June 26, 2025 • 24 mins
Lately I’ve been paying closer attention to what gives me energy and what drains it. The biggest thief? My phone. In this episode, I break down how scrolling kills momentum, what I’ve been doing to snap out of it, and a simple trick to get back on track fast.
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Episode Transcript
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Mike Machin (00:00):
So my day yesterday, kind of like, brought
up me thinking about a lot ofthings, and specifically things
that drain your energy and, youknow, just sort of the
distractions and all these kindof things and stuff that just
sort of pulls you away from yourpurpose and what you're trying
to accomplish. And it was, itwas kind of a weird day. So I
(00:22):
was, I got up in the morning,and I have this little routine
where I walk my dog, I carry akettle bell so I can kind of
make it a little more intense.And then, then when I get home,
I make a cup of coffee, and Iread my 10 pages. And then after
that, I'm sort of supposed toget to work, and I just was sort
(00:44):
of lagging on everything. And soI guess it would have been about
8am by this time, and I think acouple hours had gone by. And so
by the time it was like 10am Ihadn't done anything, and that's
not like a huge deal. I canusually like, snap out of it.
But I was, I was wondering if Iwas, like, getting sick or
(01:05):
something, because I just wasfeeling like, I don't know, this
is weird, like, light headed,not light headed, but just like,
my head felt fucked up and I hadsome sinus shit going on, I
still kind of do, and so I wasjust kind of like brainstorming
with chat GPT, like, what do youthink these symptoms are? Does
(01:25):
it sound like I'm sick orsomething? And while I was kind
of typing all this shit, Istarted wondering if I was kind
of putting myself in that state.And I know I had been on the
phone a little too much thatmorning, and you know, it
started to kind of click, andI've been noticing this for a
(01:46):
while. It's just, it's justhard. I don't know. I don't
think it's hard. It's just, Ihave to take action on it. But I
don't know if you notice this.I'm sure, I'm sure you probably
do. But the longer you're on thephone, if you're looking at
shit, like if you're scrollingthrough things, the longer
you're on there, the more itsucks your energy away. And I
(02:07):
think we're not designed why?I'm fairly certain that we're
not designed to be able to justscroll past all of this shit,
just see changing things and allthese different things popping
up at all times. It just doesn'tseem very healthy. And recently,
I just started really payingattention to what that it does
to my energy levels and mymotivation. And I know the
(02:29):
longer that I'm on the phone,the more I feel depleted. And I
know there's some science behindthis, like, you know, your
dopamine is getting triggeredand all these kind of things. I
don't know. I'm sure most peoplehave heard of that, but you can
look it up. There's lots ofpeople that actually study that
shit, that that know more aboutit than I do, but I've totally
(02:50):
noticed, like, the longer I'm onthere, the the more it it sort
of drains my energy. And usuallyI go on there with good
intentions, because I run mybusiness social media, so I go
on there, and I'm like, Allright, I'm going to make sure
there's no comments I need torespond to, or messages, or any
of those kind of things. Butthen you sort of get sucked in.
(03:12):
You'll see a video, and you'llwatch it, and then you you know,
it just goes on to the next one,and then maybe you watch that
one, and then before you knowit, that sort of, like,
addictive dopamine kind ofresponse has already kicked in,
and you're like, I'll just watcha couple more videos, and then
I'll get to work. The next thingyou know, you've, like, wasted a
bunch of time. And so the way Iwas starting to think about it
(03:34):
was, I used to think about itas, like, I wasted this time,
but I think more importantly, asI wasted a lot of energy that
could have been put towardsother things. And so yesterday,
what I did was I came up withsort of a game plan, and I was
like, All right, I'm gonna, I'mgonna try to do some things that
kind of build up some momentum.And like, I'm a pretty messy
(03:55):
person in this office that Ithat I work in, and I make these
videos and shit like that, wasgetting to the point where it
was cluttered up enough to whereit was, like, kind of hard to
come in here and do my work,because I'd have to, like, move
things around. And it was, itwas just really messy. I had to
step over shit just to get to mydesk. Is all fucked up. And so I
ended up, like, working on mycouch, like I'd be just sitting
(04:18):
there and doing a bunch of workon my laptop. And I don't know
some other shit about, like, thescience of, like, where you do
your work, and where you whereyou don't do your work, and all
this kind of stuff. And so I waslike, All right, I got to get my
office back squared away. So youknow that the topic of this
conversation is stop scrollingand get your shit done. And so I
(04:41):
stopped scrolling, and I'm like,All right, I'm going to set a
timer and I'm just going toclean up as much as I can and
get this place back to whereit's easy to work so I can just
walk right in and it's good togo remove the friction of
getting my shit done. So, butwhat was interesting these sim.
Items that I was feeling, that Ithought I was maybe getting
(05:02):
sick, they completely went awaywhile I was cleaning the office,
and I only cleaned it for like25 minutes or something. And so
by the time I finished that, mymomentum was back up. And so I
had my powerless tasks, and so Istarted knocking those things
out. And then I've been on myrebuild program, so I have the
10 pages of reading, 10 minutesof meditation, five powerless
(05:27):
tasks, follow a diet and 30minutes of exercise. And so I've
been splitting that 30 minutes.You know, the walk usually takes
like 10 to 12 minutes, and then,you know, I get another 20
minute workout later in the day.And so I had so much momentum
(05:47):
after I accomplished this small,seemingly unimportant task, I
guess you could say, of gettingthis office straightened out.
But what I realized is it wasn'tabout cleaning the office. It
was about doing something thathas a finish line. And granted,
(06:09):
the timer was my finish line,like this place still is not
really. It's not up to standardsof someone like Jesse, who's
very clean, so it's notfinished. But the finish line
was, I'm going to clean for thisamount of time, and I did that.
So once I did that, I got anactual win, and I got away from
the phone, and I got away fromdistractions. And so this
(06:31):
morning, you know, I was on thesame sort of thought process,
but I had the same feelings, youknow, when I was when I finished
my kind of like go to tasks, thewalk and the coffee and the
reading and that kind of stuff,I sort of sunk back into that
same thing where I startedlooking at shit on social. I
(06:52):
went to check messages for mycompany, check on comments and
seeing what's going on there.And then ended up watching a few
videos. And then I startedgetting that feeling again. I
started feeling depleted, and Istarted feeling this huge lack
of motivation. And I was like,fuck dude. Like, I'm doing this
again. And so I was like, Igotta snap out of it. And like,
(07:16):
we all have these songs, like,when it goes on, you just get
all hyped up, you know, like, Iremember, I remember years ago,
it was like the 90s, and I wasdriving, and this was when we
would listen to the radio. Idon't know if anybody listens to
the radio, but there was thatstation, K, R, O, Q, it's
probably still there in LA. Andso I remember, I remember this
(07:38):
distinctly, and I thought aboutit, and I thought it was kind of
weird. But like, this song, thedead Kennedy's holiday in
Cambodia came on, and as soon asthat little bass riff started, I
started driving faster, youknow. So, like, I don't know,
it's something about certainmusic, you know, it just sort of
energizes you and gets you sortof hyped up. So like, this
(07:59):
morning, I'm like, I gotta snapout of this shit, and I'm gonna
put on some music that I knowhypes me up. So I went on to
Spotify. I found a song thathypes me up, and I did the whole
go to Radio thing. So I'll playthat song, then it'll go on to
another song, and then usually,you know, those songs are in the
same kind of like vein as theone that I chose. And so it was
(08:21):
like, All right, I'm going toturn on this song and I'm going
to do the dishes. Super easytask. You know, we cook. We cook
every day. So the dishes arejust fucking in and out,
sometimes multiple times a day,obviously. So I was like, All
right, I'm just going to knockthis task out. It's not on my
power list or anything, but Ineed to get something done. And
(08:42):
what was interesting is, like Iwent from having these, I'm
gonna put air quotes, symptomslike low energy and not feeling
good and almost feeling like I'mkind of getting sick or
something. As soon as the songstarted, I immediately started
snapping out of it, and then Ijust started washing the dishes.
(09:02):
Washing the dishes. And as I'mwashing the dishes, I started
going faster. And so by the timeI got it done and I cleaned up
the sink and did all this shitlike I was already back in
momentum. And so that just sortof kept me thinking on this
pattern of, like, just howdraining I know the phone is not
(09:23):
specifically the thing, but it'slike the distractions, you know,
it's the thing that's pullingyou away from the stuff that you
need to do. And for me, it'skind of a compounding effect,
because if I'm on the phone andI'm getting that, like dopamine
release by looking at differentvideos and shit, that's draining
me, but then also I'm thinkingin the back of my head I should
(09:44):
be doing other things, like Ihave other stuff I need to do. I
got people relying on me, andI'm wasting time, you know, and
so that depletes my energy evenmore, because,
you know, I know I'm not doingwhat I'm supposed to do. So. So
that simple act of putting on asong and doing the dishes was
(10:04):
enough to kind of spring me backinto action. And I've been, I've
been paying a lot of attentionto this kind of thing, and I saw
a video of a guy, and I justhave to paraphrase it, because I
don't remember exactly what hesaid, but he did say something
along the lines of the phone,and the way that it's designed
(10:24):
is rewiring our brains, and itmakes a lot of sense, like I
find myself having troublefocusing on even just certain
thought processes for anextended period of time, like I
used to be able to think aboutthings in greater detail, in
greater detail, and stay on thatthought process for longer. And
(10:49):
I found myself kind ofstruggling with I'll be thinking
about something and thensomething else pops in, and
that's kind of normal. I mean, Ithink that's our brains are kind
of like that. But I think theact of going from thing to thing
to thing on the phone is sort ofdepleting our ability to stay
focused on on certain things forfor a long period of time. I
(11:13):
think I've talked about this afew times, like where I used to
be able to get into these modesof deep work, and pretty much my
when I was working, that was,that was what was going on, like
I would be doing, like a motiongraphics project. And as soon as
I got locked in and startedgaining momentum on the project,
(11:35):
there was no distractions, likethere was nothing that was
pulling me away. I wasn'tpicking up a phone that this
there were no smartphones at thetime. I kind of did the motion
graphics business, sort of inthe beginning. So I started it
in 2002 so smartphones weren'treally a thing. I did that up
until maybe 2016 Well, I didsome jobs even up until a couple
(11:57):
of years ago. But for as far asbeing a very serious income
generator for me, that kind ofstarted to end around 2017 when
I really was putting my focusinto machine. But by this time,
you know, the phones had alreadybecome very sophisticated, and
you have all these people withall this money, and they're very
(12:18):
much incentivized to keep you onthat phone, and so they know how
to trigger the dopamine responseand all this stuff. And there's
lots of different things about,you know, the vertical scroll.
There's something about it thatis, I don't remember, you could
look this up, but it wassomething about that's why the
slot machines go vertically andthey don't go horizontally.
(12:40):
Because there's something inyour brain that I don't know how
much truth there is to that, butit's it simulates the same thing
like when you're scrollingthrough shit, you're just
flipping things up, and it'svery similar movement to the
slot machine, and it keeps yousort of locked in. So one of the
other things that guy said inthat video about rewiring your
brain was, he was saying thatit's, it's kind of rewiring your
(13:07):
brain to sort of take theimportance out of things. And
that kind of hit me hard,because, you know, I was talking
to Jesse. I might be jumpingaround a little bit, but I was
talking to Jesse recently, and Iwas like, it's, it's kind of
weird that, like, if you lookback through the decades, you
know, you had the 50s, 60s, 70s,80s, 90s, when you think about
(13:30):
all those decades in general,you get a picture of what that
decade was about. You know, the50s was about this. The 60s was
like the hippies and all thisshit. The 70s was disco and all
this kind of way out stuff. Andthen punk rock came around. In
the 70s, graffiti startedpopping off in the 70s. 80s was,
you know, like, all this newwave music and all this weird
(13:52):
fluorescent clothes and allthese kind of things. I mean,
I'm picking and choosing littlethings, but there was, there
was, like, iconic things thathappened. And then the 90s. It's
kind of hard to pinpoint all ofthose things for me, because I
was, like, deep into graffiti.That was kind of like the whole
thing, but, but then when youget into the 2000s so 2000 to
(14:15):
2010 2010 to 2020 now we'regoing 2020 to 2030 i I'm unable
to have any kind of feelingsabout those decades in the same
way as even decades that Ididn't exist in, you know, like,
the 30s even, like, I don't knowa whole lot about the 30s, but I
(14:37):
get a picture in my mind of whatThose that decades was, you
know, and the 50s and stuff likethat. Like, I kind of get a
picture of those were, like,these sort of iconic things that
were happening. And now I'm justnot feeling that those things
are happening anymore. And Iwonder if it was part of that
whole thing. Because towards theend of the 90s, you know, you
(14:58):
get the internet. And. Uhm,that's kind of like the phone
light, you know, like, you startbecoming more and more connected
with the rest of the world, andyou start getting these things
happening where you're now ableto be contacted anywhere. Well,
not anywhere, but like, at anytime, it's a lot easier to get
(15:21):
in touch with you. You gotemail, and then there was that.
What was that thing called, uh,AOL, instant messenger or
something. So we were all onthere, and the contacts started
getting easier and easier. Andthen we get cell phones. Now you
can receive calls at any time.Then those cell phones got a
little better. You can receivetext messages on there. Then
(15:41):
social media comes out. Nowthere's all these different ways
to get in touch with you, and soyou're more and more connected.
And then with social media, it'sjust like, now we get to see,
like, all of these things thatare happening around us all over
the place at any given time, andget all these different opinions
and, like, conflicting opinionsand things that don't make sense
(16:05):
to you, maybe they make sense toyou, but not for me, and all of
this kind of shit. I think it'slike really rattling our minds,
you know, so it just, it's beengetting me more and more
concerned, and I'm trying tofind the way around it, because
I know I need to stay on socialmedia. It's a big, big deal for
my company. And I like makingcontent, you know, I like being
(16:26):
able to share that stuff withpeople, but at the same time,
like, I don't want it to take myenergy, and I don't want to get
into this thing where, like, Ijust post something and then I
never look at it again. Like JoeRogan talks about that like his
favorite thing is to post it andghost it, like he just put
something up. He never looks atthe comments. He never it's
almost like he just puts it outthere, and then that's whatever
(16:48):
happens, happens. Part of mewants to do that, but, like, I
don't really want to. I don'tknow. I just don't feel right
about it, because I'd rather atleast interact with some of the
comments. If somebody's takingtheir time to interact with the
things I post, I kind of want tointeract with them. So I'm, I
was, like, kind of racking mybrain, like, what do I need to
(17:09):
do? And, you know, there's anaddiction component to it,
because I know that we don'tjust do things anymore. You
know, in terms of, like, when Iwas a kid, I remember, I
remember just all this weirdshit. Like I would go to, like,
a little league baseball game,like my older brothers playing,
(17:30):
playing baseball or something.So I'd be there on the side with
my mom, and like, you didn'thave anything to do, like,
that's all you just sat there onthe grass. And I remember, like,
one time I was like, looking forthings and just kind of, like,
making shit out of, like, Idon't even remember what it was
like, I found a cigarette buttand a clothes pin and shit, I
(17:53):
don't even know, but that and,like, just weird shit. Like, I
used to look at the clouds, youknow, like, when I would be at
those kind of baseball games andshit, I remember just sitting
there and just looking at theclouds for like, extended
periods of time, because whatelse are you gonna do? You're
not gonna grab a phone or atablet or fucking any of these
(18:15):
kind of things. You're justlooking at the environment.
You're just existing in thatenvironment. And I think, I
think losing that is a big deal,not specifically those things,
but just being present in what'shappening. And I recently
started revisiting this bookcalled Zen Mind, beginners mind,
and they talk about, I might getthis wrong, but they talk about,
(18:39):
like, the ZA Zen way of doingthings, and so
I've been trying to incorporatethat in in my life. And so
normally I would have a cup ofcoffee, and my my cup of coffee
in the morning is kind of tiedto another habit. So like, I'll
drink a cup of coffee while I'mdrinking the coffee I'm reading.
So I'm kind of like doing twothings, but I never just have
(19:00):
one cup of coffee. So lately,what I've been trying to do is,
like, when I have that secondcup, I just sit there and drink
the coffee. That's, that's all Ido, like I'm just sitting there
and that's it. And it's, it'sweird that that's weird to me.
Now, you know, I'm kind oftripping out on it, because that
was life before all of this shitthat. And imagine, even before
(19:26):
that, like when we were fucking,we had no technology, like we
didn't even have, like,electricity. Or even before
that, before we had books, like,What the fuck did people do, you
know, like they just existed inthe things that they were doing.
And there's something veryinteresting about that, and I
think that's part of how you cankind of disconnect from this
thing. So instead of, likesitting down to have a cup of
(19:50):
coffee, instead of scrollingthrough your phone while you're
drinking the coffee, what if youjust sat there and just drank
the coffee and really paidattention to what it tasted like
you. Uh, the temperature. Letyour thoughts kind of go and
come and go as they will, andjust sort of be present in that
moment. I did the same thingyesterday, when I when I washed
(20:13):
the dishes yesterday, when I wastrying to get the kind of mixing
things up a little bit thismorning, I washed the dishes,
and I was like, hyping myself upwith music, but yesterday, I was
like, I'm gonna wash the disheslike za Zen style, you know. So
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonnalisten to a podcast, or I'm not
gonna do anything. My main focusis going to be washing these
(20:37):
dishes. And I remember such aremedial I don't know if
remedial is the right word, butsuch a just a simple, basic task
that normally doesn't generateany memories. I remember pretty
well washing those dishesyesterday. I remember what the
(20:57):
temperature of the water waslike. I remember the stuff that
was in the sink. I rememberscrubbing the sink down after
everything was done, and beingsatisfied when I rinsed all the
soap suds out of the sinkbecause I was present while I
was doing that task. And justsaying that might sound kind of
(21:18):
stupid, it sounds a little weirdto me, but like, I think there's
something inherently wrong withconstantly needing to have
multiple things going at thesame time, constantly needing to
have some kind of stimulus,whether it's watching things on
(21:39):
social media scrolling, or whileyou're doing a task, you have
your headphones in and you'relistening to a podcast, or
you're listening to music. Ithink that drive to always have
extra things going on isprobably not good. And I, I know
that. I, I could tell that itgets worse sometimes, because
(22:03):
sometimes I'll be like, I'll beI'll be like, on the couch, I'm
playing video games on mylaptop. I'm also looking at shit
on the phone, and I got afucking movie playing. Like, do
I really need all of that? Can Ijust do one of those things,
like, that's just crazy, I don'tknow. So hopefully that made
(22:25):
sense. I think I've kind of,like, run through the gamut of
everything I was thinking. Butyeah, so I guess the takeaway
for me, and what might help you,is to kind of, if this is
something that's affecting you,it may not be the phone, it may
be other things, thedistraction, in and of itself,
is a problem with you workingtowards what it is that you're
(22:48):
trying to achieve. So whateverthat is, and for most of us, I
think it's the phone in someform or another, whether you
check your email or whetheryou're on their social media, or
whatever it is, there'ssomething about the phone that's
constantly pulling us to pick itup. So what I'm thinking, I'm
going to I'm going to do, inaddition to the things I've
already talked about, and I'mgoing to try this tomorrow, is
(23:14):
I'm going to do my normalroutine, but I'm not going to
let myself look at the phoneuntil I have at least three of
my powerless tasks done, soputting a little distance
between starting your day andjumping right into the kind of
endless distractions, like I cansee that being very help
(23:36):
helpful, and then also justtrying to incorporate more of
those zazen style actions,where, if I'm sitting there
petting my dog, that's the onlything that I'm doing, if I'm
talking to Jesse, that's theonly thing that I'm doing. I'm
not not reaching for my phone.I'm not doing any of these
things. And I think that, Ithink that's a more healthy way
(23:57):
to live, and eliminating some ofthose distractions, you're going
to buy some of your time andyour energy back in order to
accomplish the things that youactually want to accomplish.
Unknown (24:15):
All right, good. Appreciate each and every one of
you guys who are supporting thecause and continue to spread the
love and yeah, stay up.
So my day yesterday, kind of like, brought
up me thinking about a lot ofthings, and specifically things
that drain your energy and, youknow, just sort of the
distractions and all these kindof things and stuff that just
sort of pulls you away from yourpurpose and what you're trying
to accomplish. And it was, itwas kind of a weird day. So I
(00:22):
was, I got up in the morning,and I have this little routine
where I walk my dog, I carry akettle bell so I can kind of
make it a little more intense.And then, then when I get home,
I make a cup of coffee, and Iread my 10 pages. And then after
that, I'm sort of supposed toget to work, and I just was sort
(00:44):
of lagging on everything. And soI guess it would have been about
8am by this time, and I think acouple hours had gone by. And so
by the time it was like 10am Ihadn't done anything, and that's
not like a huge deal. I canusually like, snap out of it.
But I was, I was wondering if Iwas, like, getting sick or
(01:05):
something, because I just wasfeeling like, I don't know, this
is weird, like, light headed,not light headed, but just like,
my head felt fucked up and I hadsome sinus shit going on, I
still kind of do, and so I wasjust kind of like brainstorming
with chat GPT, like, what do youthink these symptoms are? Does
(01:25):
it sound like I'm sick orsomething? And while I was kind
of typing all this shit, Istarted wondering if I was kind
of putting myself in that state.And I know I had been on the
phone a little too much thatmorning, and you know, it
started to kind of click, andI've been noticing this for a
(01:46):
while. It's just, it's justhard. I don't know. I don't
think it's hard. It's just, Ihave to take action on it. But I
don't know if you notice this.I'm sure, I'm sure you probably
do. But the longer you're on thephone, if you're looking at
shit, like if you're scrollingthrough things, the longer
you're on there, the more itsucks your energy away. And I
(02:07):
think we're not designed why?I'm fairly certain that we're
not designed to be able to justscroll past all of this shit,
just see changing things and allthese different things popping
up at all times. It just doesn'tseem very healthy. And recently,
I just started really payingattention to what that it does
to my energy levels and mymotivation. And I know the
(02:29):
longer that I'm on the phone,the more I feel depleted. And I
know there's some science behindthis, like, you know, your
dopamine is getting triggeredand all these kind of things. I
don't know. I'm sure most peoplehave heard of that, but you can
look it up. There's lots ofpeople that actually study that
shit, that that know more aboutit than I do, but I've totally
(02:50):
noticed, like, the longer I'm onthere, the the more it it sort
of drains my energy. And usuallyI go on there with good
intentions, because I run mybusiness social media, so I go
on there, and I'm like, Allright, I'm going to make sure
there's no comments I need torespond to, or messages, or any
of those kind of things. Butthen you sort of get sucked in.
(03:12):
You'll see a video, and you'llwatch it, and then you you know,
it just goes on to the next one,and then maybe you watch that
one, and then before you knowit, that sort of, like,
addictive dopamine kind ofresponse has already kicked in,
and you're like, I'll just watcha couple more videos, and then
I'll get to work. The next thingyou know, you've, like, wasted a
bunch of time. And so the way Iwas starting to think about it
(03:34):
was, I used to think about itas, like, I wasted this time,
but I think more importantly, asI wasted a lot of energy that
could have been put towardsother things. And so yesterday,
what I did was I came up withsort of a game plan, and I was
like, All right, I'm gonna, I'mgonna try to do some things that
kind of build up some momentum.And like, I'm a pretty messy
(03:55):
person in this office that Ithat I work in, and I make these
videos and shit like that, wasgetting to the point where it
was cluttered up enough to whereit was, like, kind of hard to
come in here and do my work,because I'd have to, like, move
things around. And it was, itwas just really messy. I had to
step over shit just to get to mydesk. Is all fucked up. And so I
ended up, like, working on mycouch, like I'd be just sitting
(04:18):
there and doing a bunch of workon my laptop. And I don't know
some other shit about, like, thescience of, like, where you do
your work, and where you whereyou don't do your work, and all
this kind of stuff. And so I waslike, All right, I got to get my
office back squared away. So youknow that the topic of this
conversation is stop scrollingand get your shit done. And so I
(04:41):
stopped scrolling, and I'm like,All right, I'm going to set a
timer and I'm just going toclean up as much as I can and
get this place back to whereit's easy to work so I can just
walk right in and it's good togo remove the friction of
getting my shit done. So, butwhat was interesting these sim.
Items that I was feeling, that Ithought I was maybe getting
(05:02):
sick, they completely went awaywhile I was cleaning the office,
and I only cleaned it for like25 minutes or something. And so
by the time I finished that, mymomentum was back up. And so I
had my powerless tasks, and so Istarted knocking those things
out. And then I've been on myrebuild program, so I have the
10 pages of reading, 10 minutesof meditation, five powerless
(05:27):
tasks, follow a diet and 30minutes of exercise. And so I've
been splitting that 30 minutes.You know, the walk usually takes
like 10 to 12 minutes, and then,you know, I get another 20
minute workout later in the day.And so I had so much momentum
(05:47):
after I accomplished this small,seemingly unimportant task, I
guess you could say, of gettingthis office straightened out.
But what I realized is it wasn'tabout cleaning the office. It
was about doing something thathas a finish line. And granted,
(06:09):
the timer was my finish line,like this place still is not
really. It's not up to standardsof someone like Jesse, who's
very clean, so it's notfinished. But the finish line
was, I'm going to clean for thisamount of time, and I did that.
So once I did that, I got anactual win, and I got away from
the phone, and I got away fromdistractions. And so this
(06:31):
morning, you know, I was on thesame sort of thought process,
but I had the same feelings, youknow, when I was when I finished
my kind of like go to tasks, thewalk and the coffee and the
reading and that kind of stuff,I sort of sunk back into that
same thing where I startedlooking at shit on social. I
(06:52):
went to check messages for mycompany, check on comments and
seeing what's going on there.And then ended up watching a few
videos. And then I startedgetting that feeling again. I
started feeling depleted, and Istarted feeling this huge lack
of motivation. And I was like,fuck dude. Like, I'm doing this
again. And so I was like, Igotta snap out of it. And like,
(07:16):
we all have these songs, like,when it goes on, you just get
all hyped up, you know, like, Iremember, I remember years ago,
it was like the 90s, and I wasdriving, and this was when we
would listen to the radio. Idon't know if anybody listens to
the radio, but there was thatstation, K, R, O, Q, it's
probably still there in LA. Andso I remember, I remember this
(07:38):
distinctly, and I thought aboutit, and I thought it was kind of
weird. But like, this song, thedead Kennedy's holiday in
Cambodia came on, and as soon asthat little bass riff started, I
started driving faster, youknow. So, like, I don't know,
it's something about certainmusic, you know, it just sort of
energizes you and gets you sortof hyped up. So like, this
(07:59):
morning, I'm like, I gotta snapout of this shit, and I'm gonna
put on some music that I knowhypes me up. So I went on to
Spotify. I found a song thathypes me up, and I did the whole
go to Radio thing. So I'll playthat song, then it'll go on to
another song, and then usually,you know, those songs are in the
same kind of like vein as theone that I chose. And so it was
(08:21):
like, All right, I'm going toturn on this song and I'm going
to do the dishes. Super easytask. You know, we cook. We cook
every day. So the dishes arejust fucking in and out,
sometimes multiple times a day,obviously. So I was like, All
right, I'm just going to knockthis task out. It's not on my
power list or anything, but Ineed to get something done. And
(08:42):
what was interesting is, like Iwent from having these, I'm
gonna put air quotes, symptomslike low energy and not feeling
good and almost feeling like I'mkind of getting sick or
something. As soon as the songstarted, I immediately started
snapping out of it, and then Ijust started washing the dishes.
(09:02):
Washing the dishes. And as I'mwashing the dishes, I started
going faster. And so by the timeI got it done and I cleaned up
the sink and did all this shitlike I was already back in
momentum. And so that just sortof kept me thinking on this
pattern of, like, just howdraining I know the phone is not
(09:23):
specifically the thing, but it'slike the distractions, you know,
it's the thing that's pullingyou away from the stuff that you
need to do. And for me, it'skind of a compounding effect,
because if I'm on the phone andI'm getting that, like dopamine
release by looking at differentvideos and shit, that's draining
me, but then also I'm thinkingin the back of my head I should
(09:44):
be doing other things, like Ihave other stuff I need to do. I
got people relying on me, andI'm wasting time, you know, and
so that depletes my energy evenmore, because,
you know, I know I'm not doingwhat I'm supposed to do. So. So
that simple act of putting on asong and doing the dishes was
(10:04):
enough to kind of spring me backinto action. And I've been, I've
been paying a lot of attentionto this kind of thing, and I saw
a video of a guy, and I justhave to paraphrase it, because I
don't remember exactly what hesaid, but he did say something
along the lines of the phone,and the way that it's designed
(10:24):
is rewiring our brains, and itmakes a lot of sense, like I
find myself having troublefocusing on even just certain
thought processes for anextended period of time, like I
used to be able to think aboutthings in greater detail, in
greater detail, and stay on thatthought process for longer. And
(10:49):
I found myself kind ofstruggling with I'll be thinking
about something and thensomething else pops in, and
that's kind of normal. I mean, Ithink that's our brains are kind
of like that. But I think theact of going from thing to thing
to thing on the phone is sort ofdepleting our ability to stay
focused on on certain things forfor a long period of time. I
(11:13):
think I've talked about this afew times, like where I used to
be able to get into these modesof deep work, and pretty much my
when I was working, that was,that was what was going on, like
I would be doing, like a motiongraphics project. And as soon as
I got locked in and startedgaining momentum on the project,
(11:35):
there was no distractions, likethere was nothing that was
pulling me away. I wasn'tpicking up a phone that this
there were no smartphones at thetime. I kind of did the motion
graphics business, sort of inthe beginning. So I started it
in 2002 so smartphones weren'treally a thing. I did that up
until maybe 2016 Well, I didsome jobs even up until a couple
(11:57):
of years ago. But for as far asbeing a very serious income
generator for me, that kind ofstarted to end around 2017 when
I really was putting my focusinto machine. But by this time,
you know, the phones had alreadybecome very sophisticated, and
you have all these people withall this money, and they're very
(12:18):
much incentivized to keep you onthat phone, and so they know how
to trigger the dopamine responseand all this stuff. And there's
lots of different things about,you know, the vertical scroll.
There's something about it thatis, I don't remember, you could
look this up, but it wassomething about that's why the
slot machines go vertically andthey don't go horizontally.
(12:40):
Because there's something inyour brain that I don't know how
much truth there is to that, butit's it simulates the same thing
like when you're scrollingthrough shit, you're just
flipping things up, and it'svery similar movement to the
slot machine, and it keeps yousort of locked in. So one of the
other things that guy said inthat video about rewiring your
brain was, he was saying thatit's, it's kind of rewiring your
(13:07):
brain to sort of take theimportance out of things. And
that kind of hit me hard,because, you know, I was talking
to Jesse. I might be jumpingaround a little bit, but I was
talking to Jesse recently, and Iwas like, it's, it's kind of
weird that, like, if you lookback through the decades, you
know, you had the 50s, 60s, 70s,80s, 90s, when you think about
(13:30):
all those decades in general,you get a picture of what that
decade was about. You know, the50s was about this. The 60s was
like the hippies and all thisshit. The 70s was disco and all
this kind of way out stuff. Andthen punk rock came around. In
the 70s, graffiti startedpopping off in the 70s. 80s was,
you know, like, all this newwave music and all this weird
(13:52):
fluorescent clothes and allthese kind of things. I mean,
I'm picking and choosing littlethings, but there was, there
was, like, iconic things thathappened. And then the 90s. It's
kind of hard to pinpoint all ofthose things for me, because I
was, like, deep into graffiti.That was kind of like the whole
thing, but, but then when youget into the 2000s so 2000 to
(14:15):
2010 2010 to 2020 now we'regoing 2020 to 2030 i I'm unable
to have any kind of feelingsabout those decades in the same
way as even decades that Ididn't exist in, you know, like,
the 30s even, like, I don't knowa whole lot about the 30s, but I
(14:37):
get a picture in my mind of whatThose that decades was, you
know, and the 50s and stuff likethat. Like, I kind of get a
picture of those were, like,these sort of iconic things that
were happening. And now I'm justnot feeling that those things
are happening anymore. And Iwonder if it was part of that
whole thing. Because towards theend of the 90s, you know, you
(14:58):
get the internet. And. Uhm,that's kind of like the phone
light, you know, like, you startbecoming more and more connected
with the rest of the world, andyou start getting these things
happening where you're now ableto be contacted anywhere. Well,
not anywhere, but like, at anytime, it's a lot easier to get
(15:21):
in touch with you. You gotemail, and then there was that.
What was that thing called, uh,AOL, instant messenger or
something. So we were all onthere, and the contacts started
getting easier and easier. Andthen we get cell phones. Now you
can receive calls at any time.Then those cell phones got a
little better. You can receivetext messages on there. Then
(15:41):
social media comes out. Nowthere's all these different ways
to get in touch with you, and soyou're more and more connected.
And then with social media, it'sjust like, now we get to see,
like, all of these things thatare happening around us all over
the place at any given time, andget all these different opinions
and, like, conflicting opinionsand things that don't make sense
(16:05):
to you, maybe they make sense toyou, but not for me, and all of
this kind of shit. I think it'slike really rattling our minds,
you know, so it just, it's beengetting me more and more
concerned, and I'm trying tofind the way around it, because
I know I need to stay on socialmedia. It's a big, big deal for
my company. And I like makingcontent, you know, I like being
(16:26):
able to share that stuff withpeople, but at the same time,
like, I don't want it to take myenergy, and I don't want to get
into this thing where, like, Ijust post something and then I
never look at it again. Like JoeRogan talks about that like his
favorite thing is to post it andghost it, like he just put
something up. He never looks atthe comments. He never it's
almost like he just puts it outthere, and then that's whatever
(16:48):
happens, happens. Part of mewants to do that, but, like, I
don't really want to. I don'tknow. I just don't feel right
about it, because I'd rather atleast interact with some of the
comments. If somebody's takingtheir time to interact with the
things I post, I kind of want tointeract with them. So I'm, I
was, like, kind of racking mybrain, like, what do I need to
(17:09):
do? And, you know, there's anaddiction component to it,
because I know that we don'tjust do things anymore. You
know, in terms of, like, when Iwas a kid, I remember, I
remember just all this weirdshit. Like I would go to, like,
a little league baseball game,like my older brothers playing,
(17:30):
playing baseball or something.So I'd be there on the side with
my mom, and like, you didn'thave anything to do, like,
that's all you just sat there onthe grass. And I remember, like,
one time I was like, looking forthings and just kind of, like,
making shit out of, like, Idon't even remember what it was
like, I found a cigarette buttand a clothes pin and shit, I
(17:53):
don't even know, but that and,like, just weird shit. Like, I
used to look at the clouds, youknow, like, when I would be at
those kind of baseball games andshit, I remember just sitting
there and just looking at theclouds for like, extended
periods of time, because whatelse are you gonna do? You're
not gonna grab a phone or atablet or fucking any of these
(18:15):
kind of things. You're justlooking at the environment.
You're just existing in thatenvironment. And I think, I
think losing that is a big deal,not specifically those things,
but just being present in what'shappening. And I recently
started revisiting this bookcalled Zen Mind, beginners mind,
and they talk about, I might getthis wrong, but they talk about,
(18:39):
like, the ZA Zen way of doingthings, and so
I've been trying to incorporatethat in in my life. And so
normally I would have a cup ofcoffee, and my my cup of coffee
in the morning is kind of tiedto another habit. So like, I'll
drink a cup of coffee while I'mdrinking the coffee I'm reading.
So I'm kind of like doing twothings, but I never just have
(19:00):
one cup of coffee. So lately,what I've been trying to do is,
like, when I have that secondcup, I just sit there and drink
the coffee. That's, that's all Ido, like I'm just sitting there
and that's it. And it's, it'sweird that that's weird to me.
Now, you know, I'm kind oftripping out on it, because that
was life before all of this shitthat. And imagine, even before
(19:26):
that, like when we were fucking,we had no technology, like we
didn't even have, like,electricity. Or even before
that, before we had books, like,What the fuck did people do, you
know, like they just existed inthe things that they were doing.
And there's something veryinteresting about that, and I
think that's part of how you cankind of disconnect from this
thing. So instead of, likesitting down to have a cup of
(19:50):
coffee, instead of scrollingthrough your phone while you're
drinking the coffee, what if youjust sat there and just drank
the coffee and really paidattention to what it tasted like
you. Uh, the temperature. Letyour thoughts kind of go and
come and go as they will, andjust sort of be present in that
moment. I did the same thingyesterday, when I when I washed
(20:13):
the dishes yesterday, when I wastrying to get the kind of mixing
things up a little bit thismorning, I washed the dishes,
and I was like, hyping myself upwith music, but yesterday, I was
like, I'm gonna wash the disheslike za Zen style, you know. So
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonnalisten to a podcast, or I'm not
gonna do anything. My main focusis going to be washing these
(20:37):
dishes. And I remember such aremedial I don't know if
remedial is the right word, butsuch a just a simple, basic task
that normally doesn't generateany memories. I remember pretty
well washing those dishesyesterday. I remember what the
(20:57):
temperature of the water waslike. I remember the stuff that
was in the sink. I rememberscrubbing the sink down after
everything was done, and beingsatisfied when I rinsed all the
soap suds out of the sinkbecause I was present while I
was doing that task. And justsaying that might sound kind of
(21:18):
stupid, it sounds a little weirdto me, but like, I think there's
something inherently wrong withconstantly needing to have
multiple things going at thesame time, constantly needing to
have some kind of stimulus,whether it's watching things on
(21:39):
social media scrolling, or whileyou're doing a task, you have
your headphones in and you'relistening to a podcast, or
you're listening to music. Ithink that drive to always have
extra things going on isprobably not good. And I, I know
that. I, I could tell that itgets worse sometimes, because
(22:03):
sometimes I'll be like, I'll beI'll be like, on the couch, I'm
playing video games on mylaptop. I'm also looking at shit
on the phone, and I got afucking movie playing. Like, do
I really need all of that? Can Ijust do one of those things,
like, that's just crazy, I don'tknow. So hopefully that made
(22:25):
sense. I think I've kind of,like, run through the gamut of
everything I was thinking. Butyeah, so I guess the takeaway
for me, and what might help you,is to kind of, if this is
something that's affecting you,it may not be the phone, it may
be other things, thedistraction, in and of itself,
is a problem with you workingtowards what it is that you're
(22:48):
trying to achieve. So whateverthat is, and for most of us, I
think it's the phone in someform or another, whether you
check your email or whetheryou're on their social media, or
whatever it is, there'ssomething about the phone that's
constantly pulling us to pick itup. So what I'm thinking, I'm
going to I'm going to do, inaddition to the things I've
already talked about, and I'mgoing to try this tomorrow, is
(23:14):
I'm going to do my normalroutine, but I'm not going to
let myself look at the phoneuntil I have at least three of
my powerless tasks done, soputting a little distance
between starting your day andjumping right into the kind of
endless distractions, like I cansee that being very help
(23:36):
helpful, and then also justtrying to incorporate more of
those zazen style actions,where, if I'm sitting there
petting my dog, that's the onlything that I'm doing, if I'm
talking to Jesse, that's theonly thing that I'm doing. I'm
not not reaching for my phone.I'm not doing any of these
things. And I think that, Ithink that's a more healthy way
(23:57):
to live, and eliminating some ofthose distractions, you're going
to buy some of your time andyour energy back in order to
accomplish the things that youactually want to accomplish.
Unknown (24:15):
All right, good. Appreciate each and every one of
you guys who are supporting thecause and continue to spread the
love and yeah, stay up.
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