Prologue

You’re stuck in a rut.

Apathy, lethargy. Entire days wasted away on Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

You find yourself procrastinating on basically everything, coasting through life in a haze of mediocrity.

This isn't the life you want. You're dying to break free—to work hard and improve your lifestyle... to get fit, find a better job, start a business, pursue a creative dream—but for whatever reason, it’s just been impossible.

The motivation to start, and more importantly, to persist, always seems out of reach.

But that's when you see it.

A viral TikTok video that explains exactly why you waste time, why you procrastinate, why you’re so stuck.

"Your issue? You're simply adrift in life, lacking clear purpose and direction.

You need to establish your many WHYs behind the many WHATs of your dream life… until you do, you'll stay stuck repeating the same patterns.Ask yourself: Why do you want to work hard and achieve your goals? Why is it so important? Why were you put here on earth?

If you make all that SUPER clear... if you turn your answers into visualizations, vision boards, motivational posters, affirmations… then YES, you'll start to feel a burning drive and motivation to achieve your goals."

So you do all that.And for the first time in a while, you feel a flicker of hope and a tinge of eagerness to get stuff done.

Ready to take action, you open up a work program—but then it hits you.

The feeling.

That feeling.

That dreaded “ugh, I just don't feel like it.”

You try to willpower through it, but not 5 minutes later, you're back on Reddit.Then onto YouTube.Then TikTok.

By the end of the day, you’re just back.

Back to your old ways. Back to where you started. Back to feeling like a pathetic failure.

What gives?

Hey there, Simon D. here. Thanks for checking out my tapbook.

So, I've designed this thing to be ADHD-accessible, but I'm finding that pacing text this way makes for more enjoyable and less daunting long-form reading.I hope you come to agree.

The book content itself is several years in the making—research, prototyping, writing, rewriting, rerewriting—and I'm stoked to finally bring it to you.

The purpose of this thing is simple. First, we'll answer that what gives? predicament. We'll go deep into the problem side of things—as in, what you do, over and over, and why.

Specifically, we'll do a deep-dive on the three phenomena that have come to define your life:Doomscrolling, Procrastination, and Stagnation.

By the end of Part 1, you'll come to understand why 5 minutes on, say, YouTube, always leads to an all-out binge.

You'll understand why this pattern repeats nearly every day; why you always wait until the last possible minute to get critical tasks done—to say nothing of the creative projects, business ideas, or lifestyle habits that would lead to an awesome life.

Finally, you'll understand why these patterns repeat over and over.Why you're seemingly content to let your youth flit by.Why you're stuck in a rut, living life on the sidelines, consuming crap you barely even enjoy, watching others do cool and interesting things.

And it's not what you think.

All your doomscrolling. All your procrastinating. All your stagnation...The reason you do that stuff; the reason you're so stuck... it is not what you think.

It's not because you're flawed, weak, or fundamentally broken.

It's not because you lack self-control or self-discipline.

It's not because you haven't found the right productivity method or habit-forming app.

And it's certainly not because you're lazy, pathetic, idiotic, useless... the absolute worst human ever—all thoughts I've had myself a million times over.

No.

There’s other stuff going on here.

Deep stuff. Hidden stuff. Not-so-obvious stuff.

My job here is to expose to you exactly what's happening to you... without you realizing it. It's to dig deep and uncover the actual root cause of your time-wasting habits and chronic underachievement.

We cover that in Part 1.It's a 20-ish minute read, of which you can get about two-thirds through before hitting the $29 paywall (minus any promised discounts).

I suggest you go through it once. See if it resonates. See if you're able to see yourself in the examples. See if it comes to redefine the way you see all your past failures.

From there, we'll transition to the solution.Part 2 is a 60-minute read. It provides a systematic method that addresses that root cause head-on, walking you through the best way to break bad tech habits, manage the inevitable pain period, and build up sustainable work and lifestyle habits.

Best part is, when it comes time to actually apply the method, you won't have to do it alone.

↙ See the ⓘ icon that just appeared?

↓ See the ⓘ icon that just appeared?

Well, first, it's there to provide a clickable table of contents.But if you scroll to the bottom, you'll find a text box where you can ask me anything.

And I mean anything. If something's unclear or needs expanding, hit me up. Ditto for when (not if) you reach a sticking point or are unsure how to apply a step to your own life circumstances.

Reaching out with questions, feedback, or updates on your journey helps me too. It shows me how the method is working in the real world, so I can keep refining it.

You'll also find info on weekly live Q&A sessions and on joining one of the WhatsApp groups I moderate.So, for those of you who thrive with support and shared accountability, it's all there. Otherwise—and for you lone wolves—everything you need is right here in these pages.

Alright. That's about it for the intro stuff, but before we continue, I want to acknowledge why you might still be hesitating.

Desperate as you may be to get your life in order... you still cringe at the idea of endless self-helpy exercises, followed by grand sacrifices and strict rules.You're wary of complicated interventions that you won't be able to sustain; that you'll abandon after a few short days... only to feel terrible about yourself after.

I get it.

That's a valid concern. You’ve tried to rein in your habits before and it sucked. Ultimately, you failed.

Just know that I've been in your exact situation. And not for like a month when I was eighteen, before turning my life around and starting 11 companies.

No.

I was the guy who got addicted to Reddit and YouTube way back in like 2007. I was the guy who tried to get better using every self-improvement program I could find. I was the guy who always fell short.I was also the guy who almost gave up. Who almost decided to surrender to a life of apathy, depression, and regret. Who almost stopped trying.

But then I found a way out.

I mean it took a long time. Like over 10 years.It also took a lot of pain; a lot of trial and error (oh, so much error); a lot of being lost and angry and frustrated.

It took everything I had, basically.

But I made it through. I found a way out.

And so can you.

This book. It's here to show you the way. A way that's a lot less daunting than you think.

And I'm beyond glad you found it.Happy reading. ✌️

PART 1 - THE PROBLEM

Chapter 1: Why You Doomscroll

You’re at your desk, doing some work on a project.

It's going okay, when you get the idea to take a break. You tell yourself:"Two minutes. Two minutes to check what's new on Reddit, and then it's right back to work."

Two minutes soon becomes fifteen.

Fine. It happens. But let's pause the tape right there.If that was the end of it—if you thought, "You know, that was an interesting post and worth the extended time, but now let's get back to work"... and then you actually did get back to work, it wouldn't be a big deal.

But that's not what happens.

Instead, you decide to check TikTok—again, just for a few minutes—aaand an entire hour’s passed.

Why did that happen? Why does that sort of thing always happen?To answer, we'll need to rewind this mental movie and take a closer look in slow-mo.

So, there you are, scrolling through Reddit… when it hits you: you're wasting time.You resurface to the present moment. You look up and away from your phone and—there. Right then. Pause the tape.It's subtle and easy to miss, but in that crucial moment… you felt something.

What was it exactly?

Perhaps guilt as you realized that you broke your promise to focus, to have a distraction-free work session.Or maybe you were irritated because fun time was over, and it was time to get back to work, back to the grind.

Whatever the precise emotion, it just felt... bad.

Logically, this negative feeling should compel you to get the heck back to work. Like how the pain of a burn stops you from touching a hot stovetop again... the pain of wasting time should compel you to, well, stop wasting time.But that's not what happens. In fact, the opposite happens. You waste more time.

On the surface this seems irrational, but if we dig a little deeper, it actually makes perfect sense.

See, for you, browsing the internet is a vice. And the thing about vices—beyond their ability to entertain and gratify—is their unmatched ability to relieve bad feelings.

This'll make more sense if we keep the tape rolling. Fast-forward another hour.

Here you are flicking through... whatever, when you surface again for a moment. This time you throw your phone at the couch in anger.With the deadline looming closer, cortisol floods your brain. You feel stress. Anxiety. Panic. Doom.

Your brain kicks off a barrage of self-criticism:Why do I always do this?Why am I such an idiot?What's wrong with me???

All of that is uncomfortable. It's overwhelming. It physically hurts.

So what happens next?You get some sense knocked into you, right? You do the one thing that'll actually relieve the stress and anxiety. You do the damn work.

Nope.

You get hit with an intense compulsion to do something—anything—to escape the discomfort.And wouldn't you know it… the very thing that can deliver just the right kind of relief... it's sitting right there next to you.

None of this means you're flawed or a bad person, by the way.

On the contrary. This is you reacting on instinct—a survival mechanism that kicks into high gear when it senses a threat.Sitting down and doing the work? That takes time and effort. Too risky. As far as your primitive brain is concerned, stress and anxiety mean you could die. You need the quickest, easiest, surest path to relief… and you need it now.

Which, when you think of it, is messed up, right?

The cause of the bad feelings—the guilt, the stress, the anxiety… what's even behind much of the shame, depression, and regret that weave in and out of your life—is the same thing that's incredibly effective at instantly relieving all those bad feelings.

Source: Michael Sweater comics, posted to Reddit by the author.

The vice causes the pain. The pain drives you back to the vice. But then more pain.

And so you get ensnared in what's known as a positive-feedback loop—like when a microphone is brought too close to a speaker and the output feeds back in and the whole thing spirals out to a deafening screesh.

I call it the Doomscroll Feedback Loop.

Simply put, when the antidote is also the poison—when the drug both causes and cures the disease—you can't help but spiral out in a binge.

Doomscrolling is the inevitable outcome.

Source: Adam Ellis comics

The “Just Stop” Solution

So if a doomscrolling habit is your problem, what then is the solution?

It's simple, really: don't check your phone when the initial urge hits.Stay away from any and all vices. Avoid entering the runaway feedback loop and you'll be fine.

Now, I don't know about you, but that advice—or what I call the "Just Stop” Solution—is not particularly helpful.

You could be lectured all day about this terrible, life-goals-gobbling Doomscroll Feedback Loop monster lurking under your bed.You could stand tall on a desk and swear to the world that you'll never open Reddit again—not even for a second.

Yet still… you will forget.

Source: Butterscafe comics

You'll somehow find yourself rationalizing "just one minute" as a break. As something you've earned. As not such a big deal.And from there, you will spiral out. You won't recall—not in the moment, not when it counts—that each scroll reignites the visceral need for another.

Then another. And another.

It's all utterly inevitable.

But like… why though?

Why can't you just learn about this problem and move on from it?Why can't you simply avoid—or at least moderate—your vices, and spare yourself all the stress, pain, and frustration they cause?

The answer becomes clear once you realize that your behavior around vices isn't driven by slow, conscious reasoning. You're not reaching for your phone because you want to be entertained or learn something interesting.

No. You're reaching for it because of a swift, all-consuming desire.

So how does such a strong desire take hold of us?

Well, think about your tech vices. Think about how they've made you laugh. How they've had you engaged and interested. How you've even picked up a few useful ideas or tricks along the way.Vices are chock-full of potential—both for pleasure and tangible benefit. And the fact that they ask nothing of you other than a few flicks of the thumb is a pretty good deal.

Add that up and we're left with a reasonable amount of desire.

At the same time, you might recall how they always seem to waste obscene amounts of time. How the content can be cringe, shallow, repetitive, or cynical. How you've simply outgrown much of it and would much prefer to spend your time on more meaningful and fulfilling activities.

So the net desire should tip negative, right?Another YouTube video is usually way more of a bad idea than a good one, especially when you've got work to do.

But that's not what happens—at least not for long.

Because a third, more menacing force comes into play, pushing hard on the needle.

See, your entire thing—your doomscrolling, your bad habits, your time wasting—what it's really about is discomfort.It's about what you've learned can instantly and effortlessly make that discomfort go away. About finding a way to numb out and escape what your brain is perceiving as survival threats.

Discomfort is what always tips the balance. It's what drives all "bad" behavior—from sneaking a cheat meal on a new diet… to relapsing with a life-destroying substance.

It's the reason you keep crawling back to your vices—and exactly what the corporations behind them are banking on.Strip everything else away and discomfort is what's left. It's the force behind every doomscroll, every wasted evening, every promise you've broken to yourself.

But Can't I Just… Not?

Your subconscious drives a lot of your behavior—acting on autopilot, making snap decisions before you're even aware of them. In a world of dangers and scarce resources, this served our ancestors well.

But you do still have a conscious mind. You still have free will and the ability to direct your actions and make deliberate choices.You can use self-control to override irrational desires, and willpower to push through the effort required.

That's really what the "Just Stop" solution boils down to: using your conscious faculties to override a situation where desire for an action has tipped onto the positive side.

Which is great. As far as we can tell, this ability is what separates us from other animals—creatures wholly at the mercy of their desires, no matter how strange or obviously self-destructive.

But here's the thing.

Here's what's unique about desires driven by urgent survival threats—the kind of stimulus that's supposed to be rare and extraordinary, but because of the pressures of modern life—school, career, finances, relationships—isn't anymore.

They have the power to suppress, if not completely nullify, your conscious mind's ability to override a base desire.

See, your conscious mind—the part of the brain that slowly plans, weighs pros and cons, and arrives at rational choices—is still connected to the subconscious.

It gets manipulated from the inside out. The deeper, emotional parts of your brain have wiry tentacles that extend into the newer, "rational" parts, altering how you think, reason, and even remember.

Not unlike a parasite, your subconscious tricks you into believing you're calling the shots—when really it's your survival brain, hellbent on chasing rewards and eliminating discomfort.

This manipulation is why you'll find yourself sauntering over to your most despised vices… as if they haven't been ruining your life… as if you didn't, like five minutes earlier, make an emphatic promise to avoid them like the plague."Bah. Let me just check what's new on YouTube real quick. Get it out of my system. It'll help me focus."

"Again?! I'm such an idiot… I knew this would happen! What the hell was I thinking?!"

Well, your thinking was manipulated.Something deep in your brain—below consciousness—twisted your rational thoughts into a tidy rationalization.

And that rationalization, paired with the raw desire and impulse, made—and will continue to make—indulging all but inevitable.

Chapter 2: Why You Procrastinate

In the previous chapter, I had you imagine yourself sitting at your desk, doing some work.But maybe even that requires a stretch of the imagination. Because lately, feeling motivated to do anything at all has been damn near impossible.

So what's going on?Why do you so often lack the drive and motivation—not just for school or job obligations, but especially for things you actually care about? A fun creative project. A clever business idea. A lifestyle change you know would make you happier.

And why doesn't setting grand goals, doing visualization exercises, and watching inspirational videos actually work? Why can't you just decide to get motivated?

Well… here's the deal.

You're confusing inspiration with motivation.

You're assuming they're essentially the same when really, they're not.

The word motivation comes from the Latin word for "to move." Interpret this not as the will to move—that's the domain of inspiration—but as the capacity to move.

All the "why" stuff from the Prologue is important… but it's the stuff of inspiration. Inspiration is the conscious intention to get your work done and achieve your goals. But you have plenty of that. More is not the answer.

Motivation is the domain of the subconscious. It's where burning energy gets the green light. Without it, you'll feel blocked—unable to get any work done no matter how badly you want to.

Think of it like a car.Inspiration is pressing the gas pedal—and you might be flooring it if you have a David Goggins audiobook going.

Motivation is the fuel injection system.It's buried deep in the engine, well beyond your direct control. It's the mechanism that "decides" whether fuel gets released—which is what actually propels the car forward.

Now, I'm not saying it's unimportant to be inspired or to get clear on your "whys"—a car won't go fast or far if the pedal is barely tapped.I'm saying… your fuel injection system's been disabled. It's refusing to release fuel when prompted.

And that's your real issue. That's what's behind the lethargy and demotivation. That's what has you procrastinating to no end.

Shortcuts to Survival

Us humans have serious survival needs. There's the obvious stuff like food and shelter, but we also have psychological needs—love, status, connection, novelty.

Back in the day, the cost to satisfy those needs was egregiously high.It took boatloads of effort, time, and risk. We needed to be enticed to do the work—to feel a burning desire, then to be rewarded after paying the cost.Otherwise we’d sit around and do nothing.

We therefore evolved a motivation-to-reward neural pathway: a system that subconsciously drove us to put in work and take on risks in the pursuit of relieving discomfort and earning rewards.

To satisfy hunger and for the pleasure of nutritious food... you had to hunt.To satisfy carnal desires and for the pleasure of intimacy and sex... you had to socialize and risk being rejected and ostracized.To satisfy a craving for belonging and for the pleasure of status gains... you had to acquire resources, form alliances, and gain popularity.

In other words, to feel good—to satisfy your desires and relieve discomfort—you had to pay a price. A price that was always just worth it.

And that balance between the reward and its cost was left undisturbed for millions of years… that is, until humans invented… vices.

Source: Adam Ellis comics, posted to Instagram by the author.

With today's vices, you can trick your brain into perceiving that these base needs are satisfied—with virtually no work or risk.

To satisfy hunger and for the pleasure of nutritious food… there's DoorDash.To satisfy carnal desires and for the pleasure of intimacy and sex… there's porn.To satisfy a craving for belonging and for the pleasure of status gains… there's social media.

Every single one of our physical and psychological needs can now be "met" through the shortcut of a vice—a consumable product that tricks the brain into delivering a survival reward, artificially or vicariously.Today's tech, food, and entertainment industries have left no stone unturned.

For the thrill of adventure and quests, there are video games.For the gratification of learning something new and useful… there's TikTok and Instagram Reels.For the satisfaction of belonging to a like-minded tribe… there's X and Reddit.

With these shortcuts, the time-to-reward is milliseconds.The energy cost is a thumb swipe.The risk? Zero.

Sounds amazing, right?

In many ways, yes. Our modern utopia of abundant, easy rewards is exactly that: amazing...

But there are side effects.

On a societal level, we're seeing unprecedented rates of addiction, ADHD, obesity, and chronic procrastination.Without a frame of reference for what life was like before modern vices, we've decided to set the blame for these issues on ourselves, and on our apparently impulsive, lazy, and indulgent nature.

But that’s neither fair nor accurate.

Because we weren't built for this world.More importantly, you weren't built for this world. You—the real you—aren't lazy. You—the real you—don't lack discipline or self-control.Your vices have been rewiring how your brain works. And you don't even realize it.

What Vices Actually Do to You

All living things evolved in a world of scarcity. For most organisms, conserving energy is a matter of life and death.Humans are no different. We're deeply averse to burning energy without a damn good reason. Without enough desire to make the cost worth it.

I mean, it makes sense.A lioness isn't driven to chase a herd of aggressive gazelles if she just ate a giant zebra steak. An elephant isn't about to walk for hours to find a new source of water and plants if his belly is already full.These animals know it's time to rest. To chill. To veg.

So, what do you think happens when you spend an entire afternoon indulging in your vices—consuming junk food, social media, video games, streaming content, porn—and flooding your brain with rewards?What message is your nucleus accumbens (the motivation center that guards the fuel injector) receiving from your parietal lobe (the area that processes sensory information)?

I know these regions of the brain communicate through electric pulses and neurochemicals, but I like to imagine them communicating via an endless stream of office memos:

As a response to this messaging, the motivation center squashes any request from your conscious mind to use up energy.

It just won’t let you do any work.

It doesn't matter if your conscious mind is flooring the gas pedal, stressing and panicking about the impending doom of reckless procrastination.It doesn't matter if it's pointing to the potential for real rewards. The truly satisfying kind. The kind that come from actual life achievements, rather than cheap facsimiles experienced vicariously through a screen.

Your subconscious—the console that controls the fuel injector—is utterly convinced that you're surviving exceptionally well. And that you need to rest.

Doing the work is non-negotiable. The desire is not delivered.

You've reached the end of the free preview :/

Select one option to keep reading ↓

Click here if you already have full-book access.

The takeaway is this: vices do more—a lot more—than just waste time.

Vices short-circuit your motivation-to-reward pathway.

They convince your brain that survival is handled. And with that, comes the near-constant lethargy—that dismal, "ugh I just don't feel like it" sensation.And when you don't feel like it, you can't help but burn away time. That is, until something external—some real and urgent threat like getting fired or expelled—reactivates your dormant motivation system and gets you to cram in the work.

In short, your vices are the true cause of your lack of motivation.

And without motivation, you can't help but do nothing.Procrastination is… the inevitable outcome.

The "Just Do It" Solution

So if procrastination is your problem, the solution is obvious, right?

Just do it. Do the damn work already.

And if the desire isn't there... use discipline and self-control to ignore and override the sentiment. Just get it done.

That's what we tell ourselves. That's what echoes through our social media feeds and self-help books.

It's like, c'mon. The only cure for procrastination… is to not procrastinate.

While true enough, the “Just Do It” solution is every bit as patronizing and unhelpful as the “Just Stop” solution.Because the same conscious override problem applies here.You're trying to force yourself to burn energy when desire is below its minimum threshold. Which can be done—that's what makes us human—but when your subconscious perceives the action as a threat to survival, the override becomes virtually impossible.

Which is exactly what’s happening with you when you can't get yourself to do work. When you can't "just do it".To a brain that evolved in a world of scarcity, needless wastes of energy are a threat. Not any different than, say, walking toward the edge of a cliff.

Sure, you can use "self-control" to override the blaring alarms and visceral pulls to back away from that edge… but that'll only go so far.At some point, your rational mind will flip. It'll conclude, thanks to that inner manipulation, that doing something flagrantly dangerous and unnecessary is a terrible idea.

And so you accept the resistance. You back away. Then it feels good.

Like it was the right thing to do.

Chapter 3: Why You Stagnate

I tend to think of doomscrolling and procrastination as opposite problems, operating on different timescales.Doomscrolling is the runaway amplification of desire for vices—the thing that decimates your work sessions.

Procrastination is the runaway suppression of desire for work and good habits—the thing that has you wasting every minute until important deadlines force your hand.

But what happens when we zoom out even further—further than the hours of a doomscroll or days of procrastination?What do you call it when you look back on your life and see yourself repeating the same patterns; coasting through it in utter mediocrity?What do you call it when you spend months or even years knowing, painfully well, what would lead to a better, happier, more rewarding existence… and then doing the complete opposite, all while hating yourself for it?

In a word... stagnation.

Source: Slothilda on Instagram

So what causes it? What keeps pulling you back into the same patterns, the same habits, the same dead-end way of being... despite knowing full well that change would make everything better?

What causes stagnation?

The Symptoms

The previous chapter focused on lethargy and a lack of motivation. But when it comes to what vices do to your brain, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Anxiety is a big one.

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows how modern tech has created a toxic environment of constant social comparison and validation-seeking—one that far exceeds anything experienced by young people of previous generations.

Johann Hari's Stolen Focus tackles our attention spans: the erosion of our capacity for deep concentration, reflected in the sharp rise of attention disorders like ADHD.

Those are bad enough on their own. And while they may be contributing factors, they're not, to me, at the core of stagnation.

To get there, we need to look at what happens to your brain when reward-seeking becomes chronic. Which is what Dr. Robert Lustig explored in The Hacking of the American Mind.

Lustig's central thesis is that the big three industries—Big Food, Big Tech, and Big Pharma—have spent the last several decades deliberately blurring the line between happiness and pleasure.We're constantly being sold products—from sugar water to social networks—with the promise of happiness… when all those things are capable of is doling out fleeting moments of pleasure.

And this bait-and-switch hasn't just inflated our waistlines or Screen Time metrics.It's created a devastating societal crisis—what Lustig describes as twin epidemics of addiction (too much pleasure), and depression (not enough happiness).

The depression part is what really hit home the first time I read it at the height of my stagnation.I too was made to assume that pleasure and happiness were interchangeable… that if I was feeling down, which was almost always, the solution was to grab a vice to feel better (just like those industries are hoping).

And sure, I would feel better. But that good feeling, I now know, could never be described as true happiness.In fact, as Lustig explains, repeated pleasure-seeking actively compromises our ability to be happy. To feel content and at peace.

That's because much of the raw material needed to produce serotonin—the stuff behind contentment, mood stabilization, and happiness—is also needed to produce dopamine—the stuff behind desire and pleasure-chasing.

So when you spend your entire morning "pursuing" one reward after another… doomscrolling for 6 hours on TikTok and Instagram, stopping only to wolf down another bowl of Cap'n Crunch or fap cause you caught a moment of side-boob… and you do this day after day after day… your brain burns through massive amounts of dopamine.To keep up, it shifts to prioritizing the production of more, starving the machinery needed for serotonin.

In short, my basic desire to feel just a tinge of happiness was being completely overshadowed by an insatiable demand for pleasure.

Being perpetually unhappy is bad enough. It's become obvious that we'd all be in a very different place—mentally and emotionally—if it were widely recognized that the cost of pleasure is… happiness.But how does this tie into productivity? How does it affect your ability to change your habits—so you can finally break out of stagnation?

Because hard work doesn't require happiness, right?You don't need to feel swell and chipper to study for an hour or make progress on a creative project.

True.But you do need a baseline level of happiness.

Because, when you're utterly depressed—when it feels like 200 pounds of emotional weight is pressing down on you—you can't expect yourself to get up and go. You can't expect a "just do it" solution to hold.

Happiness isn't a nice-to-have for productivity.It's a need-to-have—at least in some minimal amount.

We all need to feel like there's something—anything—worth looking forward to. Something that justifies the effort.But when you're deeply unhappy—when it feels like there isn't a single molecule of serotonin floating through your brain—that baseline becomes impossible to reach.

And at that point, it's hard not to think: Why even bother?

This chronic, dismal haze of blah then goes on to feed two related symptoms.

The first is disinterest—the state where you find yourself bored by, or indifferent to, activities that once excited you and kept you engaged.

Think about how modern vices have been engineered. Algorithms now make all decisions for you. There's no more "work," no waiting, no needing to pay attention for an eventual payoff. Rewards arrive instantly, endlessly, on a damn conveyor belt of a feed.

Source: Scott Carr, @speckofdust

Over time, this trains the brain to expect stimulation at an unnaturally high cadence. Anything that requires sustained attention or even a modest amount of thinking—hobbies, niche interests, creative projects—starts to feel intolerable.

The result is impatience, boredom, disinterest. A constant urge to move on to the next thing.

The second, and more corrosive symptom, is apathy.

Apathy is what emerges after repeated attempts to improve yourself or chase your goals—followed by repeated perceived failure.It's the decision to resign yourself to the status quo; to replace I'll try again tomorrow… with what's the point?

Apathy is a defense mechanism.By becoming emotionally disengaged—by not caring, by extinguishing the last traces of hope—you protect yourself from further disappointment, frustration, and embarrassment.

The Syndrome

My guess is you picked up this book intent on fixing your tech habits. The apps you use are addictive as hell, serve no real purpose, and cause you to waste far too much time.But I hope you're beginning to internalize that your vices cut deeper than that. Way deeper.

The reality is, you've been hooked up to a poison drip. One you don't notice. One that doesn't knock you down all at once...

But begins to affect you at a deep psychological level after years of exposure.

This is you chronically dealing with a cluster of symptoms: lethargy, apathy, disinterest, low motivation, low mood (and that’s on top of anxiety, attention issues, and whatever else is happening).

This is you dealing with a syndrome, one I've come to call Vice-Induced Depressive Syndrome, or VIDS for short.

And I use the word depressive deliberately, in its literal sense.

Something external is pressing down on you, keeping you stuck—stuck in your habits, stuck in your environment, stuck in your ability to change, to act differently, or even to want something different.

Meanwhile, your vices—the very thing causing the syndrome—present themselves as the only relief from it.The misery, the envy, the regret, the shame, the creeping sense that life is passing you by… your vices promise an escape from all of it. And they fucking deliver.

Which, once again, is how you get so utterly trapped. Trapped in endless cycles of irrational, self-destructive behavior.

And when you’re trapped, sure you can kick and scream and struggle. Sure, you can use "self-control" and "willpower" and "self-discipline."But eventually you'll tire out. Eventually you'll stop trying to break free. You'll stop moving. You’ll stop caring.

And when you stop caring, you can't help but coast lifelessly through daily life.

Stagnation is… the inevitable outcome.

The “Want It More” Solution

When you're stuck in a rut of inaction and lethargy, conventional wisdom says the answer is to want it more.

Your problem… is that you just don't want it badly enough.You need to ignite the fire.You need to look yourself in the mirror, eyes narrowed, jaw set... and decide that this time is different.You need to be hungry.You need to want your goals more than comfort, more than distraction, more than oxygen itself.

You gotta really want it, man.

That's the story. That's what we're told. That's the only cure to stagnation.

Problem is, when you're deep in it—when the days feel heavy, when everything feels flat, when you're just mired in VIDS—the "just-want-it-more" solution doesn't land as inspiration, does it?

No. It lands as mockery. As a cruel effing joke.

Because here's the part no one's about to admit:

You don't directly control what you want—much less the ability to want.

You can't flip a switch and summon hunger. You can't glare at yourself in the mirror and will desire into existence.

Not when you're this low.Not when you've been cycling through the same procrastination patterns for years—maybe decades.

At that depth, being told to "want it more" is like being told to "be taller."

If you could, you would.

Chapter 4: Good Will Hunting

Before we get to the solution, I need you to understand something. More than that, I need you to actually absorb it. To believe it.

It's not your fault.

All of your issues, all your struggles, all your embarrassing failures… none of it is on you.

You don't stagnate because you're broken. Or lazy. Or weak. Or incapable.You don't procrastinate because you don't care. Or because you're impulsive. Or reckless. Or idiotic.You don't doomscroll because you lack self-control. Or willpower. Or discipline. Or integrity.

It only feels that way because everything about your situation is so damn good at convincing you that nothing else could possibly be true.Especially when what needs to be done is so painfully obvious and "easy." And yet, somehow, you still can't do it.

For the longest time, you've been turning inward. Berating yourself for not doing the bare minimum. For letting the hours slip away—then the days, then the months, and eventually the years.

But the thing about self-directed blame, when it goes unchallenged... it never lifts. It only accumulates.And so, with it comes ever-increasing resentment and negative self-talk, along with mounting pressure and desperation to change and fix yourself...plus, frustratingly, urges and compulsions to distract and escape.

I know just how unreal it can all start to feel.

As I wrote in the previous chapter, I hope you're starting to see just how deeply your vices cut. I hope you can begin to offer yourself some self-compassion. Some forgiveness. Some patience.Because, the truth is, you deserve self-compassion, forgiveness, patience.

It really is not your fault.

Your current situation—the repeat patterns, the stagnation, the regrets—is not a personal failure.The only reason it feels that way is because your tech vices don't make your life collapse all at once—not the way more severe, fast-acting substances might.Instead, they make everything harder. Harder to focus. Harder to care. Harder to move.

And because you never felt the moment it all started, the only explanation that seems to make sense is you.You blame yourself.

But you don't need to do that anymore.

What's happening in your life is not a moral failing. It's not laziness. It's not weakness. It's not a lack of discipline or character.

It's not you.It's what's been done to you.

It's the environment you've been placed in. Your phone. Your computer. Your TV.It's their algorithms. Their feeds. Their reward mechanisms.It's these systems engineered to get you hooked. To keep you stuck. To keep you scrolling.It's also our society—its pressures, its demands, its expectations—all of which is overwhelming and suffocating. All of which drives you to seek respite and relief. Just a little bit of escape.

So let me say this again, because it really fucking matters:What's happening in your life is not your fault.

Not the doomscrolling.Not the procrastination.Not the stagnation.

Not the physical inability to change… nor the diminished interest in doing so.

It's not you.It's not your fault.

It's not you.It's not your fault.

It's not you.It's not your fault.

Are you with me?

Are you really?

And are you ready? Ready to drop the self-blame? Ready to stop believing that you are the problem—that you are what's broken and in need of fixing?

Are you ready to begin doing what it takes to dig deep. To address your issues at their true source?

Good. Because that's exactly what we're going to do next.

PART 2 - THE SOLUTION

Chapter 5: The Actual Solution

What do the "Just Stop," "Just Do It," and "Just Want It More" solutions have in common?

They're all about force.

Force yourself to not do what you want to do.Force yourself to do what you don't want to do.Force yourself to want a better life.

In other words, it's all about disregarding or overriding your desires. It’s about using conscious control to wrangle yourself toward better actions.

That, to me, sums up the conventional approach to self-improvement. And although it might work fine for some people... for people like you and I... it just doesn't work. It doesn't stick.

Source: ADHDinos, posted to Instagram

I mean, just think about it. Think about your last attempt at getting better.

With all the promise and enthusiasm, the first day or so might have been alright.But eventually, the demands and triggers of life would creep back in, resulting in the familiar feelings of stress and overwhelm.And when they didn't—when you found yourself with all this new free time—you'd get pummeled by boredom or else disinterest and apathy.

Meanwhile, any impulse to reach for an escape had to be denied through sheer conscious control. YouTube. Reddit. Video games. Junk food. All off-limits.

You were forced to white-knuckle through urges and cravings… while also manually cajoling yourself to tap away at the keyboard even when every fiber of you resisted.

The whole experience was this uncomfortable, joyless, often unbearable grind. Like trying to run a marathon with a hangover, while an ex-Navy SEAL buzzes in your ear like:C'mon man. Shut up and just do it.

So it's no surprise that your resolve and optimism began to wane. That your thoughts soon landed on…Is this really it? Is this what my life is going to be like? This feeling… it sucks.Maybe I don't want to quit my vices after all.

And with thoughts like these pestering you—plus life delivering its usual barrage of stresses, worries, and disappointments—your inner desire for vices only crept up over time. Not down.

To make it past day 1, then day 2, then day 3, then day 573, you needed more and more of an ability to override desires. More willpower. More self-control.

Same deal for your work.

Because all your tasks were done by coercion, the effort itself was never satisfying or enjoyable. It just got more tedious, more unappealing, more of a slog.

So again—because the low desire for work only kept sinking—you needed an ever-growing supply of the stuff that allows for conscious overrides. To feel a visceral aversion... then do it anyway.

Of course, no one but that Navy SEAL has an endless amount of willpower and self-control.All it took was one convenient little rationalization:Bah, five minutes on Reddit won't kill me. It might even make me less fidgety and grumpy—and therefore more productive.

Which then lead to a hit of relief and pleasure that felt better than ever—helped by the fact that, after a period of abstinence, the algorithms had had time to bubble up top-tier content.

This further solidified in your mind that your vices are wonderful, life-saving things, worthy of desire… and that life without them is not worth living… and that you should just be more flexible and intentional… and that, man, what the heck was I thinking, anyway?!

Here's the grim reality: every time you try to quit your vices through force, you end up driving your subconscious desire for them up.

And your desire for more productive action? That goes down.

So I say it's time to do the opposite.

Your ability to resist or override internal desires—your self-control, your willpower—is what it is. There's a ceiling, and you've hit it plenty of times.

But the desire side of the equation—what actually prompts cravings and aversions, what drives the irrational, self-sabotaging compulsions—that can be reshaped over time.

The key is to slowly rewire the programming responsible for your desires, until one day you're sitting there like…Yeah, I see my phone there, chiming with all its easy stimulation.Yeah, I know it'd be fun and gratifying.Yeah, I know I could make up for lost time later.It's just that… I'm good. I'd prefer not to, actually.I'd prefer to just get to work.

No willpower required.

Source: CC0 Studios

That there is the promised land.That's the shift that has to happen for any lasting behavioral change to stick.

That's the actual solution to the problems of doomscrolling, procrastination, and stagnation.

Now for the simple matter of getting it done.

Chapter 6: The Identity

Let's take stock of where we're at so far.

The "Just Stop" Solution to your problems is to drastically reduce your vice intake. By doing so, you'll avoid stepping into the doomscroll feedback loop and you'll stop feeding the VIDS symptoms... thereby reclaiming your motivation, emotional wellbeing, and capacity for focus and enjoyment of work.

Fine. But the actual solution—the thing that makes that possible and sustainable—is to reduce your desire for vices to the point where self-control and discipline become largely irrelevant.

If there's nothing pulling you toward distraction in the first place, your ability to say no stops mattering. You'll just go...

Think of it like weight loss. The goal wouldn't be to summon more willpower to eat healthy and resist temptation. It would be to find a way to feel less hungry, less often.That's essentially how GLP-1 medications like Ozempic work: they don't make people disciplined—they make discipline irrelevant.

So how do we do something similar for tech vices? Because there's no Ozempic for TikTok. Not yet, anyway.

And how do we do the opposite for our work and lifestyle habits? How do we gradually increase our desire for them, so that force and self-control—the "Just Do It" Solution—also becomes moot?

Well, it starts where conventional self-help and behavioral psychology agree: that lasting behavior change begins with a change in identity.

Like if you want certain outcomes, you need to put certain processes in place. These are your daily habits and routines, including what not to do, like indulging in bad habits.But getting there doesn't happen by fixating on the outcomes, like we saw in the Prologue. And not on the habits themselves, either.The move is to go one layer deeper: first adopt the identity of the kind of person who would naturally do those things, then use that to shape your system—your habits, routines, environment, and the rules you live by.

Adapted from this James Clear article.

In short, your self-concept shapes your behavior: you act in ways that feel aligned with who you believe yourself to be.

So that's our starting point.The first step is to adopt an identity. One that, on the surface, is about redefining your relationship with vices. But it needs to go deeper than that. It needs to reshape how you relate to discomfort itself. How you respond to pain, stress, and triggers. How you cope.

The Tech Sober Identity

So, what identity is right for this? What’s required for it to work—for it to stick?

You could go with something rooted in low-tech living. Like a "Digital Minimalist"—someone who uses less tech. Or an "Analoger"—someone who actively favors older tools and mediums for communication, learning, and entertainment.

I’m not against any of these, hipstery and plaid-intensive as they may be. If the identity gives you something clear and concrete to point to... something that dictates what to do and what not to do... then you're pretty set.

But if you're ready to go all in on what this method prescribes, and if you're ready for something deeper than the latest trend...I’d suggest you begin to think of yourself as sober. As Tech Sober.

Now, I know the word sobriety comes with baggage.Culturally, it’s still tied to total abstinence, AA, and a framing that says you’re powerless—that you have an incurable “disease” of desire called addiction, and that your only hope is to stack everything on the conscious override side of things.

But there’s a more modern sobriety movement that looks nothing like that.

Becoming sober—as described by Laura McKowen, Catherine Gray, and Gabor Maté—isn’t just about not drinking (or not getting high, or not overeating, etc).It’s about healing old wounds. Rebuilding self-worth and self-trust. Finding genuine peace of mind, happiness, and life satisfaction.

There’s nothing anonymous about this kind of sobriety—nothing shameful or hush-hush. People wear the identity like a badge of honor, using it to connect with others through a shared language, a shared backstory, and a shared journey.

And crucially, it focuses on processing the emotional clutter that drives the desire for escape in the first place. On doing what it takes to drive desires down.

So yes, on the surface, being tech sober is about consuming your vices less. A lot less. There’s simply no other way to dissipate VIDS and what it does to you and your productivity.But the underlying mindset is what makes all the difference.

Modern sobriety isn’t a life where you can’t consume your vices—where you’re forever barred from the one thing that brings you anything positive.It doesn’t turn your tech vice into a forbidden but forever alluring fruit.

It’s a life where you simply… don’t consume vices. Not anymore. Or not as much.And that's only because you just don’t need to. Or want to.Not for joy. Not for escape. Not for anything.

Being sober is becoming free.

Free from habits that no longer serve you.Free from your vices—and from all the harm they inflict on you.Free to explore a better, happier, more productive life.

I get it, though. It does feel a little weird to assume that you and I—with our silly little tech habits—can just appropriate an identity used by people with “real” addictions.

After all, our thing isn't as bad as theirs. Sure, it wastes time and squanders our potential... but it doesn't damage our organs or put our lives and reputations at risk.

It’s like in the movie Half Baked, where the main character introduces himself at an AA-style meeting as a marijuana addict… only to be chastised by the group and an irate Bob Saget.

“I used to [do something explicit you wouldn’t expect the dad from Full House to say] for coke… now that’s an addiction, man. You ever [do that explicit thing] for marijuana?”

So yeah, it’s normal to be reluctant to stretch—or potentially dilute—the meaning of a potent word like addiction.

So we won’t. Because the truth is, we don’t need to.

Many sober people themselves have a complicated relationship with that word. Plenty would never call themselves addicts or alcoholics.All that’s required here is for you to relate to the feeling of being addicted—in the figurative sense, not the clinical one.

It’s a lived experience.It's having far less feelings of control over your actions than you’d like. Of being hooked on something you enjoy less and less. Of being stuck, always thinking, Why do I keep doing this? Why can’t I seem to stop? How did I even get here?

Because at the end of the day, whether it’s binge drinking or binge scrolling, the function is the same.

It’s all an escape.

An escape from pain and discomfort. A coping mechanism that, long ago, stopped being worth the price of admission.

Being sober—from whatever vice—means you no longer need that escape. You’re willing and equipped to confront discomfort directly. To process it and deal with it, rather than reaching for a substance or behavior to numb it out—which, as you now know, only generates more discomfort and keeps the cycle spinning.

It’s just a fundamentally better way to live.

Although this is an essential start, the mere fact of committing to an identity doesn’t actually make much of a dent in our real objective: reshaping desire—downward for vices, upward for the work and lifestyle changes you want to pursue.

That’s because desire, like all emotions, is generated in the deeper, more primitive parts of the brain—parts over which you have no direct or conscious control. Parts that don’t care what you identify as. Office memo be damned.

The reality is, changing visceral desires and cravings—drives and motivations, attractions and aversions—is very difficult. It only happens gradually, through real life experiences with real trial and error and real felt emotions and sensations.It doesn’t happen because you read a book or attended a weekend seminar.

Sober people will be the first to tell you that.Closely followed by all the self-declared “Writers” who—thanks to chronic VIDS symptoms—never have it in them to move a pen very far.

So what follows is the ok-but-how? part of getting tech sober. It’s not a set of step-by-step instructions—life’s too messy for that—but a process. One that sober people know well.

The Tech Sober Solution

Before we do anything else, you'll need to come to terms with reality: you’re starting from a place where your desire for vices is incredibly high—often an order of magnitude higher than your desire to do real, honest work.

Maybe not right now. But eventually—as in, with your next triggering experience—it will spike well above the positive threshold.

Sober people understand this. That’s why they don’t attempt the journey on hard mode.They remove alcohol from the house. They tell their friends and colleagues. They stop saying yes—for a long while—to events and situations that leave them exposed and vulnerable.

With tech, of course, this is easier said than done.

Because we need our computers to study and do our work. We need our phones to communicate and navigate.We can’t just downgrade to a landline, buy a used typewriter, and carry on living like it's the late 90s.

Plus, there’s an argument against throwing the baby (YouTube’s treasure trove of insightful content) out with the bath water (the endless sea of vapid crap).Your desires for vices aren’t always wrong. The goal is to stop escaping—not to outlaw pleasure or entertainment.There’s a right way to step away from vices… and a right way to come back.

So the Tech Sober solution starts with getting extremely deliberate about your environmental guardrails—namely, how you set up and maintain your website and app blocking system.

Keyword there is “starts” because, no matter how well you do that part, there will be leaks. You will find a way to indulge. You will "relapse" on your commitments.

To handle that—to leverage failure and come away better after slipping up, rather than much worse—you'll apply what I call the Meditator’s Mindset.

So that’s your defensive strategy. You hold steady your shields as best you can, and you keep a steady supply of healing potions in your pouch.

Of course, defense alone isn’t enough to win this battle.At some point you have to go on offense. You’ll have to meet discomfort—cleanly—without immediately reaching for relief.

Because that’s the real pivot. Not “How do I avoid my vices for life?” (aka the “Just Stop” Solution), but “What do I do when the urge hits? How do I cope in a better way? How do I get through this?”

So you’ll learn a more deliberate way of dealing with discomfort. With life’s stresses and triggers.It's a way that recognizes how difficult and, frankly, long this process can be.

And finally, we rebuild.We'll work on restoring your natural, honest desire for meaningful work and consistent action. Not through force. Not through inspiration porn. Through a simple, repeatable technique that cultivates a natural pull toward the life you actually want.

In the end, this entire process is designed to produce a real shift in what you want to do—and what you no longer want to do—at a visceral, subconscious level.

And from that place—from genuine, lived identity change and a better set of internal desires—you naturally settle into better habits. Better systems. Better outcomes.

Just like all those self-help gurus promised.

Each year, the companies behind TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit spend billions refining their platforms.They hire top engineers and behavioral scientists. They reward creators who produce the most engaging, most addictive content. They collect hoards of data and hone their algorithms.

All of that effort serves a single goal: to keep you hooked, to sell more ads, to enrich their already rich CEOs and stakeholders.

It’s pretty messed up when you think about it—and I’m sure you do think about it, given everything that’s stacked against you.

So what can you do about it? How do you overcome temptation—especially at the beginning, when your desires are peaking and your conscious overriding wears thin as you get pummeled by compulsions and perfectly convincing reasons to indulge?

Well, there's plenty you're going to do to advance toward the onslaught of emotions. To process them. To overcome them.We'll get to all that in the next chapter.

But first, well... you've got to give yourself a fighting chance.

You have to do the modern equivalent of having men tie you to a mast.

You have to set up an effective website and app blocking system.

The anatomy of a good blocking system

So I have an embarrassingly long history with website blockers. Most of it, failures.

For the longest time, I was convinced they had to be set at one extreme or the other: loose and flexible because c'mon, I'm not that bad… or ironclad and all-encompassing because apparently I am, and I can't be trusted with any means of access.

Neither extreme, of course, ever worked.

It took a lot of trial and error—years of it—to realize I'd been thinking about it all wrong.The ideal configuration isn't at either extreme. It's somewhere in the middle (I mean, obviously). But beyond that, the only way the system works is if it satisfies a set of 5 criteria.

Here they are.

1 - It needs to add enough friction... but not too much

So right now, your desire gauge for your tech vices looks like this:

Sooner or later, you'll get hit with discomfort, which will spike it to this:

So naturally, the solution is to add friction. Something that bends the needle back. That makes it much less enticing.The solution is to make indulging cost something.

With the right software, you can do exactly that. You can add just enough inconvenience, just enough effort to interrupt the mindless impulse—or guard against a triggering experience...

But not so much that a legitimate, clear-headed indulgence becomes impossible.

In practice, I use Cold Turkey on my computer. It's free for basic use, works on Mac and PC, and does exactly what I need: I set up a set of blocks…

Then lock it behind a wall of random gibberish—60 characters' worth that I'd have to manually type out to make any changes. For stuff I know I should never access, I crank it to 100+.

That's the friction. It’s not impossible to overcome, but annoying enough that my impulsive self won’t bother.

2 - It needs to let you do your job

Sometimes the need for your tech vices is legitimate.

Google serves up a Reddit thread that answers your exact question on a niche topic.YouTube hosts a tutorial for software you need to learn for work.Instagram is invaluable as a networking and research tool.

Having to type out 60 characters of gibberish just to access a single piece of content or reply to a DM might prove impractical. You'll resent the system, and resentment is how you end up abandoning it entirely.It's just not a sustainable solution.

The good news is that tools like Cold Turkey let you block parts of a site, rather than the whole thing.

And then there are proxy sites: websites that display content from a URL you input, stripped of everything else.I use Clipwise for YouTube and Reveddit for Reddit.

The point is to cut off the parts that hook you in—the endless, algorithmic, just one more feeds—while keeping the parts that actually serve you.

Your blocker should feel less like a stifling barrier... and more like a sensible filter.

3 - It needs to enforce your rules

As I explained earlier, you're totally free to walk into tech sobriety thinking you want to moderate your vices rather than eliminate them outright.Because, well, first it's hard to draw the line.A good movie is a vice. So is an engaging fiction book. Both provide shortcuts to rewards... but is that necessarily a bad thing? Probably not.

What I've learned is that it's not really about what you do. What you do is just the surface. It's about why you're doing it (although the more common maxim in sobriety circles goes: "It's not what you use. It's what you're using it for").

Having a beer because it pairs well with your steak—that's a good why.Binge drinking alone to escape unprocessed regrets—that's a bad why.

And, spending the day after your last exam playing an immersive video game—good why.Playing COD all night to delay the anxiety of having procrastinated on studying—bad why.

It's not about what you do. It's about why you're doing it.

So you need to decide when and under what circumstances an indulgence is appropriate and allowed. Lay down clear, concrete rules—then have your block system enforce those rules for you.

In my case, I designate one day during the weekend where I allow myself to fully indulge in my online vices, without limits. On the other days, I do my best to abstain—and at this point, I most often prefer to abstain anyway, with my desires being where they are.I like this approach far more than trying to moderate myself every single day. Getting bumped off after a 20-minute allowance is, quite frankly, annoying and just not worth the ensuing discomfort of wanting more.

So Monday to Friday, I don't touch my blocks.On Saturday, I make a nice cup of coffee, prep the couch for max comfort, then I "solve" the friction puzzle of my YouTube and Reddit blocks—which, by the way, makes me look like a Boomer typing an email—and I have at it. No guilt. No shame.

What’s cool is that Cold Turkey has an auto-lock feature that snaps the block back into place when I specify, so I don't even have to think about re-engaging my defenses.

But you're free to take a different approach. For your phone, you can add app limits that bump you off after a certain daily allowance.Find what works for you.

4 - It needs to evolve with you

In the next chapter, I'll stress the importance of seeing this intervention as an ever-evolving journey, one of many bumps, obstacles and setbacks.

Part of this is realizing everything about your systems, like your routines and rules, is subject to change. This will certainly include your initial website and app blocker setup.

Think of it like machine learning. You start with an initial model—simple, crude, and essentially dumb. You run it in the real world, observe how it performs, then iterate. Over time, the model gets smarter.This process is no different.

So you won't get things right off the bat. You'll be adding blocks. Modifying them, etc.

Like for me and my phone, I was finding myself really in the habit of checking news sites first thing in the morning. Better than a Reddit binge yes, but still not ideal. So I went through the process of disabling the lock, blacklisting a bunch of news sites, then re-locking.But then I found I could just Google around to read up on things. Again not ideal.

So, I went a little more drastic, enabling the Downtime feature during the mornings. Problem solved.

Like, sure, I could get all frustrated at myself for finding loopholes or whatever.Or I could just accept that this is part of the process. That I'll forever be playing whack-a-mole with vices… and that's okay.

What's cool about Cold Turkey is that blocks are one-way modifiable—you can make a block more severe without unlocking it, but not less. So if I spot a new subreddit pulling me in, I can add it to my block list in a couple clicks, right from the browser.

I can get mad at myself for having to play whack-a-mole… or just get good at it.

I don't need to tell you that setting up your blocking system to respect all four criteria will take some time and effort. So will doing regular updates and modifications. That's a minimal cost I'm sure you're willing to pay.But before moving on, I feel a need to have you anticipate the indirect cost of blocks: inconvenience.

Like, the other day, my wife and I sat down to watch a course that had embedded YouTube content. So I had to tell her, rather sheepishly, "Hang on a second—let me just disable this real quick."The moment was a little awkward. It also took some time, which was annoying. But my wife knows what I'm working on. She was cool with it. Life went on.

And yesterday morning, I wanted to check on my phone if a bridge near my house was open. But I couldn't. I had to turn on my computer and wait for it to load a browser like it's 2004.

So yeah... my blocks are just plain inconvenient sometimes.

But that's just the price for me.A little embarrassing. A little having to find alternative or slower ways of doing things. A little I-just-want-to-Google-how-to-make-a-sex-on-the-beach-but-the-adult-filter-won't-let-me.

If you’re having to pay such a price once in a while—one you're willing to pay—it means you’re doing it right.

It means it’s working.

Done right, your blocking system will prove to be invaluable—especially in the beginning, when your desire for your vices is still spiking sporadically and your VIDS just won't let you do work.

But the goal isn't to rely on them forever. The idea is that, over time, they become more or less irrelevant.

Think of your blocks as boundaries that define the space in which you can move about online. At first, you'll bump into those edges constantly. You'll feel them. You'll test them. But as your bad habits begin to break, and as you start up on better habits, you'll naturally start reaching those edges less and less frequently.

The sirens will still be out there, but they'll be faint. Background noise. You’ll hear them… but you’ll just care less.

Eventually, you’ll forget that they’re even there.

Chapter 8: The First Few Hours

The main target of getting tech sober, at least at first, is simply to allow time to pass.

Stopping the constant flood of easy rewards is the only way to restore a baseline desire for productive work and better habits.And time is the only thing that dissolves VIDS symptoms—especially the ones that cause discomfort, and with it, the compulsion to reach for the escape of vices, and so on.

You basically have to show your primitive brain that you’ve been exiled out of the utopia of endless pleasures and easy rewards. That you've returned to the real world: the harsh, unforgiving place of scarcity where you can't easily escape discomfort. Where you actually have to burn calories to survive and feel good.

So that objective sounds easy enough, right?Step 1: block your vices.Step 2: sit on a park bench.Step 3: cheerily wait for your motivation, and other goodness, to return.Step 4: do work. Achieve some goals. Live productively ever after.

But, as established earlier, it won't be that easy. And that's because you'll soon been served the first real gut-punch of being tech sober: feeling worse, much worst, than before.

This will frustrate you to no end.Because that isn't supposed to happen. What's supposed to happen is you feeling... better. And then a little bit happier. And then, eventually, awesome and amazing and energized.That's the entire point of quitting. Of getting tech sober.

But that just won't be the case. Not at first. Not for a long time.

Laura McKowen perfectly describes this experience in her memoir We Are the Luckiest:

In the first year of trying to get sober, I was tired all the time. Not the adrenaline-fueled tired I used to feel when I was still drinking, but something more weighted and bone-level, like the flu...I found this to be so frustrating and unfair because it seemed like now that I wasn't drowning myself in wine every night, life should automatically be… easier. Better.

My body should feel like a demigod's. I wanted the energy to do all the things lighting up my brain… but most days, I could barely make it through the afternoon without crying.

Now, I'm tempted to use the term "withdrawal effects," but that's not quite right.

Unless your application of this method involves giving up drugs, alcohol, or very high levels of sugar, you're unlikely to experience physical withdrawal symptoms. And even in those cases, withdrawal—though it can be intense and even dangerous—is a temporary and treatable phase of recovery.

So what's actually going on here? Why the sudden drop in happiness and well-being?

To understand this, recognize that you didn't start your tech habits without reason.They likely began long ago—probably in early adolescence—when you first discovered that vices provide relief from what pained or overwhelmed you.

Or maybe it didn't start that way.Maybe, like me, you started playing Super Mario because Super Mario was fun. But it didn't take long before your subconscious connected "fun" with "escape."

And you, a fledgling human in a big, scary world, needed escape.

Escape from stress, disappointments, insecurity. Escape from heavier things: trauma, neglect, abuse, bullying. Escape from the impossible pressures of parental or societal expectations.No matter how or why it happened, you learned to use your vices as that escape. As a coping mechanism.

And it worked. It still works. It's just that, now, the coping mechanism itself is generating its own set of negative consequences—which then demands ever-increasing doses for relief and escape.

So when you suddenly cut your vices out cold, the discomfort they so expertly suppressed doesn't just disappear.It comes back.It comes back hard.

That's why it can feel, very convincingly, like your life has gotten worse—not better—just when you thought you were finally doing the right thing.

The Vice Flu

So... if the issue here is the sudden return of negative emotions, what then is the remedy?

First, simply knowing this is coming matters—a lot. It's the unexpectedness that gets you more than anything.As you begin applying the method, anticipate and brace for a wave of uncomfortable sensations and thoughts. They often show up around day two or three, and can linger for a few days to a week.

And when it hits, treat it like the flu.

Let time pass.Give yourself permission to rest. To sleep.Give yourself permission not to immediately launch into a dozen new "good" habits. Not to chase your dreams just yet. Not to force productivity simply because you stopped doing the bad stuff and that's what everyone says is supposed to happen next.

Whoever claimed the key to breaking bad habits is to instantly replace them with good ones clearly never started from a place of real pain and exhaustion.

So don't put on a performance.Don't force yourself to feel upbeat, chipper, or grateful for every breath just because you've decided this is how you're supposed to feel now that you're tech sober and "free" from vices.

Just allow what is to be. Then let time pass.

And since that won't always be easy, give yourself permission to tier down with your vices.

Grab A Tiered-Down Vice

I've noticed a common—yet oddly unspoken—theme across nearly every sobriety memoir I've read over the years.

Once the writer gives up alcohol, they almost always allow themselves some lesser comforts.Think Netflix binges under a pile of blankets, while tearing through a Costco-sized bag of Chicago Mix (if you know, you know).

Source: @Ketnipz

They do this to cope with the bad feelings alcohol used to pacify. And for a while, that behavior is perfectly okay, because at that stage, the only thing that truly matters is getting through the difficult early stretch of abstaining from their most destructive vice.

The same logic applies here.

To help yourself through the early stages of being tech sober, you need to give yourself full permission to tier down with your vices.

You're not failing because you need a break—because you decide to kill some time with a Tier 3 vice. You're only human.Just make sure the consequences of your coping vices are an order of magnitude smaller than the consequences of your original ones. That it's not so stimulating that it continues to feed your VIDS symptoms.That's the whole idea.

When tiering down, what matters is that the side effects of the medication are acceptable relative to the original problem.

Like sure, you might gain some weight after quitting alcohol—but that's better than blacking out and waking up next to a stranger... again. You can deal with the extra pounds later.And sure, you're still procrastinating if you spend the afternoon listening to old CDs—but that's vastly preferable to repeated dopamine-driven hits of gratification from doomscrolling TikTok.

The whole purpose of this phase is to give your VIDS symptoms time to dissipate… and for the associated desire to escape that misery to fade along with it.We're simply buying time. Waiting for your suppressed motivation to become unsuppressed. Waiting for the seeds of wanting to work to take root and begin to sprout.

And you can do that with whatever Tier 3 vices work for you.

Or... Just Do Nothing

If the second-best thing you can do during this period is kill time with a tiered-down vice, the first best thing is... nothing at all.

Sit on the couch. Stare at the wall.

Artwork by Avery Ota.

Go for a long walk. Take a day trip into nature, or wander through the low-level bustle of Main Street.

From there, your only job is to let everything internal—the stuff you've been reflexively escaping from with your vices—surface and run its course.

You can do this simply by observing.

Look at your feelings. Look at the frustration, stress, regret, worry, and fear.Listen to the thought loops, the ruminations.Feel the cravings. Feel the pull toward relief. Get curious about what all of this actually feels like in your body.

And when they inevitably show up, look directly at the feelings of hopelessness, apathy, or even depression itself.

Through this act of gentle but deliberate observation—or mindfulness, as it's often called—you're able to take a seat in the back row of your mind's very own three-ring circus.

Normally, you and I don't just attend the circus. We get dragged into the ring—pestered by the MC, harassed by clowns, and chased by hungry tigers.

This is different.This is choosing to attend the circus—that mandatory human spectacle—but doing so from up in the stands.It's watching the noise and chaos from a safe distance, instead of being thrown into the performance.

And if it gets boring, repetitive, or too intense... just step out of the tent.

Crack open a book. Put on a podcast. Return to that half-finished puzzle.

Then come back for a little more mindful self-therapy when you're ready.

A tech addiction is different from traditional addiction in many ways. But to me, the biggest difference is that our thing carries this unspoken dual objective.

Like sure, we want to stop doing our thing... but really, that's just a means to an end.We also want to get productive. We want to stop wasting time so we can have more time to work, create, and take on better habits.

We're in a prickly predicament—one that, say, an alcoholic wouldn't find herself in, since during her early days of sobriety, she can focus squarely on staying clean.

So we're bound to feel pressure to perform. Lots and lots of pressure.We're bound to think... okay, now that I stopped it with these time sinks… I need to get super productive NOW.I need to hurry and make up for lost ground.I need to stop crying about the past and just do my damn work already.

While all that is normal and expected… this sentiment is, as the kids would say, dangerous AF.

Because, during those first few days, it'll be way too much, way too soon.The effects of your recent vice consumption have inertia. Motivation doesn't snap back instantly after deciding to get tech sober. It often takes days for the VIDS symptoms to begin to dissipate—then weeks for motivation and everything else to replenish to its natural baseline.

This, of course, is a colossal problem. It leads to a crude imbalance between what you'll expect yourself to do and what you'll be physically capable of doing.

And it's that imbalance—what I've come to call an Expectation Gap—that generates frustration and stress… the core catalyzing ingredients of another relapse.

So… and look, I know this won't be easy… but you need to give yourself permission to do nothing.

You need to give yourself permission to just be.

As I like to say: the cure for procrastination… is to procrastinate a little more.

I can't stress this enough.Throughout this entire process, from day 1 through day 1000, you need to check in with your motivation levels before engaging in any work or activity.Under no circumstances do you want to create an Expectation Gap.

Expectations are the silent killer of progress.

That First Blip of Motivation

At some point—maybe a few days in, maybe sooner if it's not your first go—the dark clouds of VIDS will start to break.

That's when a few rays of optimism will cut through. That's when you'll feel something you haven't felt in a long time:Hope. Hope in your own capabilities. Hope in your future.And with that, the first real blip of motivation will surface.

This is a good thing. It means the process is working. It means you're getting better.

But the feeling is also, as the kids would say once again, dangerous AF.

Because the temptation here is to use this first spark to immediately ramp up your productivity—to let it ignite that idealized, long-dormant version of you.The you sitting down for a heroic 10-hour work session.The you crushing an absurdly long task list.The you finally getting all caught up on everything... then basking in that it's-all-done-hell-yes glory.

That vision is great. And yes, this method is ultimately working toward getting you there—or as close to it as you want.But when you experience that first blip… you just won't be there yet.

I know. Bummer.

That said, you can and should use that blip to get a little work done—easy stuff, low-effort stuff, even fun stuff.And it doesn't have to be work-work. Those first moments of motivation and optimism can—and should—be used for lifestyle stuff: exercise, cooking, chores, basic self-care.

But don't take it so far that you start trying to force productivity.

Let that self-propelled momentum run for a few days. But expect wobble. You might feel less motivated on day 8 than you did on day 5.That's part of the deal. That's fine. What matters is that you don't get carried away or frustrated.

So yes, during this phase, go ahead and write that list of important-but-non-urgent work—the stuff you've been procrastinating on.Go ahead and "show up" by sitting at your desk. Then opening a textbook or spreadsheet.Or head to the gym. Or pick up your dusty guitar.

But when you get there, don't expect much to happen.

If the motivation isn't there… you don't force it. You bounce.

Because if you force it—if you pressure and coerce yourself to do more than your motivation allows—yes, you might get it done that one time... But you'll also be pinning a cluster of negative sensations—toil, agony, tedium—onto the brain circuits associated with that work or habit.

In other words, you're teaching your brain that this thing is bad and something to avoid. That it doesn't warrant desire and the burning of precious calories.

This is the exact opposite of what you want to be doing—the opposite of what actually cultivates desire. The desire needed to make positive habits stick.

The Art of Pinning Good Feelings

Like I said, there will come a time where you'll feel a blip of motivation; where you'll feel like taking action.And so you will. Naturally... effortlessly... expectationlessly.

But where do you go from there?Because it's natural to want to accelerate the process—to take an active role in rebuilding desire and motivation, rather than waiting passively for VIDS to dissipate.

This can be done. And the way to do it is by "pinning" your work to positive feelings.

Imagine you've just finished a solid workout. You feel energized and satisfied. Maybe you get that runner's high, yogi's bliss, or lifter's bicep-kissing confidence.

Now imagine pausing for a moment to really take that feeling in.

Imagine doing your best to mentally associate—or "pin"—that good feeling to the actions that led to it.

What would come of that?

Well, over time and repetition, the desire would gradually increase. Your subconscious would begin to want to repeat those actions—without you having to force it.

This is why you see the same people in the gym, day after day.They're not there because they’re more disciplined than others. They're there because they want to be there. They desire the effort. The satisfaction. They feel discomfort by not going.

Now apply the same idea to a good work session.

Say you're using something like the Pomodoro method. Imagine doing this at the start of every break, again and again, consciously linking the relief and satisfaction you feel to the work that preceded it.And what if you didn't just think it… what if you acted it out too?

This is what I do. I focus intently on the sensation. I point to the screen, saying to myself:"That right there. That work caused this good feeling."

From there—and if I'm actually feeling it—I let my body take over.

Fist pumps are standard.Raising the roof? Approved.Stupid dance? I just go where my body takes me.

Really, there's no best way to do this. No right or wrong—as long as you clearly link the celebration back to the work.With enough repetition, something subtle but powerful happens. You'll find that resistance toward these habits gradually softens—eventually replaced by a desire for them.

More broadly, each act of pinning turns self-improvement into what it actually needs to be: a sustainable sequence of small wins, self-directed satisfaction, and micro-boosts in confidence and self-worth… rather than an endless grind of deprivation through discipline, and muscling through resistance.

And it's those feelings that pull you back toward healthy actions again. Toward self-care and positive lifestyle choices. Toward wanting to do what's good for you rather than wasting time on vices.

Ultimately, it's about setting off a positive feedback loop—where productive actions improve your well-being, and improved well-being fuels the desire to take more productive actions.

That's the kind of loop you want to find yourself in.

It's how you move beyond merely not doomscrolling, not procrastinating, and not stagnating—and into a life of growth, momentum, and well-being that you didn't know was possible.

It's now 11 am on a Thursday morning. As I write this, I'm reminded I need to drop off the wife at the local mall in an hour. That means I'll be out and about—with the car, some free time, and a post-writing-session appetite.

My primitive brain, which is forever convinced we're on the brink of a long, cold, calorie-scarce winter (it's June, by the way), went straight to fantasizing about all the lovely fast-food joints lining the main boulevard of the trip back. It's having me conjure pleasant memories and vivid images of me blissfully enjoying a meal.

Now, I know these are exaggerated. I know they don't actually reflect reality. I know, if examined closely, these mental movies are kind of eerie and off-putting—basically tailor-made for AI to depict.

Plus, I know I don't really need to eat out. There are decent leftovers in the fridge. I shouldn't be spending money needlessly. And fast food is a vice, vices lead to VIDS, and I don't like VIDS.

And yet, despite all that, right now… I'm craving everything about the experience. The rich umami mouthfeel of the burger (extra pickles). The cold, fizzy sugar-blast of Coke. The hot, salty, savory fries—served in two different containers for some reason.

It's like… ugh, I can't lie to you. Getting some fast food right now… it just feels right, you know? Every part of it—there's not a single dissenting neuron in my limbic system. And it's honestly been a while, so the rationalization story writes itself.

So, what do I do?Because… there it is. In black and white. One of my rules: no solo fast-food orders. A clear, unambiguous boundary I committed to—based on my goals of getting fit and maintaining my health. No allowed exceptions. No wiggle room. No nothing.

Sigh.

I know that one day this will be way less of a big deal. My desires for junk will have faded enough that I can be in this exact situation—neat rationalization and all—and feel nothing. I'll just mentally fast-forward the movie to the post-fast-food "what am I doing with my life" bloat and lethargy, and shrug the idea off as terrible.

But that day… is not today.So, what do I do? How do I deal?

Thanks But No Thanks

So how do we get desires like these to go away?

Well… we can’t. As discussed earlier, there's nothing we can do to directly make them disappear.No matter how many memos our rational mind sends in the moment, our primitive brains won’t care. The craving will remain intact.

But we can give it space.

As author Stephen Covey writes:Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

That's fancy self-help speak for: just look at the desire and wait.

The more you look at it—the uncomfortable craving it conjures up… the mental imagery, the excuse, the feels right emotions—the more you detach from it. You begin to see all that as raw data. As a biological stimulus that may or may not be pointing you in the actual right direction. That's when you can say, thanks but no thanks.

It's the difference between reacting and responding.

So that's what I'll do after dropping off my wife.I'll do my best to look at the craving. To look at the rationalization. To look at the overly romanticized, over-embellished mental imagery.

Then I'll make a "no" decision—might as well commit to it right now—at which point I'll get mindful of the discomfort that comes with forgoing what, to my primitive brain, feels like an easy shot at survival.

I'll then come home, nuke yesterday's tofu-and-chickpea dish (it's better than it sounds), and be—and feel—all around happier for it.

That's how I'll deal with desire.

Let's look at another example—this time tech-based.

Let's say you've arrived at the library, intent on getting some work done. You open a new browser tab, which, due to habit, initiates the desire to check Reddit. That’s the craving if we’re following the habit model popularized in Atomic Habits.

Then comes the action part. The response. That's you mindlessly typing Y-O-U into the address bar and hitting enter.

Good. Your blocker did what it was supposed to do.

But what happens next? The desire, the craving… they don’t just disappear. If anything, breaking your autopilot snaps you fully awake.Now you’re made to feel it. To feel the sharp discomfort. To truly experience what it’s like to jam a wedge into the machinery of habit—to deny yourself the juicy reward.

This is where you stop. Where you do what you can to detach and simply observe the impulse, the desire, the physical sensations. To listen to the thoughts and rationalizations as they arise.This is where you become mindful of the experience—until you’re just watching it all, without judgment.

Then, under the 10,000-watt lightbulb of awareness, you turn the idea over from every angle:Is this actually going to help me feel better… or just temporarily relieve the discomfort, only for it to come back stronger?Am I being coerced by outdated programming?What are the longer-term benefits of not indulging? Am I willing to pay the price of discomfort to get there?

The goal is to consciously reject the impulse—not out of sacrifice or deprivation, but because you know too much now.You know where these urges come from. You know they're misdirected primitive instincts. You know how it ends: the discomfort doesn't go away after one hit—it gets more intense as the Doomscroll Feedback Loop kicks in… which reinflates the VIDS symptoms, which drives procrastination, which has you stagnate.

You know that for every unit of gratification, there are a hundred units of consequence. Then comes the regret. And the misery. And the pain.

It's just not fucking worth it. Not even close.

There really is no sacrifice. No deprivation.

Still. Coming to that conclusion won't make the desire vanish on the spot. It won't silence the justifications. It takes time for a craving to run its course.So keep observing. Keep holding space. Keep mindful of the tension, the physical sensations, the thought loops—until they pass. And if it gets tedious, unplug from your workstation and go for a walk. Or grab a Tier-3 vice.

Eventually, the wave of discomfort will recede. Eventually, you'll have made the better choice. Eventually, you'll have responded rather than reacted.

You'll have exercised your freedom.

With time and repetition, you'll learn not to trust your cravings. You'll learn to be skeptical. You'll hear your rationalizations and call them what they are: lies. Manipulations. Misinformation. Nonsense. Fake effing news.

As you progress through this, as your brain finds other ways to experience real reward, and as what you desire to do starts aligning with what you should desire to do… the intensity and frequency of cravings will reduce. The habits will break.

That's the promised land we talked about earlier. Where both your desires for vices and for work are where you want them to be to live your best life.

You will get there.

But until then, keep using environmental guardrails to give you the opportunity to stop. Keep using mindfulness to create that space. Keep using that space to deal with the discomfort of desire.

Big Triggers

Neither I nor you can predict what will happen after you get tech sober. But the chances of it being, like, nothing… nothing upsetting, nothing disappointing, nothing heartbreaking… are, well, nothing.

The reality is, life is going to serve you what—for lack of better creativity on my part—I call Big Triggers. And it'll do so many times over, without a morsel of remorse.

Your boss sends a scathing email.Your sister makes a passive-aggressive comment about your weight at dinner.Your crush leaves you with those dancing dots for the second day in a row.

When Big Triggers hit, they hit. They're the obvious culprits behind relapses into vices. They drive those spontaneous and intense spikes in desire that really get to you.

But they're not always so overt or flagrant. They can be subtle.Like one of mine.

I want to be a writer. I want to share ideas. I want people to read them and find them useful. That's the dream.

But I also have an ego.And that ego does not handle rejection well. It does not enjoy vulnerability. It does not like posting something thoughtful and watching it get criticized, or worse, get crickets.

Source: @Julia Veldmanc

There's a primitive part of me that interprets weak engagement as something close to social exile. As if not getting the "right" response means I'm being ostracized.

So every time I post something and it doesn't perform the way I hoped—which, of course, happens all the time—it's triggering.Like really effing triggering.

For the longest time, I was obsessed with finding a cure for this. Some mental hack that would let me post and feel completely blasé. Untouchable. Immune.

But I've given up on that. Cause my brain is going to do what it does.I mean, I can temper expectations. I can remind myself that one post doesn't define anything. I can learn all about my primitive brain and how it didn't evolve for social media… But if it stings, it stings.

We just talked about processing discomfort. About observing it mindfully. About finding better, less destructive ways to cope and take a break.You’re going to need to do the same here. Same with all discomfort.

But that can't happen if you don't anticipate it first. If you don't see it coming. If, the moment it hits, you get swept away and down a rabbit hole of vices.It's on you to prepare for your Big Triggers. To do all you can externally. Set up your blockers thoughtfully and design your environment. Talk to people, build support, do everything you reasonably can.

And if you're someone dealing with the biggest of Big Triggers—the ones tied to deeper wounds, old patterns, or personal trauma—I wholeheartedly recommend talking to a professional.There's nothing I can whisper to you in a self-help book that matches what a good therapist, the right meds, or a solid support group can do for those deeper triggers.

But from there, there's just the waiting. The gentle anticipation for it to arrive. And when it does, there's the stopping, the observing, the accepting.This is the mindful path to freedom.

The Refrigerator Hum

Sometimes though, discomfort doesn't have a clear source.You're just doing the dishes, and suddenly you're made aware of… something. It's not a thought. Not a specific worry. Just a kind of heaviness. A restless dissatisfaction. Like this background refrigerator-hum of unease.

Of course, there's a slight complication...

Nir Eyal talks about this in Indistractable. Humans didn't evolve to be content or at ease. In fact, a persistent sense of "not enough" and “where’s the threat?” was a survival adaptation.The ones who felt that itch—that dissatisfaction, that longing, that unease—and who ruminated on possible threats, were more likely to strive, to explore, to secure resources, to survive.

That hum got passed down.

And now we're stuck with brains that default to restlessness and dissatisfaction, even when things are objectively fine.This matters—because this ambient unease, this chronic, low-grade discomfort, can be one of the strongest pulls toward your vices.

The good news is that some of it absolutely gets amplified by VIDS. When you reduce the constant bombardment of stimulation, the edge comes off a bit. Things do settle.

But don't expect total silence.Even with perfect habits… even with discipline, sobriety, the achievement of goals… there will still be that hum.

And just like everything else we've talked about, there isn't a clean cure for it.All you can do is anticipate it. See it for what it is—the ever-present dreary hum of the human condition—and not a sign that something is wrong.

It's just the refrigerator running.

It sucks. Maybe it hurts. But it too will pass.

The discomfort of cravings and habits, Big Triggers, the refrigerator hum… these are the flavors of discomfort you'll encounter (and there are others).Some you'll handle well. Some will have you slip up. Some will knock you straight down.

And when they do—when you find yourself overriding your blockers, sidestepping your guardrails, and slipping into a doomscroll—you're going to feel like you failed. Like all this work was for nothing. Like you're back to square one.

You're not.

That moment—the one right after the slip, when you're staring at your screen with that familiar sinking feeling—that's not where the sobriety process breaks down.

That's actually where it matters most.

Chapter 11: The Unspoken Rule

The rules of meditation are dead simple.

Rule no. 1: Focus your attention on your breath.

That's it. That's the one rule.

The genius thing about meditation, however, lies in its unspoken rule: you're sort of allowed to lose focus.

Of course, this seems to contradict the one hard rule—but somehow the practice still works. Because with meditation, it's not just okay if you fail, it's entirely expected. In fact, the act of picking yourself back up by returning your focus to the breath is itself the practice.

Random thoughts and daydreams are natural. Your job is simply to sit, observe the frenetic circus of the mind, and gently rein it in when—not if—it wanders.

Self-compassion and forgiveness aren't just nice-to-haves. In meditation, they're actively required.

Without them, you'd get frustrated at how often your mind drifts to your grocery list or that work deadline. That frustration then becomes more mental noise—more thoughts, more emotion—pulling you even further from the practice.

So, what does this have to do with ending bad habits?

I'd say… everything.

As you go on with the tech sober identity, you'll be aiming for a substantial drop in your intake of vices. You'll set your rules, your clear-cut parameters for moderation. And you'll do all you can to have your blocking system enforce those rules.Just like in meditation, once you begin, you're never "allowed" to deviate. You're never "allowed" to break your rules. You're never "allowed" to circumvent a block just ‘cause.

But don't forget that you're human, and humans evolved to act on instinct—to grab at survival rewards quickly and without thinking.

So you'll also need to embrace the unspoken rule that says: it's "okay" to slip up. It's "okay" to deviate. It's "okay" to not be perfect.

You can let go of the fantasy of being perfect forever. You can stop punishing yourself for breaking a streak that no one's tracking but you.You need to accept—and even expect—that you'll falter. That you'll slip up, scroll, spiral out, and even binge. And instead of shame, reprimand, or self-hate, you'll respond with understanding and self-compassion.

This is crucial because, in addition to it being fully deserved—just like in meditation—self-compassion is actively required with this method.

Remember: much of the reason you engage in your vices is to relieve or distract away bad feelings. If you lose the usual stress, regret, and self-reprimand of your "self-control failings"—which, as you now know, aren't really that—you lose much of the inner turmoil that drives the desire for more vices.

So I'll say it plainly:The skill to gain with this method isn't the ability to sustain perfect adherence to the rules—although that matters.The skill is honing your ability to catch yourself when you deviate, and to return to the proper path as quickly and painlessly as possible.

And the only way to do that is with instant and unconditional self-compassion.

The Reps of the Practice

If you think of meditation as a strength-building exercise, what would a "rep" be?

Sustained, perfect focus? Time spent in some enlightened state?

Nope.

A rep is the act of gently reverting your focus when your attention deviates.

That's why, in meditation, slipping into distraction isn't considered a failure. It's not you doing it "wrong," even if it happens relentlessly.It's the opposite. In meditation, what actually counts—what is the practice—is the work of reverting your focus.

And it really is work.Sometimes the thing pulling at your attention is minor (an itch on the tip of your nose). Sometimes it's practical (add eggs to the grocery list). Sometimes it's deeply enticing and all-consuming (a fantasy where you finally impress your crush). Often, you won't feel like letting it go.

But when you manage to do so, you get a little better at the practice. You get a little stronger.

It's the same with this method.

To grow—to become strong, healthy, and resilient enough to sustain real behavioral change—you have to put in that same kind of work.You have to do your reps.

Source: @HappySeals

And just like in meditation, "reps" don't happen when you're living perfectly.They don't happen when you hit a 30-day streak with a new habit or breeze through an eight-hour work session unpestered by thoughts of Reddit.

A rep happens when you feel the urge to grab your phone—and choose not to. When you observe the discomfort, observe the craving, observe the rationalization... and say “thanks but no thanks.”A rep happens when you catch yourself halfway through a YouTube video, pause, let go of the reflexive frustration and self-reprimand, and redirect your focus back to the task at hand.

A rep even happens when you fail spectacularly—when you doomscroll away an entire workday—but then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, offer yourself forgiveness, and recommit to the process (and not forgetting to recheck your blockers).

In other words, what you're learning to do—perhaps for the first time—is leverage your slip-ups, rather than letting them fuel the harsh inner narrative that's kept you stuck.

Instead of digging you deeper into a rut, your failures help you start climbing out of it.

Chapter 12: Leveraging failure

By now it should be clear: you need to drop the expectation of being perfect.

Drop too the idea of clean, linear, "1%-better-each-day" progress. It looks great in a book, but it's just not how real change unfolds.

And as for the belief that, until you become your new, better self—until you come to fix yourself—you're not permitted to love and accept yourself as you are right now… that needs to go as well.

Instead, come to accept the inevitable: that slipping and failing is the way forward. That being sober isn't defined by what you do, but by what you're striving for. Your ideals. Your values. Who you aspire to be.

In other words, when it comes to your slip-ups, all that really matters is this:First, that you don't let these inevitable slip-ups crush your morale or erode your self-worth.

And second, that you do everything you can to leverage them. That you:

So let's unpack A first.

The Art of Pinning Bad Feelings

Your vices make you laugh. They entertain you. They distract you from stress, anxiety, or boredom.

After years of these experiences, your brain now has these vices "pinned" to a variety of positive emotions.They're enticing. Attractive. The desire block is always high, so much so that the idea of reaching for one always feels… right.

So what can we do about that? How can we lessen the "vice is amazing and beneficial" association to the point where, for the most part, you'll find yourself just shrugging at them with a "take it or leave it" attitude?

Logically, we need to start linking negative sensations to your vices. And the good news—"good" being a relative term here—is that there's usually a long window after you've broken a rule and indulged when things don't feel so good.It might be an emptiness. Or a spike of anxiety or guilt. Or that sinking regret after wasting time you'd set aside to chase a creative dream.Even the bloated queasiness from junk food counts.

In theory, your brain should pin those unpleasant feelings to the vice itself. It caused the problem after all, so it fully deserves the association.

But that's not what happens.

The vices don't get the blame. The hyper-stimulating algorithms don't get the blame. Nor do the chemicals in junk food or the reward mechanics of that mobile game.

You get the blame.

It's you who's at fault for the apparent self-control failure—and for the repercussions.It's you who couldn't control yourself.It's you who messed up.

Just look at the mental chatter that kicks in during those low points:I faltered. I have no discipline. I am a slob...I am wasting my time. I am wasting my life.It's all my fault...

And so, instead of the bad feelings being pinned to the vice, they get pinned to you. They get attached to your self-image—which helps explain the chronic self-contempt and low self-esteem you carry.Meanwhile—and because another indulgence can relieve that bad feeling almost instantly—the vice keeps getting associated with nothing but positive, pleasant, flowery emotions.

La la la. So pleasing. So lovely. So reliable. So great.

All of that… it needs to stop.

Like now. And then forever.

If you're going to feel bad, and if it's going to hurt, then you sure as hell better leverage those bad feelings to your advantage.You may as well start pinning the pain to what actually caused it… to the vices.

So here's how that looks in practice.

When you falter on your rules, start by observing the resulting bad feelings.Really take it in. Look at it dispassionately, as if it's a tangible thing separate from you.

Huh… there it is. There's that sinking dread and guilt.

Then, consciously—or mindfully—associate that feeling with its cause. "Pin" the discomfort to the vice.

Just like with pinning positive emotions to work, there's no formula for this. No single right way to do it. But here's a straightforward approach.

Let's say you waste an entire evening on Reddit (or whatever) and you feel that pit in your stomach. Stand up. Point at the screen. Say it aloud:That. That damn thing. That's what's making me feel this right here. Not me—it's that.

Take a moment to anchor that association. To burn it into your psyche. To make your brain remember it.

What matters is that you're being honest. I'm not asking you to play mind games or chant affirmations you know aren't true.

There's a real, observable cause-and-effect happening:You overindulge in a vice → you feel awful.

It's time your subconscious learned that. Time it remembered.

In short… never let a bad feeling go to waste.If you're going to feel bad, really feel it… then make sure that pain does what it's designed for: drive desire down for whatever caused it.

Don't Get Mad. Get Data.

Once the self-critical thought loops have quieted, the bad feelings have all been pinned, and your nervous system has settled… this is when you need to pause and reflect.Ask yourself what just happened. Like, for real… what just happened?

Because if you're honest… you never do this. At least not properly. Not with an open mind, and not without dragging along the same tired assumptions and self-blame script."It's because I'm the worst.""It's because I'm pathetic.""It's because I have zero self-control."

You've been telling yourself some version of that story for years. The same explanation, on repeat, for why you do what you do.But here's the thing: you don't have to accept that story anymore.

In the aftermath of a derailed work session—or even days lost to vices and bingeing—you can pause. You can take a cold, impartial look at what actually happened.You can arrive at a different explanation. One grounded in reality. One that's actually useful.

And it's not just that you can do this. If you want this to work, you must.

Building the habit of examining your failures in a detached, impartial way is essential if you want things to improve over time.

And the only way to do that is through reflection that is hard and objective—yet grounded in self-compassion and kindness.

That means asking questions like:What actually happened there? Was I feeling demotivated or overwhelmed, yet still expecting myself to plow ahead with heavy tasks? Did I create and ignore an Expectation Gap?Did a vice initially seem reasonable—worthy of a simple break in my rules—but then spiral out of control?Did something specific happen during the work session? Was there a stressor or Big Trigger, or else a subtle background one, that pushed me to escape?

Seeking honest, unbiased answers to these is crucial. Because, like me, you've probably spent years trying to fix yourself. And that's understandable.

But it hasn't been working.

Not because you're fundamentally broken—but because you don't actually know the real reasons things keep derailing into distraction.

You can't solve a problem if your assumptions about its causes are wrong—which, as I told you at the very beginning of this book, they are.

So here's that uncomfortable truth once again.The thing you may have been hoping for—a perfected, step-by-step system that will instantly and permanently make you "disciplined"—it doesn't exist. It can't exist.Because neither the people writing self-help (myself included) nor you have the full picture yet.

You simply haven't collected enough data. You don't yet know all the hows, whys, whens, ifs, and other conditions that shape your compulsive behaviors and derailed work sessions.

Figuring that out requires two things:First, real experiences of honest attempts and failure—which you'll have plenty of.And second, calm, objective, dispassionate reflection—which you never do, but can learn to do, starting now.

This was a huge breakthrough for me.

Seriously. The moment I committed to reflecting on my time-wasting objectively and compassionately—no matter how flagrant, reckless, or consequential—was the moment I started actually getting better.Suddenly, my derailed work sessions had meaning. They were useful. They were filled with crucial information—information I needed to better understand myself, my tics and triggers, my subconscious desires, and the behaviors they drive.

So remember: your journey through all this must rest on a foundation of self-compassion.It's about experimenting, testing hypotheses, refining your assumptions.It's about getting back up after you fail, extracting the lesson, and making small adjustments.Ultimately, it's about establishing—and gradually optimizing—the specific conditions of your life: your systems, routines, and environment… the things that make it possible to live the life you want to live.

Each "failure" at getting tech sober isn't a global failure. It's not you having to start over.

It's just you learning. It's you adapting. It's you performing another solid rep.

Each attempt is you doing the work. The work needed to break free from doomscrolling, procrastination, and stagnation… for good.

Epilogue

If you've made it this far, I already know something about you.You're in pain.Maybe not right now, in this moment—but it's there.

I know because I've seen it in hundreds of people just like you. I've seen it in Reddit posts and comment threads. I've seen it in emails and DMs. I've seen it my 1 on 1s, and in the group programs I run.

So much hurt. So much frustration. So much shame, self-judgment, and self-directed resentment.There's just a lot of suffering in this world. Suffering that I too have carried for a long, long time. Suffering I now know can be eliminated—or if not, managed in a way that lets you actually live in peace.

So, at the risk of sounding like I've got it all figured out, I believe that most people could benefit immensely from the core ideas in this book. I truly wish that many find their way to becoming tech sober—or to any path that addresses desire at its root, rather than fighting it with force.

But if I could only get you and everyone else to carry forward just one single message, it would be this:

Love yourself.

To love yourself means centering your self-improvement journey around self-understanding, kindness, and compassion—rather than discipline, coercion, and pressure.

I use productivity techniques like anyone else, but I've learned from experience that none of it will ever work until you learn to love, accept, and be kind to yourself.

And I speak of self-love and self-compassion not because I'm a positivity-obsessed hippie or because "it sure feels nice." I speak of these things because they're practical.

Loving yourself is straight-up pragmatic.

Because when you love yourself, you get more inner peace.

More inner peace leads to less of a need for vices—for that numbing escape.

Less vices leads to more sustained motivation and drive.

More motivation leads to more useful action.

More action leads to a better life.

Ergo, self-love equals a better life.

In short, loving yourself causes self-improvement—and it's not the other way around, as so many people mistakenly believe.The idea that "Only once I become better with my productivity and habits will I finally love myself" is all too common—and tragically flawed.I know, because I believed it myself for most of my life.

To build good habits and leave the harmful ones behind… to make the world a better place… to live in peace and happiness… you must accept and love yourself first.

Period.

So, with that final message, it's time for me to wrap this up. Much love to you, and thanks so much for reading.Be well,— Simon ㋛P.S. If you've found this book useful and you'd like to help get it into the hands of others like you, there are three quick things you can do…

Next Steps

1 - Shoot me a review

Consider touching on what led you here—the specific struggle or pattern you were stuck in. What made you skeptical at first, or hesitant.When someone sees themselves in your story, they find hope that change is possible for them too.From there, share any insights that resonated—especially the ones that actually changed how you do things.

You can write your review in the message box, or—preferably—send it by email to [email protected] (a more official channel is coming soon).

2 - Share the method

I've set this site as invite-only.

That's because I want to control who has access.I respond to all questions and help requests, so this helps ensure that whoever's here is, as they say, good people. And if you're here, it means you are good people—which means you know good people. People stuck in the same cycle, who want to live a better, more meaningful life, and who'd be receptive to a different approach.

Just encourage them to check out the free preview over at techsober.me using the invite code: alumni.Or share this link, which has that code already prefilled.

https://techsober.me/?invite=alumni

3 - Become (or stay) a quarterly subscriber

Your financial support goes a long way. It not only covers hosting costs, but also helps fund paid partnerships (which, in turn, support smaller content creators), helping more people discover the method.Click here to become a quarterly (every 3 months) subscriber. So you don't get charged double, I set a trial period of 90 days.

Every bit of help makes a bigger difference than you might realize. Thanks so much for being part of this.

✌️

Review: [email protected]Share: techsober.me/?invite=alumniSubcribe: Stripe link

Your code's no good.Try again, or else click here to request access._{If you think there's an error, please email me: simon @ simond.me}

Use this form to request access.

Checking your access token...