Close your eyes and envision this: You sit down to work on your goals, but as soon as you open your phone or laptop, you're bombarded with notifications from apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, and more.

It's only been 10 minutes since you started, but you already feel overwhelmed and need a break. You grab your phone and start replying to messages, losing yourself for 20 minutes. After that dopamine hit, you try to focus again, but it's almost impossible to think clearly.

This is most people’s lives. It’s mundane. losing hours of their day in a brain fog that prevents them from sitting down and investing time in cognitive work. This is why they often don't achieve their goals and end up in jobs they don't enjoy.

I was once in this situation myself, spending four hours a day playing video games,doom-scrolling, and watching self-improvement videos without taking any action to improve my life. No wonder I felt depressed! And this is the reason why most teenagers are facing mental health issues. They are trapped in their so-called solitary confinement.

So, how did I get out of this rut? The most pivotal step I took was to eliminate my phone addiction.

I quit social media. I deleted Instagram for 9 months. I eliminated Snapchat and made a challenge not to let my screen time go above 1 hour a day. I am not saying that it’s an obligation to delete all of it and go extreme, you might have a business of yours on Instagram but it’s not that you don’t watch reels and doom scroll on it. What about Snapchat? Is it benefiting you in any way? Answer that to yourself and then make the decision.

Try building a habit of opening your phone only when you intend to open it. You will experience discomfort in the initial stages but when you’ve become used to it, you’ll always think before opening your phone, reducing your screen time and saving hours per day. There’s an app called“one sec”, download it, and how it works is you set apps that distract you and end up taking hours of your day and whenever you try to open it, it will show you something fascinating that will have a profound effect and you’ll end up making better choices. Try it yourself.

Another tactic I used is to just keep your phone away from you when you’re about to work on your tasks. Keeping it in the other room, giving it to your mom and asking her to give it to you only when you NEED it, etc.

This addiction isn’t something that will dissipate overnight. You’ll have you consistently do it regardless of the urge you feel to go back right into that comfort bubble. Develop mindfulness by MEDITATION so that your awareness increases making you more alert to not jump into these brain-damaging activities.

Make a schedule ( I talked about it in my previous letter) and fill it with meaningful tasks and scheduling breaks where you can use your phone. Another massive tip is switching to long-form educational content instead of watching high-dopamine short-form content (reels, shorts, etc). Listening to podcasts is by far the best thing you can do to educate yourself on the things that aren’t taught in our day-to-day lives. Books too is amongst one of the greatest sources out there to educate yourself.

Actionable steps:

• Realize that if you don’t surmount this addiction, it’s only going to be detrimental and will turn into a predicament.

• Stop feeding your brain with cheap dopamine low-form content. Instead, start watching podcasts and educational long-form videos.

• Develop mindfulness through meditation so you’re more aware of your actions. The app called “one sec” will help

• Make a schedule, filling your days with meaningful tasks so you don’t have enough time to waste on your phone.

• When you’re about to pick up your phone, ask yourself if you’re picking it up for a genuine purpose or just because you’re bored and want some entertainment. Develop intention.

• Keep your phone in a different room.

• Start a challenge of limiting your screen time to 1 hour, 2 hours or more according to how much you work on your phone.

Cheers to your path of leaving mediocrity and separating yourself from the masses!