Like you, I enjoy small bursts of dopamine delivered at irregular, unpredictable intervals and I’ll do nearly anything to keep getting them.
This doesn’t often align with my long term or medium term goals.
I’m trying to be conscious of how I’m spending my time, so I noticed a while ago that I was on Youtube Shorts for… hours. Just scrolling and scrolling. Sometimes laughing. It’s not really doomscrolling, just… dumb. I’m on Youtube shorts because I’m too old for instagram or tiktok.
One of the best hacks I did around that was:
- Enable Screentime on the iPhone
- Set a limit of 1 hour for youtube
- Forget my Screentime password
So now I get interrupted when I run out of time and have to go waste my life doing something else. I’m sure I could reset my screentime password and figure out how to get more, but this is just enough to stop me and get me to switch activities.
It also gives me a feeling that I don’t want to use up all my precious delicious time up early in the day, so I don’t zone out too long anyway.