Honestly, "stop having fun" was the single best decision I have ever taken. I began studying a lot, I started to actually code my small personal projects, I began working on fiverr (I'm indeed still a student) and I'm much more confident in myself now.
Ironically, when I was hiking 15 days without internet and coudn't sleep at night, I began scribbling down a similar essay: points 1 and 2 are the same, stop having fun and experience true boredom. I'm very glad someone got my same idea.
Is there any science behind dopamine fasting? By science, I mean empirical evidence regarding dopamine fasting. When I last looked into it, there seemed to be scant evidence for it.
I can't believe what I'm reading. The first point is literally do less fun things so you get used to doing more boring things. I'm genuinely shocked this article is being received so well. What happened to, work to live, not live to work?
My viewpoint is that to enjoy the part of your life which is not work, you have to get your work done.
Between workaholic and master procrastinator, there is a large gray area of healthy relationship to work.
This line resonates with my experience : if I do a lot of hyper stimulating things, I struggle to get to work.
Happy for you if procrastination is not a part of your life but it can be a struggle for a lot of people.
I can't believe what I'm reading. The first point is literally do less fun things so you get used to doing more boring things. I'm genuinely shocked this article is being received so well. What happened to, work to live, not live to work?
I think in this case "fun" is a bit of an overloaded word. In this context fun means low effort high dopamine rewards, things like gaming, TV, social media, porn, drugs and alcohol. What's weird is that these categories of activities when overused quickly become non-fun and just addictive. The overall idea is to recalibrate your idea of fun towards higher effort rewards, which will often result in better work, which…
This seems like cheap advice that's trying to get me to buy into a lifestyle in order to sell me things. "Have less exposure towards super fun things". "Get bored". These describe the same general concept as dopamine fasting. The third bullet point can be reduced to "focus on what you have to do, until you can focus on it" which is circular. I'm not buying in. Maybe I'm getting old but "failure to start" is starting…
Failure? I think failure is the inability to do what we wanted to do in the first place. A lot of failure is from the inability to finish a project due to lack of motivations, not because it's impossible.
Many of these goals are quite beneficial, like working out everyday.
Amusingly, I had just built myself a pretty expensive gaming PC right before selling it all, and then got myself a second-hand 2015 MBP. I'd say the newest M1 MBP are worth the money, my metric shifted from raw performance/$ to experience/$. And honestly, I will gladly sacrifice some CPU power just to keep myself away from gaming.
I don't understand this. People who are addicted to games won't play any non-intensive games, like League of Legends (or Which is the lower spec one) or speed chess ?
For me, a big draw of gaming is being part of the zeitgeist. New game comes out, I want to try it, talk about it online, etc. Sometimes my friends get into a game extensively (like COD Warzone) and I don't want to be left behind. If I just had a laptop, it wouldn't be possible to run those games on it. And because I don't have any friends playing League of Legends or participate in online communities talking about, it's not really appealing to me.
I wonder what side of the stimulation standard line the author would put reading his article? Sometimes I think productivity porn like this article is a self-perpetuating problem.
1. Have less exposure towards super fun things I cannot emphasize enough how powerful this is. If you're struggling to focus on your work/projects, try living a bland existence like a monk for a while. You won't be able to stop thinking about working.
Great life. Live like a monk to work more. Thanks, I'd rather be less productive and watch some Youtube during work from time to time. As long as I'm delivering stuff on time I don't need to constantly push myself harder. How should I know how much productivity is productive enough? These articles never bother to explain that.
Isn't this subjective and best left up to the goals of the individual?
1. Have less exposure towards super fun things I cannot emphasize enough how powerful this is. If you're struggling to focus on your work/projects, try living a bland existence like a monk for a while. You won't be able to stop thinking about working.
Great life. Live like a monk to work more. Thanks, I'd rather be less productive and watch some Youtube during work from time to time. As long as I'm delivering stuff on time I don't need to constantly push myself harder. How should I know how much productivity is productive enough? These articles never bother to explain that.
Not everybody wants to watch youtube or play video games all day as their desired state.
It's not about pushing yourself harder, but making you do what you think is important rather than have your brain seeks short term pleasure at the expense of long term well being.