh, those means of blocking apps that are trivial to disable are useless because yeah, you’ll disable them. I agree with that. There is an app called “one sec” (and others like it) which works in a smarter way, instead of blocking the app it just makes you stare at a blank screen for five seconds before it’ll open. This means that the lazy option is to just stare at the screen rather than bother disabling it.
I like (and use) one sec, but I'd be surprised if anyone stopped scrolling entirely because of it. There are usually deeper vulnerabilities that scrolling apps are exploiting that I think are resilient to 5 seconds of friction. To be clear, I'm talking about being able to spend exactly 0 minutes scrolling per day, not reduce the amount by 20% or even 50%.
For people who have tried apps like "one sec" and still haven't been able to nuke their scrolling entirely, I recommend keeping a written record of (their account for) why they opened twitter (or whichever app) every time they open it, and later treat those notes similarly to an equation to solve or a program to optimise.
One thing I'm trying to convey in the post is that this really does allow you to come up with way more powerful ideas. You wouldn't expect to be able to solve complicated math problems entirely or find complicated statistical patterns entirely in your head.