Let’s Talk About Distractions

As a developer, it is hard for you to avoid distractions. It is our job to stare at a screen for 8 hours a day after all. I cannot deny the fact that I have been trapped by social media, but I have successfully been able to cut out distractions from my life to a certain extent. My screen time is less than an hour a day now. We all are very prone to distractions, and in this blog, I will be discussing how I removed distraction from my life by implementing the following simple principles.

1. What causes distraction?

This is a very simple question, but it is still important for you to understand what causes distractions at the level of our brain. Most of us can agree that we are addicted to at least one social media platform or one game. In fact, I have seen many people spend their entire day staring at the screen looking at some pictures of people. It seemed absurd to me before I started using social media (I started using it recently), but now I feel why it is easy to get addicted. I was addicted to social media to an extent that I got around 10 hours of screen time a day, out of which 8 hours were spent on Instagram. Now, let us break down why we exactly even fall prey to this trap.

Dopamine

Dopamine is a chemical present in our brain that gives you a satisfying feeling whenever you do, eat, or feel something that comforts you. For example, if you eat cereal, what is the first thing that comes to mind? It is the sweet flavor that it has. You enjoy it, and then, once you have it, your brain says, “Let's do that again!”. That momentary joy feeling is what we all crave, don’t we?

These are a few things that release a lot of dopamine in your mind:

• Chocolate
• Sugar in general
• Human interaction
• “Scrolling”

BUT…

Dopamine, even though it does give us wonderful feelings, is not something that you should be consuming at a high level every day. It is what is responsible to make you addicted to something.

Once you hit a certain benchmark of dopamine consumption, you cannot have anything lesser than it. Say your screen time is 2 hours. Now, in those 2 hours, you are getting a ton of dopamine, and if I ask you to reduce that, it would be hard for you.

What is even worse is that every single day, most people wake up, tap on their phones, and read through their notifications the first thing in the morning. This sets a benchmark of dopamine for the day, right at the beginning. If you take up a book after scrolling through your Facebook feed for 2 hours, it feels VERY boring. It might be your favorite subject or your favorite project that you are working on, but then, you think:

“Hmm…this is SO boring”

I am sure you can relate to this.

Why does it feel boring? Is it really boring?

Maybe not. Because you already set your benchmark, it becomes hard for you to accept anything below that mark, and this task that you are doing right now is below that limit. Hence, you find it boring.

Let's fix that.

How?

1. Dopamine Detox

This is a practice that I recommend everyone to do at least once a week. Dopamine detox means you remove anything that releases that “satisfying” feeling from your mind for one entire day. It may be your phone, it may be sugar, it may be anything, but it is important to remove it completely from your life for one day. This does not mean that you throw your phone out of the room, I would not want that. What it does mean is for you to be self-disciplined. Lock the device that gives you dopamine hits.

What this will do is make sure that you have control over yourself, You reduce the benchmark of dopamine levels, you start getting dopamine hits from the things you should be doing.

2. Doing something productive the first thing in the morning

I cannot stress enough how important it is to do something productive the first thing in the morning. I know how hard it can get to get into the habit of waking up and creating content, but this is the time when your brain is at its absolute BEAST mode. Ever seen why you get genius ideas in the shower? It is because your brain is in that same state. Great things can happen to you if you produce content at this time. It can be anything, that article? That incomplete assignment? Some video editing left to do?

DO IT the first thing in the morning. Thank me later

What this does is that it lets you create content, which is your primary focus of the day, as the first thing in the morning. Even if you spend a lot of time during the day on something you should not, you will still be able to say that you did something substantial. Also, it sets the dopamine benchmark very low, so now that boring textbook does not seem that boring after all.

3. The Reinforcement Learning Process

If you guys are into machine learning, then you know what reinforcement learning means, but if you are not, then basically it means that you do something. If what you do takes you a step closer to the goal, you are rewarded. If not, you are punished.

If we apply this principle in our daily lives, then it can show some significant improvements. Most of us can agree that compliments make us feel better and give us the motivation to pursue what we are doing. If we keep ourselves happy by celebrating the small wins, then it is obvious that we will stay motivated throughout the journey.

The reward given can be anything. For me, it was having a piece of dark chocolate after every successful Instagram post or blog that I create. For you, it might be different. The idea remains the same.

Final Words

It is important for us humans to set a limit on dopamine consumption. I know it becomes hard, but trust me, there is so much more to life than just scrolling through your social media. Go and meet real like-minded people from whom you can learn something new. Do not waste your time on some virtual likes, and virtual followers. It is of no point. For more, check out the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport. It will teach you the principles of working for long periods of time with concentration, which will boost your efficiency.

I hope you enjoyed this article! If you have any thoughts or suggestions about this article, do to leave it in the comment section down below!

Thank you!

Priyanshu Saraf