Today’s inane image of the day:
As I type this, I have a Pomodoro timer running for 25 minutes to see if I can write a blog entry without getting distracted [not pick up my phone!].
For those of you who do not know, the Pomodoro Technique involves breaking up the work into time blocks. Currently I’m using a 25-minute time block, as a way to see how I feel about uninterrupted work for this amount of time, but hope to work my way up to 50-minute time blocks [wish me luck!].
It’s literally only been 5 minutes, and I’m itching to pick up my phone. Must. Resist.
This was all inspired by a podcast talking about this study on blocking mobile internet on smartphones. I was impressed by the results:
The intervention improved mental health, subjective well-being, and objectively measured ability to sustain attention; 91% of participants improved on at least one of these outcomes.
Noah Castelo, Kostadin Kushlev, Adrian F Ward, Michael Esterman, Peter B Reiner, Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being, PNAS Nexus, Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2025, pgaf017, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf017
It makes sense that mental health, well-being and attention span were improved with the blocking of mobile internet. There’s a higher activation energy to picking up a larger device [like my laptop] and committing to doing work on it. Plus, the availability of social media applications on my laptop is much more limited; I have to open a browser and login to my social media site as opposed to being served up content on demand from a reflexive tapping of the icon on my phone.
I loved that the participants did other more interesting things out in the world with their extra time. I’d posit that this compounded their improved sense of well-being/mental health.
Those of you who have followed along for a while know that I’ve struggled with bouts of depression and anxiety. More recently, it has felt like my addiction to social media and the dopamine hits are preventing me from doing the things that I value. Like practicing writing this blog. Even content creation through more reels. My screen time last week on Instagram alone was > 7 hours and this week it is already > 8 hours [and the week isn’t even over yet!]. I don’t like seeing those numbers. I wonder how I would feel if I spent that time on other things.
Actually, I know I’d be more satisfied with more checkboxes on my to do list. Or even just dedicated time to read a book more intently. Maybe I’ll have more time to go to exercise classes and build some community outside of my house [Maybe. Introverted voice says, “WTF are you thinking? That sounds exhausting.”]
It seems like there are influencer “protocols” everywhere for everything. And everyone seems to be “-maxxing” stuff. So, I’m going to work on my own brainmaxxing protocol that I’ll share via my social media and expound a bit more on here.
Step 1 of my brainmaxxing protocol
Identification of the problem
The problem I’m identifying is that I’m spending more time on Instagram than I’d like to. Additionally, when I look at my pick ups, it’s a lot of reflexive tapping on Instagram than I’d like.
Goal 1: Less time spent on Instagram
Step 2 of my brainmaxxing protocol
Using a physical item to help me stay accountable. That’s where my Pomodoro timer comes in. Check out what my current status writing this blog entry looks like:
Goal 2: Trial 25-minute Pomodoro sessions for specific tasks like blog entries.
Wish me luck. Send focus energies my way! And check back to see my progress in future blog entries. [P.S. My 25-minute timer went off and I was just wrapping up the end of this entry. Amazing what little time it takes to actually get things done when your attention isn’t pulled in a million different directions!]