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So I woke up semi-hungover at 8:17 am on Sunday morning and scrambled in the dark searching for the little rectangle that ran my life.
That rectangle (aka my iPhone) marked the day's bleak beginning.
Next, I got in 43 minutes of dopamine drips - twitter likes, new emails, instagram stories from that girl I barely knew from high school, linkedin posts and other mindless soul sucking activities.
At 9 am, I pop out of bed and start playing the All-In Podcast on YouTube (it's a few tech billionaires talking current events; great pod and link here)
An hour later I find myself a little less dehydrated and again plopped on my bed rotating between the same 5 apps.
By 10 pm on Sunday night, I check my screen time.
Is it just me or is it literal insanity that I spent 5 hours 56 minutes on my phone that day?
If you count this bigger rectangle I'm typing on right now, I bet we hit 10 hours easy.
This gave me two realizations:
- Busyness is a lie - you're just overwhelmed by attention splitting notifications
- Winning in 2023 is avoiding addiction
Let me hit both quickly:
Busyness is a Lie
If I had a nickel for every time someone said "I'm so busy", I'd be a billionaire.
Are people doing lots of stuff? Yep.
Are people (especially in NYC) go-getters who want to take over the world? Yep.
However, busyness is not output. It's overwhelm.
We're busy because we're bombarded by notifications that split our time and attention. The result is you end up like a deer in headlights plagued by decision fatigure scrolling your phone for delicious dopamine snacks to procrastinate the tough stuff.
Here's a realistic day:
- 167 slack messages
- 27 texts
- 54 twitter notifications
- 25 linkedin notifications
- 47 emails
- 68 Hubspot tasks
- a few hinge messages (ha)
- a few whatsapp messages
- a few telegram messages
- a few Signal messages
You get the point.
You're constantly pulled from obliterating the few key tasks that move the needle in your business (or life).
Busy replaces productive.
And here's one antidote:
If it's not a "HELL YEAH", it's a no.
(I stole this framework from an awesome thinker / entrepeneur named Derek Sivers - blog here)
This won't solve world hunger but it may cut down on busyness so you can focus on what matters.
Winning in 2023 is Avoiding Addiction
We're all hopelessly addicted.
Addicted to phones. Addicted to foods. Addicted to drinks. Addicted to porn. Addicted to likes.
The cavemen of 1,000 years ago had a scarcity problem. If you didn't hunt and kill that bison this month, you died from starvation.
The cavemen (and women) of 2023 have an abundance problem. If you don't avoid addiction, you end up as a miserable, lonely human being who can't focus on a task for more than 12 minutes without picking up your phone to scroll Instagram.
Everything you touch today has been weaponized to addict you.
And don't blame capitalism.
Capitalism and technology pushed our society towards abundance.
But now it's on us to find the addiction antidote or end up as a couch potato hopelessly outmatched.
Abundance is amazing... but only if you put the systems and structures in place to avoid addiction.
How do you do it?
See ya soon,
Chris Hladczuk
p.s. If you loved this, forward this to a friend. If you hated this, forward this to an enemy.