How To Stop Amusing Yourself To Death

You are amusing yourself to death

You are addicted to stimulation.

You are trapped in a state of sedation.

Because of this, you don't have the motivation to do the things you want to do — the things you know you should do.

Dreams remain dreams, and goals are unachieved.

But, I am not going to tell you what you already know: Notifications, clicks, screen time, dopamine and instant gratification.

Today, I am going to show you how I stopped amusing myself to death using three techniques.

After you implement these three strategies, you are not going to want to scroll on your phone again.

3 Ideas to stop amusing yourself to death

Before we get to the first idea, you need to understand why it is so difficult to stop the overstimulation.

After a lot of reflection on why I keep making the same mistakes even though I know why it's bad and I promised myself no more, so many times, I have come to a basic but harsh realization.

I want to do it.

I want to be bad. I wrote an idea a few months ago about the reason why we keep letting ourselves down is that we want things to be interesting. Unfortunately, normal life pales in comparison to the content we watch online.

The more structured and rigid you become, the more you want to break down the walls.

Jordan Peterson says, "we dislike tyrants so much that we cannot even be a tyrant to ourselves".

So true.

We rebel and do things that are not good for us.

The truth is, there is a constant battle between the higher version of yourself and the lower version of yourself.

Sometimes there's enough neurochemistry involved for the lower version of yourself to win.

These three ideas address this. These three ideas will help you stack the neurochemistry of your higher self so the lower version doesn't win.

Keep in mind, though, you are still going to slip up from time to time. Expect that and you won't be so judgmental of yourself when it happens. Remember what we talked about some months ago, imperfect consistency is the goal, not absolute consistency.

That said, let's get to the first idea.

Create Projects

Projects will fill the void left behind by the stimulation.

This is the most important idea by far for taking back control of your life.

One of the biggest reasons why you are not productive is that you have nothing to be productive for. You have no reason to be at your best.

You need a challenge to aim up to. You need a goal to aim for. Otherwise, you are aimless and lost.

Let's say you dislike how much you use your phone,e so you take it away. What are you left with?

You are left with all the reasons you used your phone without anything else to pour your focus, energy and time into.

If I didn't have the project to build my body in the gym, it would waste 8 hours per week. If I didn't have this project to build an audience on YouTube, I would waste around 30 hours per week.

If you are unsure where to start, start with the stream of problems in your life.

What is it about yourself that you don't like?

When I first got into self improvement, I didn't like how weak I looked and I felt.

Lean into the problem. Research potential solutions that exist for that problem. Notice what sparks curiosity in your brain. The moment curiosity hits, go for it. Do the thing.

For me, the first spark was the gym. I've always had an interest in strength training, but there was a lot of resistance to going to the gym. I didn't see myself as the type of person who goes to the gym.

Of course, I am not going to have the identity of a gym bro when I have never stepped into a gym before.

That's what it means to step into the unknown — you are leaving some part of your identity behind in order to create a new one.

Look for the intersection this solution has with the other problems in your life. This is how you develop a stack of whys behind your new thing.

My stack for the gym was: get stronger, look better, get more attention from girls and gain some confidence. I had a lot of reasons to go to the gym.

But it wasn't a project yet.

It became a project after three months of following a program, seeing some gains and genuine enjoyment of learning about nutrition and building muscle.

At that point, the intrinsic motivators were stacked. I was curious. I enjoyed every aspect of training. I had full autonomy over when and how I train. I had the desire to get really good at it. And it is a meaningful long-term pursuit for me.

That's how you create projects that stick in your life. It becomes a part of you.

A lot of the time, habits are coping mechanisms. Overeating can be a habit of stress management, for example.

When people get weight loss surgery, their risk of suicide increases. Their appetite has been suppressed, they lose a bunch of weight, but they no longer have food to deal with their emotional anguish.

Same with overstimulation. There are emotional problems you haven't taken care of yet.

Building projects improves your emotional health because the project changes the way you see yourself.

Remember, purpose is created, not found. There will be a lot of trial and error involved. Good - as Dan Koe says, "that is nature’s compass".

The more effort you put into something, the more effort you want to put into it.

You can read this letter about what I would do if I were lost here, if you want to know more.

The moments in between

90% of your distractions happen in the moments in between. If you can master these,e you can master your life.

This is an idea that I don't hear anyone talking about right now. It's a unique insight of my own, spawned from my experience.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the power of routines and how I keep finding myself in this cycle that sprawls across days and weeks.

Apart of that routine is distractions. Where do those distractions happen? Inside the moments in between projects.

It's the transition from one project to another where we mess up so much.

In the art of starting, I wrote about why resistance is highest before we start a task, and that is when we are most vulnerable to distractions.

Once I start writing, the resistance fades and I get into deep focus — sometimes flow. Once I'm at the gym, the rest of the workout take cares of itself.

Amusement after work but before gym has been my default for a while. Amusement after a filming session but before the next work block was my default. Amusement was my default, whether I finished one task and needed to transition to another task.

This is especially true when the transition requires a state change. There is a different energy needed compared to filming a video and writing a script. Often, there is fatigue at the end of one task.

So, the phone or amusement facilitates that state change. But you get distracted, scroll for too long, deplete your dopamine store and become apathetic and unmotivated towards your next task.

Here's what's working well for me at the moment.

1) Know what you need to do next.

Indecisiveness is the biggest killer of productivity.

If you don't know what you need to do and where you need to go, there are too many obstacles to overcome in your mind. You obviously become far more likely to amuse yourself to death.

2) Utilize micro-habits to facilitate changes of state fast.

I developed the concept of microhabits in the last couple of months.

Micro habits are small actions you can easily and quickly do in between tasks to achieve a change of state. If done regularly enough in the same context, these will become habits to replace your distractions.

An example might be useful.

Lately, when I get home from work, instead of scrolling on my phone, I will have a drink (water, electrolytes, juice), a snack (usually fruit), and read a few pages of a book I'm interested in. I make sure my Kindle is on the coffee table in front of the couch to eliminate any resistance. Soon, I am ready to move on to the next thing. Like meal prep or going to the gym.

After a writing session or filming session, and I need to transition to the next task, like editing or researching, I will do some light foam rolling.

Basically, we're giving the mind space and time for the fatigue and the resistance of the next task to clear. We are finding quick ways to recharge our energy levels.

Remember, think of yourself as a machine.

Compile a list of microhabits you want to integrate into your routines. This gives you a list of activities to refer to when you are unsure of what to do.

Micro habits I am using at the moment are reading, stretching, foam rolling, tidying up the apartment, quick walking, meditation, breathing work, cold showers, journaling, and a light snack.

You can even outsource the decision making to Chat GPT. Use Chat GPT to brainstorm micro-habits ideas you could use. Finalize the list in the chat. Then, when you are transitioning to a task, open the chat tell it what you did, how you are feeling and what you are going to do next and ask it to suggest one micro habit you can do.

Again, you lower the resistance by not having to decide. However, be careful not to get distracted by your phone while you do this.

Chat GPT then becomes your own free habit coach. It only gets better over time.

This is something I am experimenting with at the moment.

Get used to the boredom

I will make this idea quick because this letter is getting long and there really isn't too much to say here.

But it is still incredibly important.

You need to ok with being bored. You need to be ok with just sitting with yourself in silence. You need to be ok with not receiving any external stimulation.

Everything we talked about so far provides some level of stimulation. Even if it is small.

We are always in a state of trying to cure our boredom.

We spend nearly all the hours of the day in a narrow state of focus. It's conscious when we are doing work and intentional habits, but unconscious when distracted.

Here are some ideas to get into the habit of setting a wide and conscious focus

• Go to the toilet without your phone.

• Go to the beach, sit on the sand, and bring only a towel and a water bottle.

• Go for walks and leave everything besides your keys at home.

• Raw dog a flight

In previous letters, I talked about energy management, thinking about yourself as a machine and the art of rest. But it's difficult, isn't it?

We are emotional creatures. Our feelings don't care about facts. And we are not machines.

But if we can get used to being bored, we will evidently find better and more constructive ways to solve our boredom.

Not to mention, you will have a clearer mind. You will be smarter, more alert, more interesting and you will sleep better too.

Wins all round.

That's all for today my friends, thanks for reading.

Enjoy the rest of your day,

Josh