How do I make myself stop doing addictive activity?

Question

Some examples of such activity:

• browsing this site without a particular goal
• browsing your friends' profiles on social networks
• reading news
• hugging with you spouse (endlessly)
• watching TV

You can begin with a reasonable goal (post a question, write a message, check the result of a particular football match etc.) but then your attention is getting caught by some related content or something, you lose the sense of time and simply can't stop. You wake up after an hour or more and become very disappointed about the time you've lost. And you fall into this trap again and again. Another problem is that even after you (partially) wake up and realize that you're doing unimportant things, you continue doing that for some time, unable to make yourself stop.

So the question is: what habits, rules and tips can I use to:

• not to fall in a trap like this;
• after realizing that you've got into this state, quickly make yourself get out of it?

Answer 1

A few techniques that I find useful are:

1. Keep a journal and write your goals every morning. The act of writing is often enough to keep the intent in the front of my mind and I am less prone to falling into a behavior I'm trying to modify.
2. Use a timer and only do 45 minutes of work. The time pressure helps focus you and if you fail you've only lost 45 minutes when the timer goes off.
3. Involve others in your work. It will also focus you, if you can somehow pair-program or otherwise collaborate.
4. Put a postit on your computer.
5. Schedule a pop-up notice on your computer to "Stop reading stackexchange.com and get back to work. The timer is running!"
6. Also, put in that journal the list of things you want to accomplish. That should draw you toward a goal.
7. Break up your tasks into smaller and smaller bits until you can easily visualize one being completed. Once you see a task being done, it typically starts to fall into place.
8. Finally, shave a yak once in a while. Meaning, tackle the easy, somewhat meaningless task that is easy. Sometimes that has a way of pulling you into your work and you find some flow and can continue on to more important items.

Hope that helps some.

Answer 2

If you're into crazy lifehacks, I highly recommend using commitment devices on yourself. Here's a list of tools for doing so: http://blog.beeminder.com/competitors

[disclosure: I'm part of Beeminder, one of those tools]

Answer 3

I also used to get in "trap"s like these...

The best way (IMHO) that I follow is to keep yourself busy i.e. give yourself short term and easy goals regularly. As these short term golss are easy enough and do not take significant time, you will not get demotivated and you'll also save time. Now those short term activities should be in sync with your long term goals and it varies from person to person.

And in order to get yourself out of the trap when you've got into the state... I would suggest to keep track of your daily activity i.e. write your daily activities in a diary or something similar... first few days won't be productive but later you'll be able to control yourself more and more. Actually this has a psychological aspect behind it... by writing your daily activities, you'll become more responsible to yourself.

Hope that helps.

Thanks.

Answer 4

Going on a media diet helps. I came across that tip in Tim Ferriss's book 4-hour week. I tried that tip and it has been almost 2 years since I have gone back to reading news, mindlessly. Here is my blog post "Productivity Tip #12: Following news is a waste"

Answer 5

I've tried a lot of book techniques, like keeping time sheets, banning internet domains in /etc/hosts, going on an internet and videogame diet etc etc, but none of those worked for me. A few years ago I came up with this method: I watchdog myself and whenever I find myself doing something dubious while I should really be doing things that have to be done, I ask myself this question: «Will anything that matters change if I continue or stop doing it? Will doing it benefit me now or in long term?»

Unsurprisingly, the answer is «no» most of the time, and that alone makes me feel disgusted with the unproductive activity, and I just stop doing it immediately. The «addictive» activity suddenly loses its appeal and stops bothering me for a few hours.

Answer 6

Get rid of your TV.

I did it 10 years ago and never looked back.

UPDATE: To complete my answer, I would like to generalize my rule.

Whenever I want to remove a bad habit, I make it hard to indulge in the habit.

• If I don't want to watch TV so much, I throw the TV away.
• If I want to stop playing video games so much, I uninstall the games from my computer.
• If I want to stop eating junk food, I remove them from my kitchen.
• If I want to stop reading online news, I get a simpler phone rather than one with great internet browser.

Answer 7

Close every single window/app not related to what you want to focus on. Same way your computer has to store those running processes in your computer memory your brain does the same thing.

Put on some creative/productive music. I've recently been having a lot of success with the Flamenco channel on Pandora. You want rythmic, uplifting and positive music that add flavor to the task you are trying to accomplish.

Make sure to meet all your physical needs before trying to get a lot of work done. This means proper hydration, nutrition, activity, hygiene etc. Mood, focus and energy levels are grounded in a lot of physiological factors such as blood sugar levels, nutrient deficiencies, electrolyte balance etc.

Sleep is the most important thing you can do to improve focus, productivity, and learning. Here's an answer I wrote to a question about sleep and how to improve it.

Finally, make sure you balance your work with good breaks. Whenever I'm working long hours doing sedentary work the most effective break is one that involves physical activity such as walking, stretching or doing a short workout.

Just remember, focus and productivity is a skill. The more you practice it, the better you become at it.

Good luck.

Answer 8

Find something that is even more addictive and beneficial. People only have an issue with seemingly addictive activities when they are perceived as undesirable, and they tend to do them for lack of better (more inclination) things to do. That said, I'm not sure if the activities you described are addictive or are just regular distractions that should be managed as such. Watching TV and reading news is something I do when I am bored or just need a break, so the solution for me is to find more engaging activity and ration the amount of break time I take while engaging in those activities.

Answer 9

I read the excellent book Your Brain At Work. It explains how these types of behaviors are addictive and they become harder to shake loose from the longer you wait.

So the way to stop doing them is twofold:

1. Train your conductor (the part of your brain that does the conscious thinking, or rider if you prefer the rider-elephant analogy) to recognize these situations.
2. As soon as you recognize the situation as procrastination, loudly think "STOP" and stop your activity immediately.

The more you do this, the easier it gets. You really have to train yourself and it really is a struggle. The sooner you can stop a situation, the easier it is.

Just remember this: Recognize - STOP.

Answer 10

I disconnected my television after realizing that there is only shit on TV. Also, for social networks I've chosen a radical approach, I blocked the site be adapting my host file. http://bit.ly/yjoupY

Pointless browsing and reading news are harder because you simply can't block the whole internet (only particular periods). I blocked certain news sites that I tend to goto to easily but the real issue is that you need to learn a new attitude towards this behaviour.

As soon as you realize that it is unwanted behaviour, you should stop browsing, reading or social networking and do something that you consider usefull.

Answer 11

I found this good article on instant gratification vs long term satisfaction

Addictive activity always gives us instant gratification therefore it is very appealing. Work on the other hand only gives us long term satisfaction and no immediate rewards. Discipline is the art of resisting temptation, tolerating pain and keeping track on long term goals.

I don't think there's an easy fix for this, other than willpower and knowing what you need to do. It is always your choice.

Answer 12

I will look on it from another way that it doesn't matter if you keep doing the addicting activities but not let your day pass without making it worthwhile which you have to plan beforehand.

Start by setting only one smart goal at a time say for 15 days(which could be the part of much bigger goal).

if you set a goal of reading a book of 200 pages, it becomes about 15 pages per day. set a specific time of the day like say 6:00 am to work on your goal when you feel that the distractions are very limited. practice not getting up unless you finish reading those 15 pages. if you got distracted then don't worry there are only some pages left which you can do it sometimes in the day but don't let the day pass over without finishing the pages. you can practice it with 2 or 3 goals as well afterwards. i assure you feeling of accomplishment after 15 days will give you more power to work on goals and will decrease distractions but the thing is that you have to make it a same routine like eating or going to work which will come slowly and you have to be patient here.

one more advice i can think off for not getting distracted is to buy a white board and place it somewhere very visual and at the start of the day write your goal on it. even if you get distracted reading it will help you remember that you have gotten in the trap and you ought to get back to what you were doing.

Answer 13

It's all about discipline. It can come from internal desire to change or from the existence of external tools/help. For the first three addictions you mentioned (basically web browsing) why don't you try Skim.Me to make your daily browsing routines more productive and less addictive. Signup at http://skim.me.

We do all setup, organization and management work for your favorite site and app sources so you can browse no-reply emails, weather, news, social media, ecommerce, finance and more without leaving our web app in timed batches throughout the day.

As you browse we manage a “done” list for you that can be toggled to a “to-do” list for browsing that’s algorithmically controlled. It’s a great user experience that shows you what you’ve accomplished and never how many unread you have.

Answer 14

For first three points You might try web filter/blocker. It counts time You spent on websites and block them if You spent too much time there. You can adjust counters to reset and add time based rules, for example: news and social sites 1h maximum before evening and without limit since evening. Tricky thing is that You should decide how to build rules, and then You should obey them. There are extensions for Firefox - LeechBlock and Chrome - StayFocused.

Answer 15

There are lots of thing you can do in order to get rid of addictive activities. One of it is to avoid distractions and airplane mode is a great way to avoid distractions. This mode needs you to turn off all your gadgets and stuff that can distract you like mobile phone. This will help you prevent getting distracted by text messages and phone calls. In order to get more things done you need to fight procrastination and books like Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy (21 great ways to stop procrastinating) is a good help. The key that you can effectively do all things you must do in order to stay productive and get more things done is with self discipline.