fix your life with discipline

you’ve likely experienced at least one of these problems:

• working until tired -> procrastination -> feeling bad for procrastinating -> more procrastination
• forgetting you have things to do, ending up procrastinating for multiple hours
• being on your phone when you should be sleeping (i don’t have a specific solution, but i talk more about this in the last section)
• not doing the things that you have to do anyway the solution is simple: block it all (more about it in the end)! simple, but not easy: most people just turn off the blocks when they have an urge to procrastinate, or have to use the blocked app and forget to turn it back later

what you actually need

“i want to stop procrastinating” is a wrong goal. the real goal is to start following the rules you set for yourself (with a blocking app). we need to consider two parts:

• developing a habit of following the rules
• breaking the habit of not following them, or breaking the addictions let’s start with the second one. and let’s also break this into steps

changing the environment

the goal here is to weaken the automatic urge to engage in your addictions

• i changed my OS (Linux -> Windows, though that’s a bold move)
• i changed my browser and customized the appearance to make it as unattractive as possible (i would recommend going something like Chrome/Firefox -> Edge/Opera with vertical tabs and as many icons enabled as possible) this alone almost completely removed my urge to watch YouTube. you can also change your OS user, wallpapers, theme, location (spot or room), main device (if you have a laptop and a PC, for example). i guess most of you are addicted to vertical videos, so here are some specific things you can do with your phone:
• if you’re on android, change your launcher. i love Olauncher: it’s free, open source, and has no ads
• rearrange your icons, delete the distracting ones from your view or home screen
• delete the distracting apps and use the browser version instead. some browser versions are too bad or non-existant, so this might not stick, but it’s worth trying if you’re not afraid that failing will discourage you

a temporary substitute

i know, this sounds counterintuitive, but replacing my addictions (YouTube and Soundcloud) with something less harmful that is not an addiction yet worked perfectly (i decided to play non-competitive computer games, competitive ones are hella addictive). in my opinion, this is the easiest way to break addictions without forming new strong ones. you can also replace your addictions with: movies, talking with your friends, reading books

even if you feel like you have to use the blocked app (like watching a tutorial on YouTube), there’s almost certainly a way to avoid this. in my case, i watched educational YouTube videos via Bing Videos. try asking AI if you can’t think of a way to avoid it, just don’t unblock it

it’s better to block the addictions completely, but if they’re so strong you can’t replace them with something else so fast, slowly increase the time during which your addictions are blocked. it’s important to start the blocking in the morning because it’s too hard to stop when you’re in the middle

proceed to the next step when you’re confident you won’t turn off your blocks. this took me a few days

block!

add a time during which you can’t access any quick dopamine sources. i recommend starting in the morning for the reason mentioned in the previous section: it’s too hard to stop. slowly increase your block time until you’re satisfied (i jumped from 0 to 8 hours immediately because i felt like i can do it, but it’s better to increase your time daily by 15-60 minutes)

leave at least 1 hour in your day when you’re allowed to procrastinate (i have 3) - it might be less healthy than just blocking all procrastination completely, but it decreases the chance of breaking the rules you’ve to yourself

don’t be hard on yourself - cherish every increase in your time limit: this is a great step forward, compared to the chaos you previously had

more about blocking

StayFree is a great free choice on PC, but my friend reported that it doesn’t work properly on her old phone, and all the other mobile apps for blocking i’ve tried require a subscription to block more than a certain number of apps. you can try StayFree on mobile first. if it doesn’t work, you can just download some popular app with a good rating if you don’t go past the free limits or you’re down to paying for a subscription. otherwise, you’ll have to look yourself for something better

aftermath

you can unblock your old addictions and change back your environment when you’re confident they won’t cause you to break the rules you’ve set for yourself

it’s easy to just block all apps past bedtime when following your rules is already a habit

bonus: I fixed my oversleeping issue by creating a time-sensitive morning responsibility (in my case, I took the responsibility of walking my dog in the morning)