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, to 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.Why do you want to work hard and achieve your goals? Why is it so important? Why were you put here on earth?Until you do, you’ll stay stuck repeating the same patterns.

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 reading long-form a lot less daunting and more enjoyable.I hope you come to agree.

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

It’s purpose is to break down that what gives? predicament into clear, digestible pieces that just make sense... then to provide a solution that actually works.

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 also 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 about the creative projects, business ideas, or lifestyle goals that would lead to an awesome life.

You'll then understand why that pattern repeats over and over. First for weeks, then months, and now years.You'll come to see why you're seemingly content to let your youth flit by with nothing to show for it; why you’re stuck 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 is to expose to you exactly what's happening. It's to dig deep and uncover the actual root causes of your time-wasting habits and chronic underachievement.

That's Part 1, The Problem.It's a 20ish minute read, of which you can get about half-way through before hitting the 29$ paywall (minus any promised discounts).

I suggest you go through it. 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 yourself and all your past failures.

From there we can get to a solution.Part 2, The Solution, is a 75 minute read. It provides a systematic method that addresses these root causes 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 it, you won't have to do it alone.

↙ See the ⓘ icon that just appeared?

Well, first it's there to provide an interactive table of contents if, after reading, you want to come back to a chapter.But scroll to the bottom for a text box with which you can ask me anything.

Like 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.

It's a win-win. Reaching out with questions, feedback, or updates on your journey and struggles helps me learn how the method is working out in the real world, which then helps me refine the method, improve the writing, and add supporting material.

So don't hesitate to hit that button at any time.

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 ditch your old ways in favor of working hard to create the life you were born to create, you fear that it'll all be too much.

You fear a life of sacrifices, strict rules, and rigid routines—a set of interventions you realistically won't want to keep.You worry that this is going to ask a lot from you—that you just won't have what it actually takes.You doubt you even have the capacity for change and improvement. That, as it always happens with you and self-help, you'll take 1 step forward, but then 19 steps back.

I get it.

These are valid fears. You’ve tried to rein in your habits before and it sucked. Ultimately, you failed.

Just know that I've walked that path myself—not just for like a month, when I was eighteen, before turning my life around and starting 11 companies.

I just wasn’t that guy.

No, I was the guy who got hard-core hooked onto Reddit way back in 2007, then YouTube soon after.I was the guy who tried to get better using every self-improvement program I could find, but who always failed.I was the guy who almost gave up. Who almost decided to surrender to a life of apathy, depression, and regret. Who almost lost everything.

But then I found a way out.

I mean it took a long fucking 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, angry, and frustrated.

It took everything I had, basically.

But I found a way out.

And so can you.

This book. It's here to show you the way.

And I'm 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. Then 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 as heck 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 may not yet ring true to you, so let’s fast-forward another hour to see the vice in action again.

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. You do the damn work.

Nope.

You get hit with 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... yeah, it’s still sitting right there beside you.

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

On the contrary. This is you reacting on a survival instinct. A survival instinct that kicks into high-gear when it senses a threat.Sitting down and doing the work? That takes time and effort, but you need relief now. And 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.

That’s 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 weaves 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.

It becomes a cycle. Distraction, pain, relief. Distraction, pain, relief.Which is bad in and of itself, but with each cycle, the consequences of time-wasting intensifies, and with it the drive for escape.

Before long, you're completely ensnared in a vicious closed-feedback loop.

I call it the Doomscroll Feedback Loop.

As with all addictions, the drug both causes and cures the disease.

The poison is also the antidote.

And that, dear reader, is how you end up doomscrolling.

Source: Adam Ellis comics

Chapter 2: Why you procrastinate

In the previous chapter, I had you first imagine yourself sitting there being productive with some work.But maybe even that requires a stretch of the imagination, as being productive and motivated in any measure is hard to come by these days.

So, what’s going on?Why do we often (always?) lack energy, drive, enthusiasm, motivation—not just for our school or job obligations—but also (and sometimes especially) for the things we care deeply about, like a fun creative project or a clever business idea?

Why can we not "just do it"—if only to prevent the inevitable stress, panic and ill-consequences of procrastination?

Recalling the prologue narrative, why doesn't setting grand goals, doing visualization exercises, and watching inspirational videos actually work for us?

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 has its origins in 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 is important… but it’s the stuff of inspiration. And 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, on the other hand, is the domain of the subconscious. It’s where expending precious energy gets the green light. Without it, you'll feel blocked and unable to get any work done.

Imagine this with a car analogy.Inspiration is pressing the gas pedal—and you might be flooring it if you have a David Goggins audiobook going.

Motivation is the car's fuel injection system.It's located way deep in the engine such that you have zero direct control over it. It includes an electronic console that “decides” to pump and inject fuel to the pistons, which, when ignited, is what actually propels the car forward.

Now, I’m not saying it’s unimportant 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 any fuel when prompted to.

And that's your real issue. That’s what’s causing you to feel lethargic, uninterested, and demotivated. That’s what’s causing you to procrastinate to no end. And that’s what you need to fix before anything else.

Motivation Suppression

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

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 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 drives us to put in work, to take on tasks and missions when opportunities arise. This system has us expend energy, to put in hard work… all in the pursuit of survival-affirming rewards.

For the pleasure of food, you had to hunt.For the pleasure of intimacy and sex, you had to socialize and risk being rejected and ostracized.For the pleasure of status, you had to acquire resources and form alliances.

All of which took a lot of energy.But, if it all worked out, a satisfying reward would come. And it was always just worth it, meaning a tight and fair balance evolved between the reward and its cost.

But that’s all changed in a blink of an eye.

With today’s vices, we trick our brains into perceiving that these base needs are satisfied with virtually no work or risk.

For the pleasure of food, there's DoorDash.For the pleasure of intimacy and sex, there’s porn.For the pleasure of status, there’s social media.

Every single one of our physical and psychological needs can be “met” through the shortcut of a vice—a consumable product that can trick our brains into delivering a reward via artificial or vicarious means.Today’s tech, food, and entertainment industries have left no stone unturned.

For thrill and adventure, there are video games.For the gratification of acquiring knowledge and being part of an opinion-aligned tribe, there's Reddit and TikTok.For the satisfaction of contribution, there's slacktivism and virtue-signaling on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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

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

Sounds amazing, right?

In many ways, sure, 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, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Chronic procrastination and underachievement have become real societal issues.But without the frame of reference of what our lives were like before all these modern vices, we're left to blame it all on our apparent impulsive, lazy, and indulgent nature.

But that’s neither true nor fair.

Because we just 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, aren’t careless. You, the real you, don’t lack discipline or self-control.You're just being cognitively impacted by vices. And you're not even realizing it.

Hidden Consequences

We humans evolved in a world of scarcity. Conserving energy was a matter of life and death. We're thus super averse to expending energy without really good reason.

I mean, it makes sense.A lioness is not driven to chase a herd of aggressive gazelles if she just ate a giant zebra steak. An elephant is not motivated to walk for hours under a hot sun 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 the entire afternoon indulging in your vices—consuming junk food, social media, video games, streaming content, porn—and experiencing all sorts of rewards?What message is your nucleus accumbens (the motivation center that guards the fuel injector of motivation) 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 series of office memos:

As a result of this messaging, the motivation center will squash any request from your cerebral cortex (conscious mind) to use up energy.

It just won’t let you do more work.

It doesn't matter if your conscious mind is flooring the gas pedal, demanding the burning of calories.It doesn't matter if your conscious mind is stressed and panicking about the impending doom of reckless procrastination—about the consequences of neglected projects, assignments, or exams.It doesn't matter if your conscious mind is pointing to the potential for real, earned, satisfying rewards that come from actual life achievements, rather than observed vicariously through a screen.

Your subconscious—the electronic console responsible for pumping and injecting fuel—is utterly convinced that you’re surviving exceptionally well, and that you need to rest.

Doing the work is simply non-negotiable.

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

Vices lead to a short-circuiting of your motivation-to-reward pathway.

They decimate the need for motivation and work to survive. They lead to psychological impacts, greatest of which is that near-constant state of lethargy—that dismal, “ugh I just don’t feel like it” sensation.And when you don’t feel like it, you can’t help burning away time—that is, until something external—some real and urgent survival threat like getting fired or expelled—reactivates your dormant motivation system, and gets you to cram in the work.

In short, you procrastinate.You procrastinate... to survive.

Chapter 3: Why you Stagnate

So, what's the solution to all this?

How do we un-suppress our motivation? How do we cure the disease of lethargy, inaction and all the procrastination it causes?And how can we stop our binges? How can we prevent the flywheel of the Doomscroll Feedback Loop from starting up in the first place?

It's obvious right? Trivial even.

Cut out the vices.

Log out of accounts. Delete the apps. Set up website blockers.Stop with the artificial stimulation. Stop with the meaningless slop. Stop with the endless distractions.Just remove the source of all that stifles you into a life of doomscrolling, procrastination, and stagnation.

Because, without vices, your world would finally open up to all sorts of amazing possibilities.

And it wouldn't even take all that long.After a day or two, you'll feel lighter. More clear-headed. Just all around better. And as that happens, your natural motivation will begin to creep back up.

From there, you'll start showing up to things. You'll start having some solid work sessions.Give it a few weeks, and you'll have formed some solid habits.

With consistent motivation and routine habits, you'll generate serious momentum towards your goals.Give it a few months, and you can begin ticking them off.

As for the work itself? Well, none of it is forced. None of it is coerced. None of it is done through willpower or self-control.Just honest, natural flow towards real rewards and real benefits.

Toward you living your best possible life.

Simple, right? Easy peasy.

Well... not exactly.

Cause this won't be your first rodeo trying to cut out vices, will it?You've already recognized that they're negative and draining—that you barely enjoy them anymore so it's hardly worth it.You've already suspected some brainrot-type impacts to your attention-span, intellect, and interests.You’ve already made ardent promises to quit or cut back. To stop wasting so much precious time.

But it never sticks.

All your pacts, promises, and resolutions?They never last.You keep going back—even when you know better.

Especially when you know better.

Source: Butterscafe comics

Same old habits. Same patterns. Same loops. Same regrets.Question is, why?

Like a moth to a stadium floodlight

For the longest time, I was that guy in the webcomic. I was that guy approaching vices—all casual and non-chalant—despite knowing I'd get caught in a trap of endless doomscrolling.

And I didn’t know why.I’d mostly let go of the usual self-critical refrains—the stories about lacking self-control, being lazy, gluttonous, or weak. And yet… I kept sliding back into the same patterns.Why was I still stagnating through life, despite knowing exactly what quitting would give me? Despite genuinely, desperately wanting to change?

The answer, it turns out, can be found by considering the life and times of, well...

a moth.

See, moths are simple creatures.During the day, they prefer to hide and sleep, so it's at night that they venture out to find some food.

Problem is, it's dark. And their little bug eyes don't provide the best vision.So they've come to rely on the brightest object in the sky for orientation, which is usually the moon.

Now, if we were to observe one of these moths in the wild, we might define—at any given moment—an action path. It's the path that best keeps it away from predators while moving it toward the most food.We might call this the "Appropriate Path".

Thing is, our little moth friend doesn't need to think about any of this. It's not weighing pros and cons or consulting best-practices flowcharts.

No. Taking the Appropriate Path—the one that’s best for survival—has simply come to viscerally feel right. It's what it prefers to do.

Millions of years of evolution have made the Appropriate Path perfectly aligned with the Preferred Path.

How do I know all this? Like, how do I know moths aren’t secretly skilled in critical thinking?Well, it’s because humans came along and introduced something entirely new to their environment.

We added artificial lights.

With these lights, nothing fundamental has changed.Food still needs to be found. Predators still need to be avoided. The moon's still happily glowing bright in the sky.The Appropriate Path—the one that ensures survival—stays exactly as it was.

What has changed, however... is what feels right for the moth—what, to him, he prefers on a visceral level.

Artificial lights are brighter, warmer, and closer than anything else in the night sky. As such, they disorient the moth, causing it to fly in erratic patterns as its reference point—once steady for millennia—just won't stay put.All the while, he’s super confused. Because, at every moment, he's still doing what feels right. His looping feels purposeful. It feels like survival. It feels like his only way out.

But it’s not.It's the opposite. He's not acting with purpose. He's not surviving. In fact, he's at risk of collapsing from exhaustion or else getting tangled up in a cleverly positioned spiderweb.

Simply put: the Appropriate Path—the one aligned with survival—has been wrenched apart from the Preferred Path.

Millions of years of painstaking evolution... undone with the flick of a switch.

It’s easy to scoff at the irrationality of moths. It's like,C’mon man… clearly that bright, hot light isn’t the damn moon. Why don’t they ever learn and adapt? Moths are pretty stupid.

Okay, fine. But, are humans...

...really that much better?

I know. Funny stuff. Relatable too.But let's back up a bit—add more context for that punchline.

Yes, us humans have big, complex brains.Yes, we can forecast and reason and make plans.Yes, we're more sophisticated than moths… but mostly because we don’t use a physical point in the sky to orient our actions.Instead, we direct ourselves with a metaphoric one—one we might call our North Star.

Our North Star represents our highest ideals and values. It’s what we believe will guide us, not just to financial security (aka survival), but to our aspirational identities, to our goals and ambitions, to the most meaningful experiences and satisfying rewards life has to offer.

Having that kind of internal compass, oriented towards a better, more ideal and rewarding future, is also an evolved survival adaptation.We’re tribal by nature—so whether our goals are vain (like acquiring and displaying material wealth) or selfless (like caring for the vulnerable), it’s all to our species’ greater benefit.

So... through millions of years of evolution, our Appropriate Path evolved to be tightly aligned with our Preferred Path.

Which is great because humans, like all animals, are driven to act based on subconscious preferences—on quick, visceral, I want to do this now type feelings—not on slow thinking and logic.We act on what feels right, not what’s rationally best.And that system worked fine for millions of years… that is, until we introduced something to our environment that’s as new, foreign and disorienting to us as artificial lights are to moths.

We introduced vices.

Vices are infinitely brighter, warmer, and closer than our faint and distant North Star.Because they promise survival rewards faster, easier and with less risk (see Chapter 2), they've come to yank our sense of what we prefer to do completely out of alignment with what's actually appropriate.

And not unlike the moth circling a porch light, this gets us ensnared in endless dopamine-driven loops of wanting, approaching, consuming.

This happens because there’s nothing to pull us away. There's no real finish line. No sense of completion.On the contrary, the more we consume, the more it feels right—despite all evidence to the contrary—so we keep chasing and looping and doomscrolling until we collapse from exhaustion.

This point is super important, so I’ll say it another way:With vices, the signal for reward—and therefore survival—is fucking loud. Louder than the quiet call of our North Star.

Today’s vices are to us what a searing 10,000-watt stadium floodlight is to a moth.

Source: Jeff Atwood (I think... if you know the actual artist, let me know).

So it feels right to go after it. It lights up our dopamine pathways, then proves its worth with every instant hit of amazing gratification.

Source: ADHDinos, posted to Instagram

And now, through years of repetition, reinforcement, and habit-building, you've come to greatly prefer it over all other options, including what would be aligned with your North Star values and ideals.

But the actual potential for survival benefit? It's nonexistent. Apart from the odd life-hack Reel or whatever, there's no actual substance to gain.

Not only that, with enough time and exposure, it leads to survival detriments.Chronic use leads to the financial risks of procrastination and underperformance. To the pain of stress and anxiety. To the physical harms of a sedentary lifestyle.

Vices lead to survival threats.

Of course, just like our moth friend, we're biologically wired to eliminate any threat on impulse.So we circle back to our vices. Because doing so feels right. Which then amplifies the survival threat, so it feels more right, the preference amplifies, and we return once again.

Then again. And again. And again. Until...

Well, there is no "until".Some of us can spend our entire lives aimlessly spiraling around vices.

Source: Mindblownuniverse comics

Your preference for vices keeps you stuck

You stagnate because you prefer the actions that make up a life of stagnation.

This is you on your pursuit of happiness, doing your very best with what you were given, just like everyone else out there.

That's the short of it anyway.

Now, you might disagree.You might say you hate your vices. That they're ruining your life. That they make you miserable and patently unhappy. That you've long ago lost interest and enjoyment in them, so saying "good-riddance" forever and ever is the most tantalizing idea ever.

What you actually prefer is a life of productivity and consistency. Of meaningful work and the active pursuit of goals. Of fun low-tech activities and outdoor adventure. Of real socializing with real friends doing real activities to feel real emotions.

You'd 100x prefer to follow a value-based North Star.You'd 100x prefer not live your current life—a life of stagnation. Of isolation, boredom, misery, pain, and regret.

And that's true.But what you're neglecting to see is how you can have two incredibly strong preferences at the same time, even if they are in direct conflict with each other.It all depends on the context.

For example, you can prefer to never again scratch a mosquito bite because every time you do, you overdo it, you bleed, it makes a mess, it's embarrassing... but you can also prefer, in the moment of an all-consuming itch, to scratch the living shit out of a bite.And you can prefer to have lots of vitality and rock hard abs and super cool and popular friends... but you can also prefer eating comfort food while watching old shows and ignoring texts from Taylor asking you to leave the house to do stuff.

Source: Slothilda on Instagram

In more general terms, you can prefer both the thousands of individual "Micro" instances of indulging... while also preferring a "Macro" life of avoiding vices and following your North Star.

That's because, at the core of your seemingly irrational Micro-level preference, is one inescapable truth: today's vices are fcking good.

Today's tech, media and entertainment industries are investing billions to make their platforms as enticing, stimulating, and gratifying as humanly possible.

What they produce—or, more precisely, what their hordes of attention-addicted content creators produce—is straight-up good.Not all of it, of course. Not even most of it.But the top 1% of the top 1%? The content that rises to the surface through the complex interplay of engagement data and AI algorithms?That stuff is undeniably enjoyable, interesting, and sometimes even genuinely fun—at least when it isn’t veering into rage-bait or emotional manipulation.

Denying this reality—gaslighting yourself into believing you hate all of it in the hope you'll want it less—just isn't helping.

And that's just the half of it.

Modern vices aren't just good for the sake of fun and entertainment. As discussed in Chapter 1, they're also really good at providing relief and escape from all of life's stresses.

Your boss sends a scathing email questioning your commitment.Your calendar reminds you of all the impending deadlines and exam dates, but you can't even muster up the motivation to pick up a pencil.Your crush leaves you with those dancing dots for the second day in a row.

Or sometimes the discomfort doesn't even have a discernible cause.Sometimes it’s just the random, unprovoked pain and unease we’re all made to feel—worries, anxieties, insecurities, despair… the background refrigerator-hum of the human condition.

Either way, you then grab the TV remote, or open TikTok, or pile carbs on a plate... and poof, all of that no longer exists.

Bottom line is, when given the opportunity, you prefer to consume your vices. You prefer them over the alternative. Over missing out on something legitimately enjoyable. Over having to sit with discomfort.

And you’re always being given that opportunity, with endless on-demand feeds just a tap or a click away.

So you go for it. You consume them without any hesitation.

And it feels good and right—more good and right than any vague, distant notion of preferring a life of discipline and sacrifice.

This doesn't happen just once or twice in a day. It happens hundreds of times. Maybe even thousands.

Which then repeats for weeks, then months, then years.

Which then results in your current life.

A life of utter stagnation.

Deciding to change

So the faint glow of your values-based goals and aspirations is nothing compared to the stadium floodlights of vices.

Yet you keep trying to disregard the pull of your vices because, well, what else can you do?

Like you're not about to give up on a better life. You're not quite there yet.

So you make the usual set of pacts, promises, and resolutions… followed by the standard recitation of self-help affirmations:

I can do this.All it takes is to just not do what I know is bad.Just ignore those desires. Ignore how it feels. Ignore my primitive wants and "preferences"—it's all based on lies and manipulation; on mega-corporations doing all they can to hook my attention and have me look at stupid ads.

Do it every day. Make a plan and stick to it no matter what.And if I succeed... well, I'll be happier than I've ever been.

And then you try. You really do try, because you know in your heart of hearts that it'll all be worth it in the end... if you could just stick it out.

But what happens next?

Well, naturally, the first few days suck, right? You have to deal with the incessant onslaught of urges and cravings towards what you'd clearly prefer doing, all using self-control and constant reminders.It's an uncomfortable, perhaps unbearable mess—like trying to bar yourself from scratching a throbbing mosquito bite, all while the ultra-marathon-running-ex-navy-seal author's yelling in your ear like,

!!! c’mon man, shut up and just don’t do it.

Meanwhile, outside the habit, life continues to swing from demanding and stressful, to routine and boring.But now? Relief is denied. YouTube. Reddit. Video games. All of it is off-limits. There is no temporary escape.

You just have to sit there and take it.

The first few days feels like an awful, pleasureless, even annoying existence; a prison of continual self-monitoring and restraint.And so, you can't help but daydream about the little innocuous things that would give you a break from it all.

It's never long before your thoughts arrive at:Is this what my life will be like now? Is this how it's going to feel? This feeling… it... sucks. You know, maybe I don't want to quit after all.

But still, perhaps that post-it note you tacked to the bottom of your computer screen reminded you to power through with grit and determination. Never underestimate the power of will.The misery could be endured, the cravings resisted, the thoughts ignored. You knew this would happen. Just keep going.

Problem is, with those thoughts endlessly pestering you, plus life delivering its usual gauntlet of stress, boredom, and disappointments, your inner desire and preference for vices only goes up with time, not down.

To make it beyond day 1, then day 2, then day 3, then day 573... you need to have more and more and more of an ability to resist.Eventually... you give in. No one (but that navy-seal author I guess) has a limitless supply of willpower. All it takes is a convenient little rationalization to present itself:

Bah, 5 minutes on Reddit won’t kill me. In fact, it might make me less grumpy and fidgety, thus more productive.

And with that taste, the dopamine fueled hit—the feeling of blissful relief—feels better than ever.This further solidifies in your mind (literally, through the insulation of neural pathways) that your vices are wonderful, life-saving, beneficial things, and that life without them is not worth living, and that, you should just be more flexible and intentional with your consumption, and, well, what the heck were you thinking, anyway?!?

But then that first indulgence ends. Which leaves you feeling vaguely guilty and flustered.

So you try to recommit to abstinence, but before long you justify a little more. But that leaves you feeling worse, so a little more, and well... you know the rest.

Here’s the grim reality: every time you try to quit your vices, you end up driving up your subconscious preferences for them over time.

Like sure, you can fight temptation using conscious willpower, but for how long? How much stamina do you really have?

Maybe it's time to do the opposite.Maybe it's time to do what it takes to drive your preference down with time, not up.

Your ability to resist—your self-control, your willpower—it is what it is and there’s not much you can do about it. But the preference side of things—what truly prompts cravings and drives irrational, self-sabotaging behaviors and compulsions—that can be manipulated to your advantage over time.

The key is to gnaw away at the deep mental wiring responsible for the preference towards vices so that one day you’ll be 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 can 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 needed.

That, dear reader, is the promised land. That's the mental re-programming that needs to happen in your life for any behavioral change to stick.

As I said at the beginning, your problem is not your self-control or self-discipline. Your problem is your innate preference for all these hyper-addictive modern vices.You need to drive those preferences down, while driving your preferences up for good lifestyle and productivity habits.

And you do this not by learning a bunch of theory—you can’t think your way out of preferences.You do it by adopting a self-compassion-focused mindset and sticking to a steady, day-by-day game plan, along with the right damage-control measures for when life throws its usual curveballs.

That’s up next.

PART 2 - THE SOLUTION

Chapter 4: Step 0 - Change your mindset

Alright, so you’re a couple of taps away from getting what you're ultimately here for: the solution to your doomscrolling, procrastination, and stagnation problem.

But before we get there, I want to say a few things.

First, I hope everything you’ve read so far has landed well. I hope you’re starting to feel a small wave of relief—relief that your past failures, setbacks, and embarrassments weren’t really “your fault” in the way you used to believe. There were larger forces at play.And I hope that gives you enough room to offer yourself a bit of self-compassion. Maybe even some self-directed forgiveness and love.

But I also want to acknowledge something that might be lingering there in your thoughts: that relief may only be 10% of what you’re feeling right now.The other 90% might be overwhelm. It might be self-doubt. It might even be a deep discouragement given all that's now stacked against you.

Like how can we even manage in a world of ubiquitous, never-ending vices—vices that are always right there in our place of work. Vices that, through taking in all this data about you, are now hyper-optimized specifically for you?

Of course, I don’t want you to feel that way. I want you to feel like you’re in good hands—that you’re about to be equipped with a mindset (this chapter), a game plan (next chapter), and damage control techniques (chapter after that) that directly tackles every cause, every obstacle, every biological and psychological force working against you.And you are in good hands. You can manage. I’ve spent years wrestling this serpent of a problem to the ground, hashing out a solution that actually works.

But I want to be very clear: this problem is complicated. This problem runs super deep.There is no quick, easy, pain-free solution.

Solving this thing is going to be challenging. The journey will be long, bumpy, full of obstacles, setbacks, and frustrations.You're going to think it's not working many times over.

So we might as well make this reality part of the method. Might as well make that the first element of the required mindset.

Mindset element 1: This journey will be long and difficult

Again, I'd rather be real with you.

It's tempting for me to pretend I have some magical solution—some line of advice I can just whisper in your ear, and poof everything is just fixed in your life.

But I don’t. And I never will. And I’m 10,000% convinced no one else will either—no matter how many books they sell, or how productive, accomplished, or enlightened they claim to be.The reality is that your problem runs deep. Like really, really, effing deep.

And I mean that literally: a scientist could probe the inner workings of your brain and find thickly insulated neural pathways associated with your doomscrolling, procrastination and stagnation issues. And these pathways have been painstakingly formed and myelinated through years (decades?) of repetition and reinforcement.Short of lobotomizing those parts of your brain (I know a guy if you want), there is no easy, quick fix.

And so, because of that wiring, your mind will resist change. It will have you gravitate back toward tried and true habits. Toward ways your primitive brain learned—wrongly of course—is the absolute best and quickest way to survive in a cold, dangerous world of energy scarcity.Your subconscious will sabotage you and your neat-little efforts and intentions to be the new you. And it'll do so in ways that'll make your blood boil (and there's no better cure to boiled blood than a sweet-sweet Netflix binge).

So.

You just have to accept and anticipate this.You just do.

Because when life throws at you a refrigerator sized boulder at your face—and it will—you need to know it's okay to struggle. It's okay for everything to just collapse. It's okay to feel like you're back to square one.

It's okay to want to curl up in a ball and cry.

It's okay because all this junk and struggle is now part of the process. A process that will take weeks, if not months to really take hold and bear fruit.

Slip-ups, failures, frustration... it's baked right into this method.

Might as well get used to it.

Mindset element 2: This journey will be iterative

When it comes to a self-help campaign, it’s natural to want—and maybe even expect—clean, linear progress, even if that progress is slow.

But this isn’t some 14-days-new-you™ program where you do X, Y, Z until you get the advertised results.

Those programs always feel promising, but in reality you do X a few times, Y turns out to be too hard or cumbersome, and Z just plain doesn’t apply to you.Then, when the whole thing fizzles out, it’s your fault—not the magical, one-size-fits-all system.

We’re not baking a cake here. There’s no simple recipe you can follow for a predictable outcome.So instead of a straight, linear system, we’re going to take an iterative approach to self-improvement. That means you do something for a while, you fail, you extract the lessons, and then you try again—perhaps with a few tweaks.

Progress looks more like this.

There’s no pre-set rate of progress.No time limit.There’s not even the ambition or expectation of some end goal of perfection—some fantasy result where you’ll one day have consumed your vice for the very last time, and from then on you’ll be flawless in your lifestyle and productivity.

Let that go.

In fact, it's paramount that you let go of keeping count of streaks (i.e. days in a row without engaging in a particular vice).Remember, the point of the method is to come to a point where you’re ambivalent towards your vice. Where you could take it or leave it. Would someone who shrugs at the sight of TikTok bother counting days at all? Probably not.

So all that said, let's take another look at that plot.

The aim of this method, as in what we want to see roughly over time, is illustrated by the arrows.

What we want is a gradual widening of the iterations: more time spent where you're consuming your vices in a reduced state (blue periods)… and a gradual drop in the duration of binges (orange periods).

Eventually you will get to an iteration that spans several days, or even weeks (or more), but this may take several tries and lots of time, months or longer for most, and that’s perfectly okay.

What’s important is the overall trend. We want—overall, on average—for each iteration to get a bit wider than the ones before it; for your "failures" to not be so bad each time; for you to be able to pick yourself back up and start-over faster and emotionally better.

Mindset element 3: Instant and unconditional self-compassion is mandatory

The method is analogous to meditation. And the rules of meditation are pretty straightforward.

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

That’s it.

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

Of course, this unspoken rule directly contradicts the one hard rule, but somehow the practice still holds.That's because with meditation, it's not just okay if you falter; it's entirely expected. In fact, the act of "picking yourself back up when you falter" is itself the practice.

There's just zero need for self-criticism. Because a side goal of meditation is to detach and observe firsthand the frenetic circus that is the mind. Random thoughts and reveries are natural and expected.Self-compassion is not just what you should do to be nice to yourself, in meditation it’s actively required.Without it, you’d get frustrated at how often your mind wanders to thinking about your grocery list or that work deadline. That frustration then becomes more mental noise—more thoughts, more emotion—pulling you even further away from the practice.

No, our job with meditation is simple: sit and observe it all happening inside... then try your best to maintain focus, gently reining it in when it deviates.

It’s the same for you and your commitments to change your habits.

As you'll see in the next chapter, Step 1 of this method will be to set your rules and commitments—and these are to be clear, concrete and unambiguous.Once set, and just like in meditation, you're never "allowed" to deviate and break your rules.

No exceptions.

But don’t ever forget that you are human, and humans evolved to act on instinct; to be flexible and agile when it comes to planning; to grab at survival rewards quickly before they vanish.

You simply need to embrace the unspoken rule that says: it’s "okay" to slip up. It’s "okay" to deviate.

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 scroll, spiral out, and 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—again just like in meditation—self-compassion is actively required.

Remember: much of the reason we actually engage in our vices is to relieve or distract away bad feelings. So if you lose the stress and regret of your willpower failings, you lose much of the inner turmoil and pain that, ironically, leads to more vices.

So I'll say it plainly:As with meditation, the skill to gain with this method isn't the ability to sustain perfect adherence to the rules.No, 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.

Going a bit deeper on the topic, if you were to think of meditation as a type of strength building exercise, what do you think a "rep" would be?

It wouldn't be the act of pure sustained focus.No, a rep would be the act of gently reverting your focus when your attention deviates.

Therefore, slipping into distraction isn't perceived as a "bad" thing . It's not you "failing" at the practice, even if occurs at a relentless clip.It's the opposite, really. In meditation, what's truly important, what actually counts, is you applying self-compassion and doing the work to revert your focus.

And it really is work. Sometimes the thing pulling at your attention can be super intense (itch on the tip of the nose), important (add 'milk' to grocery list) or tantalizing (fantasy of you impressing your crush).

Regardless, with meditation, the more you slip, the more revert your focus, the more "reps" you do, the stronger you get mentally.

It's the same with this method.

To grow and become strong, healthy, and resilient—fitness markers that are all essential to sustain positive changes to your behavior—you need to put in the work. You need to do what's at the periphery of your ability many times over.You need to perform your reps.

And, just like in meditation, "reps" happen, not when you're living perfectly. Or when you manage a flawless 30-day streak with a new habit. Or when you whiz through an 8-hour work-session unperturbed by impulses to do something else.

No, a rep happens when you get the inkling to grab your phone but you decide not to.

A rep happens when you "catch" yourself midway through a video on YouTube, pause to exhale out any reflexive frustration or self-criticism, and revert your focus back to the task at hand.

A rep even happens when you fail spectacularly—when you, say, doomscroll and waste an entire workday—but then you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, offer yourself forgiveness, and recommit to the process.

The last chapter of this book goes into greater detail on managing each of those levels of distraction, but for now just remember, the work of this method isn't the total time spent being perfect. It's the work you put in to manage your imperfections.The work is every act of self-directed kindness, understanding, forgiveness.

In short, what you're about to do here, perhaps for the first time ever, is to start a habit of leveraging your slip-ups and failures—rather than usual, which is allowing these events to feed your usual harsh and judgmental personal narrative, thus digging you deeper into your rut. This is what I mean by damage control.

Mindset element 4: Train your preferences to be context-specific

We all have preferences.Whether it's a slight inclination (Coke over Pepsi) or an overwhelming bias (browsing Reddit over doing your taxes), one thing's always certain...

You can’t just change a preference because you feel like it. Because you decided to. Because you, like, ought to prefer one thing and not the other.

Your preferences live in the subconscious. They’re prepared and stored in parts of the brain you don’t have direct control over. You can't just say, “From now on, I'll prefer Pepsi over Coke,” and magically make it true.

And yet, as we saw in the previous chapter, we make the assumption that we can change our preferences, especially in cases where they cause us so much struggle and suffering—when they're downright inappropriate.

We also assume that, with enough grit and determination, we can just decide to prefer working (over our vices) when we sit down to get our work done.

But that assumption is wrong.It never works. It’s never long before our genuine and moment-specific preference for indulging overrides whatever good intention we had. Which then leaves us vexed and frustrated by our "irrational" choices.

So I’ll say it again: changing a preference, no matter how inconvenient or ill-advised, isn't as simple as deciding to change it.

But that doesn’t mean they’re set in stone.Preferences can be altered and eventually reversed. We do this by challenging our preferences in very specific and controlled contexts.

If, through repeated life experience and the gathering of evidence, we establish them as inappropriate—and if the alternative is proven as appropriate—then we change our preferences for those specific contexts.

Sounds complicated, so let me explain it better through a couple examples.

I love soft drinks. I absolutely love them. As a general rule, I'd prefer an ice-cold Coke over just about any beverage. It's no contest, and there is no intervention in the world that could ever change that.

But I rarely drink them with dinner anymore.

In fact, for that specific context, I prefer not to. I prefer a tall glass of sparkling water, tons of ice, with a slice of lemon.

Question is, how did I get there? How did I build out this context-specific preference?

Well, water isn’t as gratifying as an ice-cold Coke. I can't change that. But the aftermath? Coke makes me feel sluggish. The caffeine leads to insomnia. And its high sugar content clashes with my long-term fitness goals.For a typical weeknight dinner, sparkling water is the appropriate choice. That's my clear-headed, Macro-level hypothesis.

From there and across hundreds of dinners, sometimes drinking Coke, but usually not, I collected a ton of empirical evidence that validated that hypothesis.Through all that, through a ton of repeated real, visceral experiences, water has slowly migrated towards what I honestly prefer on weeknights.

But invite me to a burger joint on a Saturday and I’ll gladly order a Coke. That preference is still there. It's also, for me, wholly appropriate all things considered.

The same deal applies to me and YouTube—one of my biggest vices.

Right now, while writing this, I actually prefer writing over watching YouTube.Like I have the requisite motivation—my subconscious has green-lit the expenditure of calories. I don’t need to use discipline. I don’t need to cajole myself. I’m just abundantly down to write.

This isn't always the case, of course.The preference isn't there when I'm knackered or lacking in creative energy. Nor when it's Saturday morning, and I'm sitting cozy on the couch with a coffee, a charged-up iPad, and the pre-set plan to have a lazy, vice-filled morning.

But right now in this context, working on this writing project is what’s appropriate and what I'd prefer to do.YouTube, as fun and gratifying as it can be, is neither.

That doesn’t mean I’ve banned YouTube from my life. I love YouTube—just like I love Coke.I think it's both important and useful to admit that. To not pretend otherwise.

I’ve just trained my preferences in favor of advancing my longer-term goals… for this specific situation.

When it’s the right time, YouTube is great.When it’s not, it's just not. I’m not depriving myself. I’m doing what I’d prefer doing.

And that's exactly what I want for you. For your preferences to be context-specific. For them to gradually realign with what’s appropriate.We can work on that. We can train your preferences. That's what this method is about.

Mindset element 5: Initiate and then manage the internal Macro vs Micro tug-of-war

I like to designate one day per week where I allow myself to fully indulge in my tech vices without limit. On other days, I do my best to abstain.

I prefer this over trying to moderate myself throughout the week. Forcing myself to stop when really I'd prefer to continue scrolling is a big drain on my willpower—and frankly, just plain annoying to deal with every day.

This is just what works for me... which isn't what's relevant.What is relavant, however, is how I landed on this one-day-a-week rule.

It wasn't from reading it in a book. Or hearing it in a podcast. Or finding it hidden in an academic paper.No, I got there through trial and error. I got there after many iterations of the method; many attempts at trying daily moderation, or else pure abstinence. Many good days and bad days. Many successes and failures. Many objective data points.This is simply what I landed on after all that. What's both sustainable and aligned with my goal of living my best life.

Now, is that what's best for you?

Maybe, maybe not. I honestly don’t know.But what I do know is that, if you commit to the process, if you do what you can to apply the method earnestly and with as much patience and self-compassion you can muster, you too can land on exactly what's best for you—what will lead to your best life.

And what exactly does this process look like?

Well, think of it like a game of tug-of-war.

On one side, you'll have your Macro self:“Here is a North-Star aligned grand vision for the best possible life. And here are the hard rules and commitments to make that happen...

I know it looks restrictive. I know it lacks a bit of spontaneity and quick hits of instant gratification... but trust me, the sacrifices will be worth it. The investments will pay dividends. The restrictions will be freeing.Stick to this path and we’ll be rewarded in unimagined ways."

On the other side, looking bored, you'll have your Micro self.*Shrugs*."Okay dad, whatever you say. Let’s see what happens in like an hour."

It's from this starting point of tension that the ref blows the whistle and the game begins.This is where you let life happen. Where you expect and therefore allow for lots and lots of internal tugging and pulling between your two selves.

At some point, you might find your Micro self saying something like:Look. This Macro initiated "zero news on weekdays" rule is kinda strict for nothing… I’d genuinely prefer checking what’s up in the world right now over my morning coffee. Sure beats sitting here, bored, wondering what’s happened.I'm going to go ahead and change this rule. Let's set a strict 20 minutes daily allowance—but give it the context of it needing to be over my morning coffee. This is what I prefer, and what, I'm convinced, is totally appropriate.

Maybe your Macro self pushes back a bit, but you, listening objectively to these two selves, decide to give the Micro self the benefit of the doubt. You decide to rewrite your rule.

From there, one of two things will happen: your Micro self will be proven right. Or your Macro self will be proven right.

If it's the latter—if this experience shows that this context-specific indulgence is neither sustainable nor appropriate—then like half of you is wrong about something.

It's not a grave moral failure. It’s not you being weak. Or stupid, or reckless, or impulsive.You made a reasoned choice using your logic and your best judgment. You tried something. It didn’t work out. Big deal.

What it is is a data point. You collected a data point. News over coffee is inappropriate.

Fine—bank it. Then move on with your life.

Of course, if it’s your Micro self who’s proven right (and that does happen sometimes) then that's great too. Your preference is confirmed as appropriate. You can take the data point and also move on.

Either way, this scenario and others like it are bound to repeat multiple times each day. Especially at first. Especially when you haven’t yet collected the many data points required to nudge one context-specific situation firmly into a quadrant.Expect this. Expect this process to take time. Maybe the “no news” lesson needs to be learned twice. Or 5 times. Or 50 times.

Maybe, on the 51st time, your Macro self will be like:"K but we did this yesterday. And the day before. We tried to moderate but then you spiraled out. And that led to you feeling lethargic and unmotivated for half the day.It’s inappropriate. Let's not do it."

Perhaps for the first time, that conviction is enough to make your Micro self agree—for the Micro level preference to also be avoiding the vice.And that’s when you won’t do it—and you’ll feel fine about it, not deprived by force or coercion. Which has you collect another solid data point (avoiding a vice in this context feels good!), further solidifying the altered preference.

To summarize before moving on... what you want over time, over many contexts, over many iterations, is this:

Convergence. Convergence towards an ideal dose.

Like your Macro self will want to live a pre-planned strict, ascetic, and productive life.Your Micro self will want a spontaneous, stimulating, pleasureful life.

Neither is right about everything. Neither knows what’s actually best for you. Both are prone to make a ton of assumptions that can be proven right or wrong.You need to let them fight it out. To submit them to the realities of life.That’s the only way to collect objective and empirical data points of what’s appropriate and what’s not. That’s the only way to zig-zag your way towards that optimal middle ground of you living your best possible life.

Over time, and with enough patience and self-compassion, your Micro and Macro selves will come to agree.

They will converge.

Chapter 5: Steps 1 to 4 - Apply the mindset

For two weeks in the early summer of 2016, I ate nothing but—clears throat—potatoes.

That’s right.For 14 days, I ingested potatoes, water, and nothing else. No oil, no salt, no ketchup. Just potatoes.

I did this half as a joke, half as a sort of experiment.Now, I obviously don’t recommend trying this. But the whole thing ended up being as revealing as it was ridiculous.

I've been on countless diets before and since then, from hyper-regimented paleo-keto-something programs, to the vague "I just need to eat cleaner" intentions. And this one, this ludicrous potato diet thing, was the one and only one I’ve ever stuck to without a single instance of cheating or slipping.It was also surprisingly easy—fun even.

You probably didn't expect that. I certainly didn’t.I pictured myself on day eight, emaciated, hair thinning out, sunken eyes glaring at a cursed potato sac, musing maniacally—through the mental fog of severe protein deficiency—what it would take to nuke the entire state of Idaho.

But that didn’t happen.

On day eight, I was fine.By then, I had down pat my little routine of toasting the little wedges just right—Yukon golds became my fave-favs—to get that nice outer crunch and steamy-soft center.By day 12, I had the giggly thrill of ordering a plain baked potato, no oil, no salt, no nothing, at an Irish pub.

Then, on day 14, it was simply done.Sure, I was happy it was over, yet I wasn’t pining for the misery to end.I just went back to normal food—first thing I had was a celery stick which, wow, pure flavor explosion—and I moved on.

Anyway, once the ordeal was over, I spent some time reflecting on why the experiment was so unexpectedly easy compared to my other diet experiences. Therein, perhaps, lay some nugget of Yukon Gold wisdom.

I realized two things:

It was so counterintuitive.This was, by far, the most restrictive I had gotten with food, and yet it never felt like I needed to force myself or employ willpower.I was just curious and having fun. I had a mission to accomplish, stupid as it was. Avoiding junk food in particular—the stuff I assumed I was addicted to—was easy-peasy. Abstaining was what I simply preferred to do.No. There was always something else going on with my bad habits, relapses, and binges. And now I knew it had nothing to do with self-control.

Think about it.

Think about the last time you sat at a nice restaurant. Perhaps you were at the start of a health kick with a renewed intention to "eat better" and consume less junk.From the moment you sat, to the moment you were handed the check, you were constantly affronted with a flurry of options—decisions to make while balancing your goals of “eating better” versus "enjoying life to the fullest".

No sweets, but is diet soda okay?Beer has carbs, but is that like sugar? How about wine? I heard it's good for you.I've been good all week, maybe I can cheat a little and get a small Coke now that I'm at a restaurant.Damn. There's the bread. I really shouldn't... but we can't let it go to waste...Blueberry cheesecake you say? That has pro-oxidants… or is it anti-oxidants? Either way, I need that stuff to not die, right?

On and on, all night, your mind is nagged to make decision after decision after decision.

The problem is, as soon as you rationalize something once—okay, a little dessert is fine, even if I promised to cut-back on sugar—you set the precedent, giving your subconscious permission to do it again and again.

As the days go by, the excuses pile up. Your rules and boundaries weaken and widen, and soon enough, you're back to your previous lackluster eating habits.

Isn’t that what life feels like 99% of the time?It's this eternal conga-line of decisions to make, judgment calls to weigh out, rationalizations to swat away like pesky flies. Like making a choice between forty-two types of toothpaste at the pharmacy, it can all get quite exhausting.

Compare that to my potato-diet. For that thin slice of my life, it was all so wonderfully simple and liberating. I had but one, easy, 1st-grade-level question to consider when it came time to eat:

[Holds up a can of soup]… Is this thing a potato? Nope.[Holds up an apple]… Is this thing a potato? Close but again no.[Holds up a potato] … Is this thing a potato? Ooh! Ooh! I learned this in Miss Spiegelman’s class! It is, it is! Okay, into my mouth you go, Mr. Potato man. Num num num.

So, what's the lesson, here? What's the “advice” we can extract from my ridiculous experiment?When beginning any self-improvement journey, it’s crucial to do all you can to reduce the instances of decision-making in your daily life.It's better to decide once, than have to make 1,000 decisions all day.

So that's where we'll start.

Step 1: Decide

So the first step of this method is to decide.

Decide what’s in and what’s out. What’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate.Decide in exactly what context it’s cool to indulge (and for how long), and in what contexts it’s appropriate to buckle down and get stuff done.

Getting to such decisions involves glancing up toward your North Star—toward your goals and aspirations. Toward your values. Toward what, in the bigger scheme, is important, meaningful and worth your time and energy.

Think about who you are now, and who you want to become. Imagine the path needed to get there—the daily routines, rituals, and processes of the long journey.

Specifically, you’re looking to produce a crystal-clear set of rules and commitments.

You don’t want vague instructions like “consume less tech” or “work out more” or “be more productive.”Remember why my potato diet was so "easy" despite it being the "hardest" diet possible. Zero decisions. No thinking. The simplicity was the strength.

How you do this step, how you write out your rules and commitments, is completely up to you.

On paper is fine.Digital is fine too.It just needs to be visible wherever you do work.

It also needs to be modifiable (or else quick to scrap and redo).

I like to keep a simple Notion page (feel free to duplicate). I then take screenshots, chop it up in Paint, and set a horizontal version as my desktop background. I like having my commitments right there when I start my work sessions.

The definition of irony is assigning a bunch of homework to a group of people whose precise problem is the inability to do homework.

So all you need at this point is something concrete and written to start with (and this is the only one of the steps that requires any actual homework).

And don’t worry about getting it right. Because you won’t.This is just a starting point. This is your least accurate guess at what your best life might look like.

Think of it like machine learning: you pick an initial model, one that’s basic and essentially “dumb”. You then run it in the real world, see how it performs, collect the data points, and then iterate on it multiple times to make it smart.

Just start with something, anything, and roll with it.

Work-sessions rules, weekly exercise goals, daily habits like journaling, going for walks, cooking, caring for your pets. Whatever.

Just start with something, anything, and roll with it.

All that matters is you enter the next phase with an open mind. With the willingness to experiment and observe and be as kind and patient with yourself as possible.It’s through this process that you'll begin to discover what matters to you: what you find interesting, meaningful, worth pursuing.It’s through the dissatisfaction of the status quo that you’ll grow a desire for change. To test out small, simple modifications. And to let them gently grow and stack until you reach an optimal level—your optimal level.

So if you don't know what you want, that's perfectly okay.

Let the journey ahead be your teacher.

Step 2: Wait

Part 1 of this book made some pretty bold claims. It basically stated:

You know that demotivated sensation that hits you right when you want to work?You know how you struggle to maintain focus without getting bored or distracted?You know how you're stuck, stagnating in a rut of procrastination and underachievement?

Yeah, well, all that’s caused by one thing: by your vices.

Therefore, if you managed to end your bad habits; if you managed to spend enough time away from vices, then you can come to expect the opposite:

Newfound levels of drive, energy and productivity!New realms of happiness and peace of mind!Never-before-experienced periods of deep concentration; of deep work.

You’ll be transformed into the newer, better, awesomer you!

Problem is, that transformation... it doesn’t happen. Not right away.In fact, cutting out your vices after making the decision to do so, which by now you might already be itching to do, will likely leave you feeling worse than before—not better.

I think you already know what I’m talking about.Just recall the last time you vowed to cut out your vices.

Since you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume that your previous attempts failed. It may have happened gradually or all at once, but at some point, you simply reverted to your old habits. Feeling frustrated and self-critical, you instinctively blamed yourself for your lack of self-control and discipline.

Yet, it was actually the unexpected arrival of negative feelings—discomfort, unhappiness, irritability—and the thoughts, urges, and excuses they provoke, that caused everything to unravel.

Laura McKowen describes this perfectly in her book We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life:

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... More than once, I called in sick to work because I simply could not drag my body there… I slept eight, ten, twelve hours a night… And although I would have occasional bursts of almost manic energy… mostly I felt like I was slogging through mud.

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: write more, start a podcast, start my book, fix up my apartment, clean my car, paint my bedroom, find a boyfriend, live—but most days, I could barely make it through the afternoon without crying.

You need to expect this. Expect the Vice Flu.

Why? Because it's during our darkest moments of mental confusion and frustration that the first spores of rationalization and excuses begin to form—like mold and rot that thrive in dark, damp environments. It's there, in that place, where you'll first encounter that twisted little thought, like:

“You know… maybe this whole 'Giving up social media, video games and junk food' thing isn’t a great idea. I mean, look at how crappy and tired I now feel. I’m worse than before.Maybe I’d be better off—happier, more at ease, and even more motivated—if I took back my innocent little pleasures. Maybe I don’t want to stick with these commitments after all.”

With thoughts like these, no amount of “willpower” or “self-control” will help. Once rational excuses form, once you return to a belief that you’d be better off with your vices than without them—because you’ve found evidence in those awful moods and feelings—it won’t be long before you give in and fall back to your old habits.

I’m tempted to use the term ‘withdrawal effects’ here, but that’s not it.

Unless your application of the method involves giving up drugs, alcohol, or huge amounts of sugar, you’re not going to experience any physical effects. Yet, even in such cases, withdrawal effects—though potentially intense and dangerous—are temporary and treatable aspects of recovery.So, what’s up with this sudden drop in happiness and well-being? What is it that, as McKowen puts it, weighs you down and gives you flu-like symptoms?

You have to understand that you began your bad habits for a good reason.

They started long ago, probably in your early adolescence when you learned that indulging in your vices could provide an escape from everything that pained or troubled you: insecurities, stresses, disappointments, worries, anxieties.

Maybe they also offered a respite from painful memories; from trauma, abuse, neglect, and the relentless pressure of your parents and their impossible expectations.

Or maybe it didn’t start off that way.

Maybe, like me, you started playing Super Mario because it was fun. Yet, it didn’t take long before your subconscious began to associate 'fun' with the added bonus of 'escape'. 'Fun' was etched in your brain as an easy way to pacify, for a while anyway, the stress, discomfort, and insecurity we all begin to feel as fledgling humans in a big, cold, and scary world.

So, now as an adult, you game for fun and as a means of escape—that is until it's past 2 am and the game has long stopped being enjoyable and is now just a means to delay the onset of a cold, dark, and punishing reality.

Simply put, you learned to use your vices as a coping mechanism. And it worked—it still works. It's just that now, the habit itself provokes its own slew of ill consequences, such as the stress and panic of procrastination, the regret of wasted opportunities, and the health effects of a sedentary lifestyle... which, in turn, demand increasingly doses of vices for relief and escape.It’s natural that, once you quit or cut down on your vices cold turkey, the pain and discomfort they so expertly suppressed will creep back in, resulting in an 'I’m doing worse now' living experience.

So if the issue is the sudden arrival of negative emotions, what, then, is the solution?

First, just becoming aware of this is extremely important. This whole phenomenon truly is unexpected. As you embark on the application of the method, anticipate and brace for negative sensations and thoughts, which might arrive on day two or three and last a few days to a week.

When it hits, treat it like the flu. Let time pass. Give yourself permission to rest and to sleep. Give yourself permission not to start a million good habits, not to chase your dreams just yet, not to get all busy and productive just because you stopped the bad stuff and that’s what everyone says you need to do next.Whoever first said that it's important to replace bad habits with new, good habits never had it as bad as we have. They never experienced the Vice Flu.

So, don’t pretend to be all swell, chipper, and grateful for every blessing of a breath, just because you’ve convinced yourself this is how you’re supposed to feel now that you’re “free” from vices and bad habits.

Just allow what is to be.

Allow time to pass, and since that won’t always be easy during Phase 1, give yourself permission to “tier down” with your vices.

I found a common, yet oddly unspoken theme in pretty much all the sobriety memoirs I’ve read throughout the years. Once the writer has given up alcohol, they allow themselves to indulge in lesser comforts. Think Netflix binges curled up under layers of blankets with a Costco bag of Sour Patch Kids.

They do this to help cope with the bad feelings the alcohol once pacified. And such behavior is perfectly okay, for a while at least, because all that matters is they get through the difficult early stages of abstaining from their worst and most impactful vice.

To help get through the discomfort of reducing your vice intake, give yourself full permission to "tier down" with your vices.

Tier 1: The Hard StuffTier 1 vices are the more traditional and destructive behaviors, many of which have been around for centuries. These include alcohol and drug use, smoking, and gambling. These behaviors are often highly addictive and can have severe consequences on one's health and life.

Tier 2: The JunkTier 2 vices are seen as relatively benign, but as discussed previously, their impacts are insidious and occur gradually. Examples include streaming TV shows and movies, YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, social media, junk food, and porn.Tier 2 vices serve to provide shortcuts to specific survival rewards like sex, gains in status, or thrill, whereas Tier 1 is aimed at anesthetization with more generalized feelings of well-being.

Tier 3: The Passive StuffTier 3 vices include reading books, listening to music or podcasts, solving puzzles, engaging in hobbies, healthy snacking, and taking online courses. They are not harmful and can even provide benefits when done habitually. Nevertheless, they can still be considered vices in cases where they are used as a means to escape temporarily from discomfort.

So, if right now your vices happen to be Netflix binges and Sour Patch Kids (i.e. Tier 2 vices), then go ahead and allow yourself to indulge in a fantasy novel or lie down while listening to an old rap album you loved as a teen (i.e. Tier 3 vices).

As you’ll learn next, dealing with the source of the bad feelings is going to be difficult and quite taxing, but nobody has the stamina to grind through this 24/7. You can’t be faulted for needing to take a break with a little distraction.Just ensure that the consequences of your coping vices are an order of magnitude less than the consequences of your original vices.

That’s the key. When "tiering down," what matters is that the medication's side effects are acceptable relative to the original issue.

Sure, you might gain weight after quitting cigarettes, but that's better than gaining a cancerous tumor in your lungs. You can deal with that later. And sure, you’re still procrastinating if you're listening to old CDs all day, but that’s better than continuous dopamine-driven hits from TikTok doomscrolling.

The purpose of this period is to allow the motivation suppression of Tier 2 vices to dissipate. We just need to kill some time until the seeds of “wanting to work” take root and begin to sprout. You can do this with any Tier 3 vices of your choosing.

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

Sit on your couch. Stare at the wall.Go for a long walk.Take a day trip out in nature or amidst the bustle of Main Street.

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

You can do this by simply observing. By “looking at” your feelings and emotions. By sitting with your frustrations, stress, regrets, worries, and fears. By listening to the thought loops without judgment.

Feel the cravings. Feel the drive toward vices and relief. Get curious about what all that feels like in your body.

And when they inevitably arrive, “look” at the feelings of hopelessness, apathy, or depression itself.

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

This is different from how you and I normally live.Normally, yeah, we might “go” to the circus. But we find ourselves tossed into the ring with the obnoxious MC, evil clowns, and hungry tigers.So, think of this as an occasion to attend the circus—that mandatory human experience—while giving yourself permission to just sit up in the stands, observing the noise and chaos from a distance.

After a little while, if it gets boring, repetitive, or intense, step out of the tent and go for another walk, crack open a book, or listen to a podcast. Come back for a little more mindful self-therapy as needed.

Last little thing to consider before moving on.

You know what I find to be both the strangest yet most consistent thing about recovering from tech addiction and dealing with depression?When I find myself waking up refreshed and optimistic—when I’ve made it a solid two, three days without overindulging in my vices, or when I've gotten the ball rolling with a few focused work sessions or workouts—I can't imagine a future where any of that could change. The notion of going back to a dark and depressed rut feels impossible; the idea of watching crappy YouTube or TikTok videos for hours is absolutely repulsive.

The reverse is even more true.

When I'm feeling down and out—when the dark clouds of hopelessness, self-contempt, and disinterest obscure everything positive; when my motivation is down to negative 1,000 and it feels like I couldn’t pry myself away from my vices—I’m utterly convinced that this is how I will be and feel forever. I can't imagine a future where I am happy, energized, and free from my compulsions.

In short, how I feel mentally at any given moment is how I expect to feel forever. Any deviation is unfathomable.

But your inner state is never permanent. It changes, often for no reason at all. It just ebbs and flows like the ocean tide, despite often feeling like a storm with no end in sight.I mention this to remind you that your Vice Flu periods (yes, there will be more than one) won’t be permanent... even though it’ll feel that way—and it will feel that way. Time will pass, and so will the sentiment and its accompanying gloomy outlook.

The flu period will suck. It will be hard. It will feel like you’ll be stuck feeling that way for life. So, when you're caught up in it, just remember that things will get better.Whereas in the past you may have reached for your vice to relieve these bad feelings, only for them to come back even worse, this next time you will just observe it and let it run its course.

This time, you'll know what to do.

Step 3: Accept

Let’s take a step back for a moment to consider the bigger picture. Let’s come back to why you decided to read this. Why you decided to, yet again, learn about and then apply a self-improvement method.

Because it’s not just about vices. It’s not just about time-wasting. It’s about what you’d do with that time. What you’d do if only you had drive, motivation, and desire to get stuff done.

To put it succinctly, you don’t like your current life.

You don't like the way things are going—from your day-to-day behaviors and habits to your vision of what your life will look like a month, a year, or five years from today.So it makes sense to want to use that dislike; to leverage it and get it to induce self-discipline and propel you toward a better life.

Perhaps you’re on a career path that doesn’t interest you. At times you friggin' hate it. So, you want to use that hate to push you into working on something you’re actually passionate about.

Maybe your self-image is at an all-time low. So, you want to use that dissatisfaction (or even disgust sometimes) to drive yourself toward better habits.

And, of course, you compare yourself to others—we’re human, and that’s just what we do—so you want to use the envy and resentment to fuel your actions and get a slice of their happy pie.

Like I said, this sort of logic makes perfect sense.I don’t like and accept the way things are going today... therefore I will change using that dislike and discontentment as fuel. I will use the negativity—the pressure, resentment, the pain of regrets, and the pangs of yearning—to climb out of my eternal rut.

The thing is—and I learned this the hard way—this doesn’t work.

That’s because motivation isn’t fueled by negativity—by the unaccepting of what is right.

Negativity does only one thing: it drives you to vices.

But wait. Unsatisfied people do make changes, right?

The obese guy loses 150 lbs. The alcoholic cleans up and now spends her time supporting others. The delinquent teen changes course and becomes a successful entrepreneur.

How?Like, if it’s not because they despised their lives or even themselves, how did they go about making change?

Well, here’s the thing. Here’s what took me years and immeasurable struggles, pain, and denial to realize and fully accept: Positive changes in behavior, leading to tangible life improvements, only happen if you are perfectly content with the way things are.

Let me say it again.

Positive changes can only happen once you’ve accepted the way things are.

That makes zero sense, right. I mean, why would anybody make changes if they were content with the way things are?Well, you can see it as another one of life’s cruel paradoxes—one that makes perfect sense once you experience it.

See, motivation only works forward. It won’t show up if you’re obsessed with wanting to move away from a life or career path you hate and resent.

It’s a cat. It won’t come if you chase it—if it senses your desperation and neediness.

No, you just have to let it be. You have to find your way to being at peace with the present moment and accept the way things are.

Only then will the cat of motivation present itself.

What usually happens after you procrastinate bad for several days straight? What usually happens after the guilt and regret subsides; after the anxiety and panic have run their course?

You stop. You close your eyes. You take a few calming breaths.

You then have a moment of lucidity—maybe even telling yourself to let it go, to accept what just happened and get moving to fix it.After a few more breaths, you reach a point of determination. Time to make some plans. To act. To tell yourself, “Okay. First I’ll work on this, then I’ll work on that, and then I'll get to work."

That's all good and great… but there’s a simple reason why that never works—why it backfires into even more wanton time-wasting (right up until you legitimately have zero time left to burn).

It's because, in those moments, you weren’t actually making plans. You were setting expectations.And expectations, when unchecked, are absolutely deadly.

This is what we need to avoid during this waiting phase. It’s the most important function of acceptance—what it, and only it, has the power to counter.

Thing is, expectations aren’t bad in and of themselves.In fact, the individuals we admire, those who tirelessly hustle and execute and have come to achieve incredible feats, do so largely due to the exceptionally high standards they set for themselves.

However, their high expectations are matched by an equally high level of innate motivation. Put simply, there's never any gap between their expected productive output and their actual capacity for productivity.There’s no Expectation Gap.

Meanwhile, when you frantically make plans to crush it as soon as you sit down because of how much you've been procrastinating, there is an Expectation Gap—and a huge one at that.

Now, you may be thinking,“I don’t know. When I’m feeling all resolute and determined, I have motivation in droves. I really want to get to work. I’m beyond willing to sit down for hours, to concentrate deeply, and get stuff done.Motivation isn’t my problem here—self-discipline is.”

But that’s just not the case. That sentiment is driven by inspiration. And inspiration as you may recall from Part 1, is not the same thing as motivation.

So when you want to be able to do something, but something in you is preventing it from happening, it creates a very real and painful inner discord. Which is of course frustrating and stressful.And frustration/stress are like any other bad feeling: your brain knows they can be relieved quickly and effectively through your vices.

So, because of a deeply ingrained subconscious preference toward safe and quick relief options, you will engage in more screen time; you will beeline it to the pantry for unhealthy snacks. It’s not a choice you get to make, any more than yanking your finger from a hot stove is your choice to make. Deeply ingrained neurological pathways are involved here.

And so… while you do the required waiting of this method, you’re going to need to employ a little self-discipline—but not the way you might think.

You’re going to need to be disciplined enough... not to work—to not get started, even and especially when you feel the determined pressure to get going and catch up.

Look. We all put so much pressure on ourselves, it's unreal.

Whether this stems from our own personal standards or from the combined weight of societal norms, parental demands, and professional/academic obligations, one thing is beyond certain: pressure never actually helps.That's because pressure can only translate to high expectations. And high expectations, when unmatched by our motivation levels, lead to our vices.

This creates a vicious cycle. The more we fail to meet our high expectations, the more our subconscious drives us to our vices as a coping mechanism. And the more we rely on our coping mechanisms, the more our motivation gets suppressed, which detracts from our ability to be productive, further widening the Expectation Gap.

As you do the “waiting” prescribed in each iteration, I invite you to experience what it’s like to let go and “just be.”

I invite you to observe things as they are, now, today, live.I invite you to scrutinize and challenge all of your long-held beliefs about who you are, the role you’re asked to play, the predicament you find yourself in.

If you manage to do this, if you find a way to just be in the present moment, I can promise you’ll find yourself having an unprecedented thought, like:"Huh. You know, this isn’t so bad...

If I focus on this thin little slice of the present moment, I can see that I’m not actually lacking anything.I can accept this reality as it is right now. There really is nothing to “fix” here."

Sure, your outside stresses, responsibilities, and worries will still be there. Sure, the wounds of your past failures and traumas will not have fully healed. Sure, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done.But if you’re anything like me, it’s our ruminations and self-imposed pressures to fix this and improve that, that cause most of our pain, anguish, and anxiety.

We’ve convinced ourselves that the only way to relieve that pain and anxiety is to take MASSIVE action. So we sit down to work, but then we get completely stifled by our suppressed motivation, plus the regret of having procrastinated, plus the overwhelming feeling of how much there is to do, plus all the super harsh stories we tell ourselves. We hit this enormous brick wall, where we feel both viscerally deflated and demotivated, and urgently panicked to fix things.

This leaves us confused, frustrated, and crushed.

This leads to vices.

No more of that.

Seriously. I urge you to take a different approach this time around. I urge you to let go of all the pressure and expectations you put on yourself. I urge you to just be. All that negativity and pressure haven’t been working. It won't work this time. It won't ever work.

Let it go.

Mindfulness, the act of gently and objectively observing what’s going on inside, will help you reach that state of calm acceptance. When combined with maxed-out patience and self-compassion, mindfulness will teach you to see that right now, in this present moment, things are okay.There might be discomfort. There might be pain. There might be pressure to get things done. But things are okay. They're always okay. You can breathe. You can be. You can accept.

Acceptance isn't a delusion, by the way. I’m not asking you to lie and gaslight yourself into believing everything is great and exactly how you’d wish it to be.It's just about seeing reality exactly as it is right now—and unless your house is on fire, right now isn't actually house-on-fire awful. You can accept it.

And acceptance, paradoxically, leads to the motivation to make things a little better. Motivation—pure, unforced, naturally cultivated simply by avoiding vices and waiting—is the fuel you need to get moving toward a better life.

Step 3: Try

Let’s zoom out for a minute; see where we’re at in terms of applying the method.

Step 0 was to take in the requisite mindset elements. At their core is the understanding that this isn’t a one-and-done type of program. Your first attempt is just that—the first of many—each iteration ending with what I call a Reset (more on that in the next chapter).

Once you’ve absorbed the mindset, you move on to the first step: Decide. Here, you set the hard rules and commitments of your life—the North-Star-aligned path you believe will lead you toward your best possible life.

From there, your vice intake drops to an acceptable level, either through sanctioned, context-specific indulgences or through tiered-down vices as you wait out the Vice Flu.

Throughout this period—and as you do the patient work of acceptance—your productivity may continue flatlining at or near zero. This is because your self-imposed expectations are also intentionally set to a hard zero.

This state is both acceptable and inevitable.Past vice indulgences carry momentum that can last for days or even weeks, and as a result, your motivation and capacity to be productive will likely linger near zero during this phase.

You just have to ride it out. Or, as the little mantra I like to repeat during this period goes:The cure to procrastination is to procrastinate a little more.

I really can’t stress this enough. Throughout this process, you’ll need to assess—and reassess—your motivation levels before engaging in any work or activity. You do not, under any circumstances, want to create an Expectation Gap. Expectations are the silent killer in all of this.

As such, your expectations for productivity—which are within your control—must always be set at or below your current capacity for productivity (i.e., your motivation), which is outside of your control.

At some point, though—it might be a few days in, or it could take a week or more—this will happen:

That’s your first real blip of motivation.

This is a good thing. It means the process is working; you’re progressing.But it can also be extremely dangerous.

The temptation here will be to leverage these blips of motivation to immediately ramp up your productivity.

As the popular self-help saying goes: “Motivation follows action. Just start, and the motivation to continue will manifest itself.”And for the longest time, the “just start” preference has eluded you. But now, suddenly, here it is. Finally.Finally, you can get a ton done.

Like I said—this sentiment is beyond dangerous.

Because we all carry around an idealized version of ourselves: the version that’s finally super productive.Maybe it’s you making a clean list of tasks and tackling them calmly, in order of importance. Maybe it’s you spending the day practicing your craft in a focused state of flow. Or maybe it’s you finishing your work efficiently, leaving the office right at five, hitting the gym, cooking a healthy meal, and enjoying a relaxed, clear-headed evening.

That vision is great. And yes, this method is working toward it.But you won’t have reached it by the time you get to Step 3.

Bummer, I know.

In those first moments when the Vice Flu starts to break—when the dark clouds thin out and a few rays of optimism and confidence start to shine through—you’ll likely feel something you haven’t felt in a long time: hope in your own capabilities.That’s good. That’s exactly what we want.

This is where you'll naturally, effortlessly, expectationlessly get a tiny bit of work done—easy stuff, fun stuff—all on your own.

And it doesn't have to be work-work. It can—and perhaps should—be lifestyle stuff... exercise, chores, self-care.Go ahead and allow this self-propelled trend to continue for a few days. But anticipate a fair amount of wobble. Some days will be better than others. This is normal. This is okay.

Just don’t get carried away. Don’t let it inflate your expectations beyond your still-fragile, still-budding motivation levels.

Don’t let an Expectation Gap wipe out everything you’ve just achieved.

Your motivation won’t have fully recovered to baseline yet. You might feel worse on day 15 than you did on day 12. Anything is possible.So during this phase, you can create a to-do list with your important but non-urgent work—the stuff you really hope not to procrastinate on. You can “show up” by sitting at your desk and cracking open a textbook or opening a word processor.

Same goes for lifestyle stuff. You can go to the gym, or lace up your shoes and step outside for a run.But you can’t expect yourself to do much—if anything at all.

This is what I mean by try.

Step 3 is not do. It’s try—and I don’t give a damn what Yoda has to say about it.

If the motivation and desire just aren't there or don’t last—if your preference hasn’t really clicked in—then you need to bounce.

Never force it.

I promise you, after a few days' time you will, on all fronts, find yourself more productive and consistent than you’ve been in months.

When you get there, you’re free to dust off that time and task management system that promised to 10× your productivity. You can make clear, elaborate plans to knock it all out, one task at a time. By then, you’ll have the motivation—the subconscious permission and preference—to burn calories and get stuff done.It’s then that a healthy medium-level of expectations is okay.

But when you get to Step 3, you just won’t be there yet.

So, keep your expectations at minimum.Like if at any point you run out of juice, if you feel yourself gravitating toward a distraction, you have to give yourself permission to bounce from the work.

You’re playing a long game here. Forcing yourself to barrel through feelings of resistance using willpower may work for a day, but what happens when you want to do it again the next day (because you should be improving daily, right?).What happens when you show up, but just don’t have the willpower?

You get the Expectation Gap... which leads to stress and frustration... which leads to a preference-based impulse to relieve the stress and frustration… which leads to the Doomscroll Feedback Loop… which leads to a resetting of much of the motivation suppressing effects.

So don't do it.

Plan your work... but never expect the work.

I know this can be frustrating to hear. Like, it’s nice for Simon to create this process where he can take his time transitioning between phases, doing zero work, staring at the wall while listening to a bunch of audiobooks… but I can’t live like that.I’ve got deadlines fast approaching and responsibilities up the yin-yang. I’m already stressed. I can’t afford to drift through weeks of zero expectations and zero productivity. I need to stop procrastinating, not in a month, but right now.

I get it. That’s 100% fair.

To this, I can’t offer you much better than, well, you were going to procrastinate anyway.Because, as long as your motivation is suppressed by your subconscious, you’re going to lack the physical ability to do your work—that is until you absolutely have to… until your survival is at stake with there being precisely enough time to get it done before it’s due.

That’s a hard and fixed reality that you can’t just escape from with some kind of switch. I can’t “inspire” you out of a deep motivation problem.

In other words, the instantaneous fix you might be hoping for—the soundbite that’ll magically propel you to take action now and forever—it just doesn’t exist. I know this because I too have watched countless “motivational” videos, seeking to be shaken awake and propelled toward taking massive action. But it never works.You need to let go of that fantasy—and I say this to you, as much as to myself.

In my experience, there’s just no way around the long and slow way of gradually replenishing and cultivating your inner motivation levels. If that means procrastinating some more along the way, so be it.

Last little point on the topic.

Motivation—in the free-flowing amounts we both crave beyond our natural baseline—ain’t free. Motivation needs to be earned.

This happens by taking care.

First take care of yourself. Get good sleep. Cook and eat well. Exercise. Practice good hygiene. Learn, create, explore. Take the time for low-tech recreation, relaxation, and play.These should be your first priority; the things you expend the first inklings of motivation on.

Next, take care of others.

Nothing nourishes the human spirit like doing good for others. It could be for your immediate circle, but also for your community, people of the internet, or the planet. Whatever floats your boat.

Positive action leads to positive feelings, which lead to the desire to take more positive action, leading to more positive feelings and motivation, and so on.The more you do good, the more you want to do good. It’s a positive feedback cycle.

The way to beat a stagnation problem is by cultivating a simple and subtle desire and preference to do the work to slowly step out of your rut—it’s not by cultivating the ability to force yourself and disregard desires and preferences; to be hard on yourself, “more disciplined” or whatever.

And that happens through self-care; through doing all you can to indirectly support and nurture your body’s fuel injection system.

Step 4: Pin

It’s normal to want to accelerate this process—to reduce your resistance toward work and lifestyle habits so you’ll consistently just feel like doing them.

You can do this by 'pinning' your work to positive feelings.

James Clear talks about this in Atomic Habits. His fourth law, “Make it Satisfying,” asserts that the key to forming good habits is to make sure your brain associates them with a reward. This makes you more likely to want to do it. This is how a strong preference is born.

But, there’s a problem with this. As Clear explains, with good habits, rewards aren’t guaranteed. And when they do show up, they’re usually indirect, require lots of sustained and repeated bouts of effort, and take a long time to arrive.Unlike vices—where the reward is direct, obvious, and immediate.

As Clear writes:

"In a perfect world, the reward for a good habit is the habit itself. In the real world, good habits tend to feel worthwhile only after they have provided you with something. Early on, it’s all sacrifice."

Take, for example, a young pianist at her first recital. Receiving a standing ovation—if she happens to be talented enough to earn one—is a supremely gratifying reward.But that reward comes at the cost of thousands of hours of solitary and praiseless practice, of “deep work” to use the term popularized by Cal Newport. This is a classic example of delayed gratification.

Clear’s solution to this dilemma is to proactively attach an immediate reward to the habit—something separate but directly tied to the action. He calls these incentives, of which he provides a few examples.

When I first read this, I agreed with the concept. But on reflection, I found the practical application lacking. I was like,"Wait, am I supposed to book a $120 massage after each time I go for a jog? Or should I keep a bag of gummy bears in my desk to reward myself each time I complete a work task?"

The problem is, as established by a ton of life experience, "rewarding" myself doesn’t work.

It’s either too cumbersome—requiring extra steps that we’d do once or twice before abandoning (like Clear’s impulse-buying example)... or it just reinforces the idea that the work is tedious and not deserving of preference—which makes the resistance worse.I don’t know about you, but the idea of forever needing a carrot on a stick to entice me to do what I already know is best is not appealing. I’m not looking to treat myself like a stubborn donkey.

And let’s be honest: it’s never long before our brains decide to skip the go-between and reach straight for the sugary bait. If the gummies are in our desk drawer, we’ll eat them before doing the work.Rewards just don’t work.

But there is a way to apply Clear’s well-meaning advice. There’s a way to progressively nudge the actions you know to be in line with your North Star toward what you prefer.

It starts by realizing that what’s appropriate can also feel good.

Because Clear got it wrong when he wrote:"Good habits tend to feel worthwhile only after they have provided you with something. Early on, it's all sacrifice."

Just because an act requires effort—or even discomfort—doesn’t mean it can’t be satisfying or rewarding.On the contrary: doing something good for yourself, however small or inconsequential, does feel good.

Maybe not the first time. Maybe not every time. But the potential for immediate reward is there.

The problem is that we hardly pay attention to it.

You just need to train your brain to:

With good habits, gratification doesn’t have to come only after years of effort.It can be both immediate and delayed.

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

Now imagine that, in that fleeting moment, you stopped.

What if you zeroed in on the sensation—really took it in with your full awareness? What if you then did your best to mentally associate that good feeling with the action that preceded it: physically exerting yourself?Wouldn’t that be exactly the kind of experience you’d want to repeat, over and over again? Wouldn’t that begin to increase your subconscious desire and preference to do that kind of work—making it more likely that the energy gates of motivation will unlock the next time around?

Now imagine doing the same thing at the end of a solid work session. Or at each break.

Like if you’re using the Pomodoro method, imagine repeating this process at the start of every break—again and again.

Wouldn’t that slowly bend the activities you wish you preferred doing toward what, for you, is genuinely appropriate?

Yes, big time—and this is exactly how preferences are retrained.

Now let’s slow that down and make it practical.What I’m about to describe is a simple, repeatable way to anchor those moments—to consciously reinforce the association between effort and reward. I call this act ‘pinning’. Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Stop

Just pause for a moment. Take a few measured breaths.

Step 2: Bring your body into awareness

Mindfully observe what’s happening inside. Notice any sensations. See if there’s even a faint hint of a good feeling you can center your attention on.

Step 3: Mindfully 'pin' the sensation to the work that caused it.

With the feeling still centered in your awareness, see if you can mentally associate—or pin—that sensation to the work you just did.

Here’s what I like to do for this step (but feel free to make it your own):I stand up. I focus intently on the sensation. I point to the screen while saying to myself:“That right there. That work is the cause of this good sensation!”

From there—if I feel the urge—I let my body take over. Fist pumps are standard. Raising the roof? Approved. Stupid dance? I go where my body takes me.

Really, there’s no best way to do this. No right or wrong—anything goes. Just be sure to always point back at the screen and link the celebration to the work.

With enough repetition, you’ll find that resistance toward these habits gradually softens—sometimes even replaced by a subtle desire for them.

More broadly, with each act of pinning, you begin turning self-improvement into what it actually needs to be: a sustainable journey of small victories, subtle joy, satisfaction, and micro-boosts in self-trust, confidence, and self-worth.And it’s those feelings that pull you back toward healthy actions—toward self-care and positive lifestyle choices, toward preferring to do these things.

It sets off a subtle positive feedback loop—a kind of recursive growth in your overall well-being.

That’s the kind of feedback cycle you want to find yourself in. It’s how habits form and consistency emerges. It’s how you grow, mature, and begin to feel better in ways you never anticipated.

As I like to say:Never let a good feeling go to waste.

Chapter 6: Throughout - Damage Control

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 hungry-man 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.And so, my mind is starting to conjure pleasant memories and vivid images of me blissfully enjoying those meals.

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, and I shouldn’t be spending money needlessly.

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 North Star 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.

Sigh.

I know that one day this will be way less of a big deal.Like, my Preferred Path will have curved northward enough that I can be in this exact situation—neat rationalization and all—and feel nothing. I’ll just shrug it off, mentally fast-forwarding the movie to the post-fast-food “what am I doing with my life” bloat and lethargy.

But that day… is not today.

So, what do I do? How do I deal?

Rejections

As we learned in Part 1, we’re all born with mental wiring that uses a reward-based mechanism to motivate us to take action. This dopaminergic system has ensured our survival for millennia.

But because our vices provide artificial shortcuts to reward, they don’t actually deliver survival benefits—only detriments. This is especially true when it comes to extreme carbs-fat-protein loading of fast food.Yet the primitive brain doesn’t make that distinction. So, the preference remains intact. We continue to be driven by cravings, compulsions, and rationalizations, no matter the outcome.

So how do you get this to stop?

Well… you don’t. There’s nothing you can do to directly make those preference-based urges and impulses disappear.

But you can give them 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 preference and wait.

The more you look at it—the craving it conjures up… the impulses, the mental imagery, the emotions—the more you detach from it. You begin to see it as raw data. As a biological stimulus that may or may not be pointing you in the appropriate 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 the craving.

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

Let’s say you’re at the library, getting some work done. You open a fresh browser tab, giving you the idea to check Reddit. That’s the cue (1) if we’re following the habit model popularized by the likes of Charles Duhigg and James Clear.

Then comes the preference-based compulsions, cravings, and rationalizations (2).

When that hits, you need to stop.You need to sit there and do what you can to observe the impulse. Observe the craving. Observe the thoughts and the physical sensations. Get mindful of it all—until you're just watching without judgment.

Next, shine the 10,000-watt lightbulb of awareness on it. Scrutinize the idea. Question it from every angle.

Ask yourself,Is this actually going to help me feel better… or just temporarily relieve discomfort, only for it to bounce back worse?Am I being coerced and manipulated by outdated programming?What are the longer-term benefits of not indulging? What can I prevent here—further motivation suppression? And what can I ultimately gain—more drive and well-being? Better outcomes?

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 just misdirected primitive instincts. You know how it ends: the craving doesn’t go away after one hit—it gets more intense as it starts the Doomscroll Feedback Loop.

Which then inflates back up the motivation suppression symptoms, driving procrastination.

Which then drives your preferences back toward you stagnating.

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.

Still. Coming to that conclusion won’t make the cravings vanish on the spot. It won’t silence the mental justifications. It takes time for a visceral preference 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 will recede. Eventually, you’ll have made the better choice. Eventually, you’ll have responded rather than reacted.You’ll have exercised your freedom.

This process is called a capital-R Rejection. It’s the first of a four “Re-” damage-control interventions, all of which are crucial, not only because they prevent things from spiraling out, but because they get you to perform the much-needed strengthening “reps”.

So, going ahead, do your best to remember Covey’s words: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.

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 with the method, as your brain finds other ways to experience real reward, and as what you prefer starts angling back toward what is appropriate… you’ll just want it less. The intensity and frequency of cravings will reduce.That’s the promised land we talked about earlier. Where both preference and appropriateness are pointing in the same direction: up and toward your North Star.

You will get there.

But until then, keep using mindfulness to deal with your cravings. Keep getting stronger with each rep of a Rejection.

Before moving on, I feel the need to address the elephant in the room.

Why bother learning a self-control technique when we can just let software do the job for us? Why not make it impossible—or at least inconvenient—to engage with our most problematic vices?Why not simply set website blockers and screen-time limits?

Well, there are two reasons.The first is purely practical, involving the nature of modern tech and how tightly intertwined it is with our work.

Think about what we’re all trying to do here.

We’re trying to do good work. To create things, write things, fill spreadsheets—whatever. We do this to earn a living as professionals, or to prepare for that future as students.And all of that work has to happen on internet-connected devices—our phones, computers, and tablets.

The problem is that these same devices also happen to be our preferred delivery mechanism for vices. Whether we’re writing a proposal or doomscrolling Reddit often comes down to a single click on the same screen.

It’s a pretty messed-up situation when you think about it. Our vices are always right there, all the time.It’s sort of like asking an alcoholic to earn a living in—of all places—a bar.

Sure, we could do the equivalent of locking up all the liquor bottles...

But then it becomes hard to do our work.Sometimes we genuinely need YouTube for a tutorial on software we just installed. Sometimes we need Reddit because a niche thread shows up in a Google search. Sometimes we need Instagram to network or research someone.

Plus, even if we do manage to block the most distracting sites, our preference for easy stimulation doesn’t disappear. It just gets redirected. We soon open up another site to distract ourselves... and, an hour later, we block that. Then another site, so we block that. Then another... On and on in a twisted game of digital whack-a-mole.

And no matter how sophisticated the software is, it’s never ironclad. There’s always a way to override or disable it, which we usually do when we have a perfectly reasonable excuse—I just need to watch this one YouTube video real quick.From there, as goes the Trojan Horse story, we’re caught off guard. A rationalization slips in—one more video while this thing is disabled—and, poof, we're deep in a binge.

Add all of this up, and it becomes clear that—on a purely practical level—relying on website blockers alone just isn’t the solution.

But that’s only half of it. The other half is that relying on external tools undermines—and actively interferes with—arguably the most essential objectives of this method: rebuilding your belief in your own self-control.

Because your true problem isn’t a lack of self-control. Your true problem is the belief that you lack self-control.

When you rely on website blockers, you quietly reinforce that belief. You’re telling yourself—implicitly—that you can’t be trusted to handle temptation. You’re outsourcing acts of restraint, eliminating the many small Rejection reps that are essential for long-term growth.

So blockers don’t just block websites. They block the development of the belief that you can handle yourself. And that belief—that growing sense of self-trust and internal control—is one of the most valuable things you’re trying to rebuild here.

Once again, this is a long-term game.I’d rather you use those European-style balance bikes—so you can learn to fall while also learning to trust yourself—than tack on training wheels that may prevent scraped knees at first, but ultimately delay the real objective: learning to ride.

Now, having said all that, this doesn’t mean you can’t use blockers at all.If you have a mindless, autopilot habit—like opening Reddit every time you launch a browser—it’s fine to install a simple blocker to add a bit of friction. Or if you want a simple reminder that your 15 minutes on Instagram are up, a screen-time limit works quite well.

But it needs to be easy to disable in just a click or two. It needs to be less of a block and more of a friendly nudge.

In short, don’t solve one problem by creating another. Use blockers sparingly, as light friction against vices—but don’t rely on them. Don’t let them interfere with reconnecting to a fundamental truth:You always have 100% control over your actions.

Always did. Always will.

Reconsider

Step 1 of this method requires you to take a few minutes to think long and hard about what you want. From there, you establish what you think it’ll take—what rules and commitments are needed—to get you there.

Sometimes, though, no matter how carefully you try to forecast the future, your vision can be off. Your plans can be suboptimal. Your rules can be a little wrong. As discussed earlier, your Macro self can be proven wrong.

You need to anticipate this, and you need to accept it.

You need to be open to Reconsiders.

A Reconsider is when you amend your rules and commitments.

These changes can be permanent. For example, you take a “no TikTok, ever” rule and change it to “only during lunch breaks.”They can also go in either direction—either increasing or decreasing your allowance for vices. For example, you take a “TikTok daily” rule and change it to “once per week.”And they can be temporary. For example, a “no YouTube during the week” rule gets suspended because you’re home sick, and a little easy entertainment is both preferred and appropriate.

Reconsiders add a much-needed level of flexibility, accounting for the realities of daily living.And yet, you might find yourself feeling a little reluctant. You can probably already see yourself abusing that flexibility. You’d rather your rules be hard and unalterable—otherwise, you’re sure you’ll start using Reconsiders to rationalize extra indulgences more often than you'd like.

So let me be 100% clear:

Being open to the occasional edit to your rules does not give you license to engage in your vices freely.Recalling the meditation analogy, just as there’s a single hard rule in meditation, you’ll also have a set of hard rules and commitments here—rules that allow for zero deviations; zero exceptions.

When you’re confronted with the opportunity to deviate, “cheat,” or make a baseless exception to a rule, you’re simply not allowed to do so—just as you’re not allowed to deliberately pull your focus away from your breath while meditating.

The sole purpose of Reconsiders is to allow for the gradual refinement of the path you want to take in life. They exist to make small adjustments to the angle of your North Star—not to justify sudden, sporadic lateral movements.

Reversions

A Reversion happens when you realize you’ve gotten distracted, then gently detach and return to what you were supposed to be doing.

It’s akin to returning your focus to your breath in meditation when your mind wanders. You notice that it happened, and then you gently return to the practice.

Here’s that process in more detail.Keep in mind that moving through a Reversion will often be fluid. Also note that this scenario assumes you’re getting distracted during a work session. If you’re still in the midst of riding out the Vice Flu, you can stop at Step 1.

Step 1: StopWhen you catch yourself slipping, the first step is to “exit the bar”: unplug and detach from the environment. Leave the room. Leave your electronics behind. Go sit on a couch—or better yet, go outside for a walk.

Step 2: WaitFrom there, your job is to let everything internal surface and run its course. Allow yourself to feel the guilt, frustration, self-reprimand—what you would normally try to quickly relieve with your vices.If you can, gently hold your attention there for a minute or two.

Step 3: Pin the bad sensationsNext—and just like you learned to do with positive sensations—go ahead and “pin” these negative emotions and feelings to the action that preceded them: engaging with your vice.Tell yourself that this pain was caused by that action.

Everyone's approach will be different.For example, if I waste an hour on Reddit and feel a pang of regret, I’ll physically get up, focus my attention on that sinking feeling, and allow myself to get heated. I'll then physically point at the screen and the list of links, saying:This stupid thing… this stupid website… this is what’s causing this pain right here. It’s not me—it’s this.

I’ll use whatever mental faculties I can consciously engage to make sure I remember the moment and the association I just observed.

What matters most here is honesty. I’m not asking you to play mind games or recite affirmations you know are false. There’s a very real cause-and-effect relationship at play: you overindulge in your vice, and then you feel bad, and then bad consequences happen.It’s time to reprogram your brain with the truth about what’s actually causing your suffering.Never let a bad feeling go to waste.

Step 4: AcceptA major intention of these unplugged, mindful periods is to do all you can to simply be—to experience life exactly as it is right now, without the constant intake of reward and distraction.

It’s also about giving yourself a break from the endless fix this, do that, become better, get disciplined, start this good habit, pursue that goal ruminations—the kind that create Expectation Gaps and generate internal pressure to perform.(By the way, are you noticing how these steps mirror the steps of the method itself? It’s essentially the same process, just in a reduced form.)

Step 5: TryWhen you feel calm and ready, carefully return to your workstation. Once there, take a few breaths, maintaining awareness of your inner state and any bodily sensations.

From there, well… wait some more.

Seriously. I never want you to force yourself to work or to get going on a healthy habit.When you force yourself to do something, you risk subconsciously associating the action with negative sensations like displeasure and drudgery. You risk “pinning” the action to something negative—directly countering what’s required to build a genuine preference.

So, if it’s just not happening, unplug again and wait some more. Go back to Step 1.Never force yourself to work.

But if it is happening—if you find yourself clear-headed and equipped with a base desire and preference to get back to work—you're free to do so.

Resets

Rejections and Reversions work great.Until they don’t. Until the time between unplanned indulgences gets shorter and shorter. Until things begin to spiral out of control. Until you find yourself possessed, in a trance—lifelessly doomscrolling, dead set on maintaining the escape from reality for as long as possible.

At some point, though, the trance will break. Your preference will shift toward stopping—if only out of sheer exhaustion. You might have a few false stops where you think it’s over… but eventually, it will be. The binge will end.

This isn’t bad. This isn’t you “failing” at the method. This isn’t you having to start over from square one.

No. This is you progressing. This is you collecting essential data (more on that in a second). This is you about to perform the most impactful kind of “rep.”This is the method.

Seriously, if you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and relinquish the fantasy of one day becoming this Perfected Self who never doomscrolls ever.Drop the notion of perfect, linear, 1%-better-each-day progress that looks great in a book but is completely unrealistic in real life.Instead, accept the idea that slipping and failing is the system. Accept that today you might be 1% better, and tomorrow you might be 43% worse.

That said, the end of a binge just means you’ve reached the end of an iteration.That’s your cue to do a Reset: to start fresh with the steps of the method, circling back to Step 1 where you take the time to reconsider and rework your rules and commitments.

This is followed by another waiting and acceptance period, along with the intentional removal of all expectations for productivity.

That last part is key—as much for your first iteration as for your fifteenth. We often try to transition out of a binge by jumping straight into productivity. It makes sense: we’ve just burned a lot of precious time, and there’s an urgent impulse to play catch-up.But it’s usually too much, too soon. The motivation-suppression symptoms are still intense, and the resulting Expectation Gap becomes unbearable.

So go ahead and grant yourself permission to take a prolonged period—half a day or more—where you allow yourself to do nothing. Put away your phone. Shut down all electronics. Remove any other obvious vices from your environment, like junk food. And just be.

As soon as your nerves have calmed and your self-critical thought streams have abated, it’s important to take a moment to reflect.

It’s important to ask yourself why your work session derailed into distraction. Why you ended up doomscrolling. Why your procrastination ramped up. Why you were on your way back to stagnation.

Because you never actually do this, right? You never really ask yourself these questions—and I mean from scratch, without emotional bias, without the usual assumptions, without the default self-blame script like:

“Oh, you know... it’s because I’m the worst. It’s because I’m pathetic. It’s because I have zero self-control.”

See, you’ve been telling yourself the same story for years—the same story about why you do what you do.

But you do have a choice. You don’t have to accept that story as truth. Not anymore.In the aftermath of a completely derailed work session—or an evening of vices and binging—you can pause and take a cold, impartial look. You can come to a different conclusion about what exactly happened, and why.

And it’s not just that you can do this—I’m insisting here that you must.

Building the habit of scrutinizing your failures in a detached, impartial way is essential to improving your situation over time.

And the only way to do that is through hard and objective—yet kind, self-compassion-centered—reflection. It’s through asking yourself questions like:

Seeking honest and unbiased answers to questions like these is crucial because, like me, you’ve been obsessed with fixing yourself. And that’s understandable.But it hasn’t been working, because you don’t actually know the real reasons why things keep derailing into distraction.

You can’t solve a problem if your assumptions about its causes are way off—which, as I told you right at the beginning of this book, they 100% are.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the thing you likely bought this for—a perfected, step-by-step system that will instantly and permanently make you disciplined—doesn’t exist.It can’t exist. Because neither the people writing self-help (me included) nor you have the full picture yet.

You simply haven’t collected all the data points—the hows, the whys, the whens, the ifs, and the other truths about your compulsive behaviors and derailed work sessions.

Figuring all of that out requires two things: real experiences of failure (which you’ll have plenty of), followed by objective, calm, and dispassionate reflection (which you never do, but can and should start doing today, using self-compassion).

This was a huge breakthrough for me.The moment I decided to reflect on my time-wasting objectively and compassionately—no matter how flagrant, reckless, or frustrating—things began to change for me.

Suddenly, my derailed work sessions had meaning. They were useful. They were filled with crucial information—information I needed to better understand myself, my subconscious preferences, and the actions they drive.

So remember: this entire method is built around this idea of working in iterations. It’s about experimenting, testing hypotheses, refining your initial assumptions, and trying again.It’s about cultivating the ability to get back up when you fail, extract the lessons, make a small shift, and try again.

Ultimately, it’s about establishing and optimizing—through many iterations—the set of rules and commitments that are uniquely tailored to you. It’s also about refining other areas of your life: experimenting with systems, routines, and environmental conditions that enable you to live the best possible life—the life you want to live.

Each iteration is not a failure. Each iteration is not starting over. Each iteration is you learning, growing, and adapting. Each iteration is a solid rep.

Each iteration is you doing the real work to stop doomscrolling, procrastinating, and stagnating... for good.

Epilogue

From time to time, I find myself browsing self-help type subreddits and other online forums. I’ve also had the privilege of connecting with hundreds of people, either in comment threads, DMs, or through the group programs I've come to host.

Though it’s often initially hidden or masked, I invariably see a lot of pain and frustration. I also see a great deal of shame and self-judgment—sometimes rising to self-directed resentment, loathing, and anger.

There's just a lot of suffering in this world.

And, at the risk of sounding like a know-it-all "guru", I truly believe that many people could benefit immensely from the core ideas and lessons in this book.I believe you, dear reader, can and will benefit by doing all you can to apply the method to your daily life—and by choosing to make it a lifelong practice.

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, compassion, patience, and mindfulness—rather than discipline, willpower, force, expectations, or pressure.

I use time management strategies and 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 feels nice.” I speak of these things because they’re practical.

Loving yourself is straight-up pragmatic.

Because, when you love yourself, you'll invariably get more mental clarity and inner peace.

More inner peace 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 all of 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 support the mission by getting it into the hands of others like you, there are three quick things you can do…

1 - Shoot me a review by email ([email protected])

Consider touching on what led you here—the specific struggle or pattern you were stuck in. Consider sharing 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, add any insights that resonated—especially the particular insight that helped you see things differently and led to tangible improvements.

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.So if you’re here, it means you are good people. Which also means you know good people—people stuck in the same cycle, who want to live a better, more meaningful life, and who would most definitely appreciate the help.

Just encourage them to check out the free preview over at dmscrll.com using the invite code: dmscrllalumni (the above link has that code prefilled).

3 - become (or stay) a quarterly subscribed member.

Your financial support goes a long way. It not only covers hosting costs, but also helps to fund paid partnerships (which, in turn, support smaller content creators), helping more people discover the method.Click here to become a quarterly (i.e. 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.

✌️

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