The Book in 3 Sentences

1. Over-stimulation stops us from being able to focus and complete difficult tasks.
2. Your life is filled with addicting, stimulating activities that should be avoided.
3. By taking a break from said activities, we can start to build back our attention span and large, hard tasks will become easier and more enjoyable to complete.

Impressions

A nice, short book that got to the point. Lots of actionable tips and advice for decluttering your digital life. Jam-packed with concise information and short enough that you can read in a day. Great for people who feel like they have no control over distractions and struggle to focus.

Top Quotes

In many aspects, today’s society is designed to hijack your dopamine neurotransmitters. And, unfortunately, this is not designed in your best interest, it is designed to empty your wallet as effectively and thoroughly as possible. However, and more importantly, it dramatically erodes your ability to focus, making you feel restless and often bad about yourself. Overstimulated, you find yourself unable to do the difficult things that would have the greatest positive impact on your life and on the lives of people around you.

The key to productivity can be summarized in three words: Focus, Consistency, and Impact. 1. Focus is your ability to maintain your concentration and avoid distraction or procrastination while working on your tasks. 2. Consistency means developing the habit of working on your key tasks every day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. 3. Impact means identifying your key tasks (the ones that have the greatest impact on your long-term success) and working on them as often as possible.

Summary, Notes & Quotes

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which makes us anticipate rewards.

It is the force that makes us act.

Simply because an event triggers the release of dopamine doesn’t mean it is something we like or get pleasure from. No amount of stimulation will ever bring you the sense of fulfilment you’re seeking. Yet, many of us are constantly overstimulated, looking for the next source that could trigger a release of dopamine.

People get addicted to highly stimulating activities (such as watching video games, immersing themselves in social media or reading emails).

Under such a state of stimulation, any task that requires concentration becomes much harder to perform.

Dopamine’s role is to encourage you to act to earn the anticipated reward needed for your survival or reproduction. This is dopamine’s primary role. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the process has been hijacked, which leads to many unintended consequences,

The more our environment or actions trigger the release of dopamine, the more we’ll want our next “shot” of dopamine. In fact, this self-reinforcing mechanism is also how many addictions work.

By continuously triggering the release of dopamine through different means — such as drug or alcohol consumption — addicts actually strengthen their tolerance to such stimulation.

Thanks to ever more sophisticated algorithms, companies have become better at hooking us into their services.

Whenever you see a notification, you anticipate the reward you’ll receive when clicking on it, which triggers the release of dopamine in your brain. However, this doesn’t make you happy or fulfill you — at least not for long.

Whoever has succeeded in staying away from the internet or social media for a few days, understands what a waste of time and focus such activities can be.

Sugar is addictive but on the same level as nicotine, not drugs like heroin.

Dopamine and constant stimulation can impair your ability to think long term.

After extensive research into success, Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University concluded that long-time perspective, “was the most important determinant of financial and personal success in life.” He defined “long-time” as the “ability to think several years into the future while making decisions in the present.”

Many external forces lead us to become caught up in short-term thinking and encourage us to fall for immediate gratification. Social media, and the internet as a whole, have negatively impacted our ability to both think long-term and to focus deeply on the task in front of us.

By receiving constant feedback, whether through likes, comments, or immediate replies to our messages, we condition ourselves to expect fast results with everything we do.

No, watching motivational videos all day long won’t help you reach your goals. But, performing daily consistent actions, sustained over a long period of time will. Staying calm and focusing on the one task in front of you every day will.

To achieve long-term goals in your personal or professional life, you must regain control of your attention and rewire your brain to focus on the long term.

Build the foundations for success one brick at a time. Build them strong so that they won’t collapse at the first obstacle or setback.

Eliminate the distractions that make you feel restless. Remove the external stimulations that prevent you from focusing on the long-term picture.

In many aspects, today’s society is designed to hijack your dopamine neurotransmitters. And, unfortunately, this is not designed in your best interest, it is designed to empty your wallet as effectively and thoroughly as possible. However, and more importantly, it dramatically erodes your ability to focus, making you feel restless and often bad about yourself. Overstimulated, you find yourself unable to do the difficult things that would have the greatest positive impact on your life and on the lives of people around you.

When you’re engaging in highly stimulating activities, your brain will keep demanding more and more stimulation. As your level of stimulation rises, regular tasks will appear increasingly dull and unappealing.

As soon as you enter a state of overstimulation, your mind will play tricks on you to convince you there is no need to leave that “trance”.

The first trick your mind will play on you is to pretend that returning to work will be easy. In most cases, you won’t be able to get back to work for hours.

Another trick your mind will use is to tell you that you can do your task later. If you don’t fight back, putting things off will become a habit.

Excitement doesn’t equal fulfillment. Make sure you work on developing an inner sense of peace and a heightened state of focus. This is much more likely to bring you fulfillment in the long run.

Opportunities are everywhere. There will always be more in the future. Thus, if you “miss” a piece of news, were unable to join a particular event, or failed to watch your favorite YouTuber’s last live video, it’s okay.

As you go through your day, take note of whenever you fall into these traps. Awareness will help as you start to work on lowering your level of stimulation and becoming more focused on your goals.

The Detox

The solution to tackling your major tasks is to reduce your level of stimulation. This is what the dopamine detox is for.

Dopamine detox describes the following process: The reduction of stimulation to prevent overstimulation and put you in the proper state of mind to tackle major tasks.

When you’re overstimulated, you simply need more external stimuli for the same amount of dopamine to be released.

You need to remove the following things from your life for 48 hours: Drug/alcohol consumption, Exercising, Internet, Movies, Music (except perhaps for relaxation music), Phone, Social media, Sugar/processed foods, and Video games.

Here are some suggestions to fill the time: Going for a contemplative walk, Journaling, Meditating/relaxing, Practicing awareness exercises, Reading (except stimulating read perhaps), and Stretching exercises.

The first step to implementing an effective dopamine detox is to identify your biggest temptations and distractions.

The harder something is to access, the less likely you are to do it and vice-versa. You must redesign your environment to make undesirable behaviors more difficult to engage in while making more desirable behaviors easier to conduct.

I recommend you start first thing in the morning before becoming overly stimulated. I’ve noticed that if I check my phone or access the internet upon waking up, I will probably become distracted. I also recommend you create a morning routine to help you start your day on a positive note and with a strong focus.

During your dopamine detox, I encourage you to take notes. If you feel restless, write it down. If you experience an urge to check your phone or to watch videos, write this down too. That way, you’ll be able to identify your biggest sources of stimulation and learn more about the way your brain works.

When we’re constantly busy and overstimulated, we sometimes fail to take a step back. We can’t see the forest for the trees. Use your dopamine detox as a way to zoom out.

Reflect on your goals, Assess how you’re using your time, Self-reflect.

Just putting your thoughts on paper can help you declutter your mind and gain clarity. More generally speaking, dedicating time to thinking each week can make a major difference in your life. It can prevent you making big mistakes and save you a great deal of time and energy. Therefore, refuse to let busyness be an excuse to avoid reflecting on your life.

Our never-ending search for stimulation is often an attempt to hide our fears.

Being intentional with your day is an effective way to boost your productivity. When you take time each day to decide what you want to accomplish, you limit the risk of distraction.

You don’t need fancy tools to plan your day. Simply write down a few key tasks you must achieve today. Make sure these are key tasks that move the needle forward. You’ll notice that your most important tasks are often the ones you want to do the least.

Schedule one major task to work on each morning.

The key to productivity can be summarized in three words: Focus, Consistency, and Impact. 1. Focus is your ability to maintain your concentration and avoid distraction or procrastination while working on your tasks. 2. Consistency means developing the habit of working on your key tasks every day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. 3. Impact means identifying your key tasks (the ones that have the greatest impact on your long-term success) and working on them as often as possible.

Productivity can then be defined as having consistent focus on your most impactful tasks.

A simple daily routine will help you condition your mind, help you feel more in control, and lower your stimulation. As a result, starting work will become easier.

Be at the same place at the same time each day. Choose a specific trigger to get you into the mindset of working.

If you can start work on your tasks for a few minutes, you’ll likely build enough momentum to keep going.

When you work, remove all distractions. Work continuously, without interruptions. I recommend forty-five minutes of intense work as a maximum. If you want to do several sessions, take a five- to ten-minute break between each work block.

An open system is simply an application or situation that provides you with a continuous and never-ending supply of external stimuli. Some examples are emails, Facebook, YouTube, and, more generally, the internet as a whole. Whenever you enter an open system, you risk becoming overstimulated.

With open systems, there is no end to reach, no point at which you can ever be finished, and an almost infinite number of ways to become distracted.

What are closed systems? These are systems that offer little or no room for distractions. As a result, they force you to work on your task—and only on it. Some examples are Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, or PowerPoint presentations.

I start my day with a closed system, and I encourage you to do the same.

What you do first thing in the morning matters far more than you think. Just one tiny decision can have a dramatic effect on your day’s productivity.

If you’re not careful, you’ll inevitably relapse. Old habits die hard.

Self-awareness is the key to making lasting change. The first step to avoid or limit relapses is to notice whenever you find yourself becoming overstimulated. You will probably relapse after a few days, weeks or months. And this is completely normal.

Understand the battle between you and your mind.

Beating yourself up won’t help you build a successful daily routine.

Understand that the world is against you.

Think of all the ways you are likely to lose your focus and revert to your previous behaviors, and guard against them by creating a contingency plan.

To prevent overstimulation, cultivate the “here-and-now” neurotransmitters, which include endorphin, oxytocin, or serotonin. These neurotransmitters are the opposite of dopamine neurotransmitters in that they make you feel calmer and more present.

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