Tired of Blocking?

In my last article i introduced some tools to avoid getting sucked in to the distractions of our digital surroundings. However a friend of mine mentioned that he, even if he manages to stay away from distractions, will just get bored and does not know what to do with the time he gained.

Well thats a devils circle. Getting away from all your distractions gives you the time you thought you were after. Only to realize that the gain in time filled your days with so much boredom, you dont know what to do and quickly get back to consuming the exact same media you tried to get under control. This is a real struggle. When i started to block everything, YouTube, Social Media, even News Sites i spent too much time on I found myself in the exact same situation as my friend. Usually i first got extremely tired. And thats no wonder..Your brain is used to the dopamin hit so that its basically waiting in sleep mode. This is totally normal and getting through that first day is the first step to enforce new day to day routines.

Now with which new habit or activity should you start to compensate for the loss in unhealthy activities? Well no one really can tell you. This is something you have to find out. Is it to do more sport, eat healthier or simply wake up earlier?! When you think about a new routine always keep in mind to quantify the new task. Do not make the mistake and tell yourself to do more sport. That is too generic and will lead to failing. You have to exactly measure. The best way to quantify is by time to spent. Because this is what you have in control. If you want to run 10 km each day, how would you feel if you only managed to do 9? Time is a much better measurement. Spent 1 hour on running is only bound to your time commitment, not to a successful task-execution.

However implementing new routines can be challenging. If you try to implement a task too overwhelming or simply too many, you will quickly find yourself in front of a screen again. Therefore i strongly advise to first implement one routine: plan the day ahead.

Planning the day ahead can help you to first of all focus on the planning only. Write down which tasks you have to do tomorrow and mark them by colors according to their priority. Here is a good and easy color coding:

• Red = Has to be done today and is time urgent
• Orange = Still of high importance but can be done later
• Yellow = Important but has no immiment deadline
• Green = Optional, no deadline. Nice to do
• Blue = can be delegated to others

Different from what you think the first task to do in the morning are actually the blue tasks. They can be delegated and communicating them first thing in the morning gives the other person the maximum amount to finish with the task. Other than that the order is self-explanatory.

How you manage your planning is up to you. There are a lot of ways to keep track and create new tasks. Generally speaking something like a Kanban board is propably the best way to start. You can use apps, whiteboards or a sheet of paper. But make sure to keep it in reach and eyesight. This helps to not loose focus. I personally use a combination of a whiteboard for household-tasks, as I see it all the time when Im at home but not when outside where it also does not have as much relevance. Another advantage is also that my girlfriend can assign me new tasks and sees which ive done already (Task creation for Household shores is her specialty). For everything else i use a tool called timestripe. Its philosophy is basically a task = goal = event. So a task can be a meeting or bringing out the garbage. It also allows for assigning tasks/goals to a bigger goal. Cleaning the kitchen today might be a subgoal of the week goal of organizing the apartment. Im still new to it, but currently like it a lot.

Summary

• Expect to get tired the first time you block stuff
• The first routine to implement should be to plan the next day
• Assing quantitive time goals to tasks to not get demotivated by non-successful task-execution
• Find a tool to keep track on tasks (app, whiteboard, paper)
  
  Thanks for reading
  - Bastian