hey guys,

kinda nervous to post this but ngl my mindless scrolling habit got so bad recently that I was wasting like 6 hours a day on endless short-form feeds. standard app blockers didn't work for me because I would just turn them off or bypass them.

so I got frustrated and coded my own strict blocker (Android).

the concept is kinda ruthless:

• it locks whatever specific distracting apps you choose.
• you want 15 mins of screen time? you have to put the phone on the floor and literally do 15 pushups (or squats/planks). 1 rep = 1 min.
• the catch: I hooked it up to an ML camera tracker. so you can't just lie on your bed and wave your hands to fake it. if your chest doesn't go low enough or your form is trash, it rejects the rep and flashes a red error.
• if you try to uninstall it or go to settings while locked, it instantly kicks you back to the home screen.

I’m getting ready to launch it soon, but I want to be fair about monetization because I know subscription fatigue is real rn.

my questions for you guys:

1. what is a completely fair price point for this? would you prefer a cheap monthly sub (like $2-$3/month) or a one-time lifetime buy (like $20-$30)? what's the max you'd drop on this without feeling ripped off?
2. what extra feature would make this an absolute instant-buy for you?

roast the idea or give me ideas, I'm just a solo dev trying to make this actually useful. appreciate y'all.

No cost, no catch, no coaching, nothing to buy.

I'm starting a small accountability group and I'm looking for 4 more people.

Who it's for: people who feel undisciplined and distracted, who want something big but keep getting in their own way. If that's you, read on.

How it works:

1. A group of 5 on a private Discord voice channel. Voice only, no typing.
2. One call a day at 14:30 UTC (8pm Delhi, 2:30pm London, 3:30pm Berlin, 10:30am New York until US clocks change on 1 Nov, then 9:30am). 25 minutes at most.
3. First, 1 minute each: did you do what you said yesterday, yes or no, and what you'll do today. Five minutes and the check-in is done.
4. Then it's open. If a discussion gets going, stay for the rest of the 25 minutes or drop off. Your call.
5. Honest tracking. Wins and misses both get said out loud and noted. A miss is noted, never mocked.
6. Nothing else. No selling, no links, no advice unless you ask for it. What's said in the group stays in the group.
7. You can stay anonymous if you like. Nobody asks anything about you.

The commitment: show up every day. Miss 3 days in a row and your seat goes to the next person. Leave whenever you want, no questions asked.

English only, 13+ (Discord's rules). Any country, as long as 14:30 UTC works for you every day.

Want in? DM me and I'll send you a single-use invite. The group starts as soon as the first person is in.

I'm struggling to figure out how to manage my time, and I'd really appreciate advice from people who've been through something similar.

There are so many things I want to explore and achieve. I want to learn new skills, work on projects, improve myself, and make the most of my time. But with college classes, unexpected tasks, and other responsibilities, my schedule rarely goes exactly as planned.

I often end up feeling overwhelmed by everything I want to do. I procrastinate, struggle to decide what to start with, and sometimes spend so much time thinking about what I should be doing that I barely make progress.

The frustrating part is that I genuinely want to work toward my goals. I just haven't figured out how to balance everything without constantly feeling like I'm running out of time.

For those who've experienced this:

• How do you decide which goals deserve your attention when everything feels important?
• How do you stay consistent when classes and unexpected commitments disrupt your plans?
• What actually helps you overcome procrastination when you have too much on your mind?
• How do you make meaningful progress without sacrificing sleep, health, or your peace of mind?
• If you've gone through this phase, what changed the way you approached your time and goals?

I don't want to squeeze every minute out of the day or follow an unrealistic routine. I want to learn how to make steady progress, explore different interests, and achieve meaningful things without constantly feeling stressed or guilty about what I haven't done.

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who have managed this while studying or starting their careers. What genuinely worked for you?

For context, I now live less than a mile from where I work and have to go into the office 3 days a week. I am currently waking up anywhere from 6-6:30 because of my dogs (breakfast time) and then don’t need to leave the house until at the earliest 7:45. I start at 8 but I’m salary so there’s no clocking in/out, so it’s okay float in after 8am.

I’m getting frustrated because I’m literally already up but I have so much time in between that I get tired and fall back asleep sitting on the couch. In the summertime I can at least take my dogs on a walk or sit outside but I don’t feel comfortable walking them before the sun comes out now. I know I could go to the gym but I don’t always want to leave the house and I personally prefer to workout at lunchtime or evenings.

Anyone in a similar boat and can share what worked for them?

Hi everyone!

I'm a Master's student in Communication at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and I'm working on an assignment about doomscrolling and social media.

I'm interested in understanding how people explain their experiences of scrolling for longer than they intended. In particular, I'm exploring the relationship between personal self-control, recommendation algorithms, and platform design.

If you're comfortable sharing, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on any of these questions:

• Have you ever continued scrolling even when you wanted to stop? What do you think kept you scrolling?
• Do you think your own habits and choices play the biggest role, or do features such as personalized feeds, autoplay, and infinite scrolling also influence your behaviour?
• Have you ever felt that an algorithm kept showing you similar or increasingly engaging content?
• Who do you think should take responsibility when people find it difficult to stop scrolling: users, social media platforms, or both?

There are no right or wrong answers. I'm interested in different perspectives, including people who don't think algorithms play a major role.

Participation is entirely optional. Please avoid sharing anything personally identifying or anything you're uncomfortable discussing. I will use responses only as permitted by my course requirements and any applicable research-ethics guidance.

Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective!

Hello there! I, M22, want to improve my life because I am unhappy with my current situation. So far I made a list of things I want to improve on:

- My social interactions, how I come across to others and how to make friends

- My attention span, study habits, overall knowledge and intelligence

- My mental health, selfcare, coping mechanism, self confidence, morning and night routines

- My current occupation

- Hobbies

What I already do is:

- I visit the gym 3x a week, HIIT 2x a week

- I do atleast 10K steps a day

- I focus on eating whole foods while not restricting myself

- I go on a walk for 30mins after every meal

- I journal twice per day

- I go for a walk through the forest every morning where I dont cycle to the gym

- I dont use my phone an hour after I wake up and before I go to sleep

- Brush my hair and teeth, wash my face

- Make my bed and keep my room clean

- Check my Emails daily

My current problem is that while I do want to improve on the things I have listed I find myself overwhelmed and unclear where to begin. These are pretty broad topics with alot of smaller topics hidden underneath and with the vast amount of information available it is hard to figure out where to invest my time into aswell as the fact on what to start with since I realistically can't improve on everything at once. So my question is simple:

- Where do I start and how do I focus on it?

I don't know what happened to me, honestly.

I used to be that guy who wanted to do something big in life, who had aspirations and wanted to make something out of himself. Now I don't even have a goal I'm genuinely working towards.

My days have become so repetitive. I wake up, attend lectures at uni, barely understand anything because of my backlogs, come back to my room, scroll on my phone, eat a meal or two (not even proper meals sometimes), and repeat.

The worst part is that I'm aware of how badly I'm wasting my time, yet I don't seem to do anything about it. I hate this version of myself who's become so unserious about life, especially when I remember how motivated I used to be and how much I wanted for myself.

I don't know if I've become lazy, lost my motivation, or just mentally exhausted. I just know that I don't want to keep living like this, but I have no idea how to get back on track.

Has anyone else gone through a phase where they felt completely directionless, like they'd lost the person they used to be? How did you get out of it?

I never post anything in here but since I would have really appreciated reading this post many years ago I will try to potentially help others with what I've learned over the past few years with regards to discipline.

A bit on my background, closing in on 40 with a good career in finance, wife, daughter, house etc. Always been athletic and in good to great shape but over the past 5 years, since the pandemic really, I've started to slowly but surely gain about 10kg of weight despite trying everything imaginable to not do so. I kid you not I've tried everything. Apps. Systems. Read all the books. Tried all the diets. Gamification, fasting, everything. But the thing that happened over and over again Is that I've created yet another super rigid system (think 75 hard or other diet restrictions) and I would fail repeatedly. I've probably had more than 100s of such restarts and since im a stupid perfectionist, I would not allow myself to continue with a system once I inevitably failed. Instead I would create a new version of a system and start over again on the next Monday or next month or quarter or whatever. And if the calender didn't make sense I would in the meantime binge on food because come Monday I would never do so again. These “last meals” would over the years lead me to gain these 10kg instead of get in better shape because I would get dopamine kicks from constantly restarting and despite the feeling of constantly being on a diet.

Only recently I have realized that the rigid systems I created were not suited for my personality. I have changed jobs every 2-3 years over the past 15 years (always upwards). I have moved houses about the same amount of times. Moved to a different country. Tried many different sports but never stuck to anything. I guess people would consider my life so far successful but I realized my strength is that I love change, I love adapting to new situations, I love exploring new things. But for the longest time the definition of discipline for me was to force myself to eat the same foods every day, created perfect weekly routines that would fail every time in my busy life of being a father. All these habit trackers and gamified apps were absolutely wrong for me because i am terrible at boring tasks and can't built any consistency at any fixed habits. Instead I thrive in chaos and constantly adapting to new situations.

So a few months ago I threw all the habit trackers out of the window and just embraced chaos as discipline. I still work out daily but it's never the same week. The meals aren't planned anymore and as a result I can't fail any plans anymore and will not allow myself that dopamine kick of bing eating and planning the next system.

Im sure there are disciplined people out there that enjoy consistent habits, but I just wanted to write this text for others like me and encourage that you can meet all your goals without perfection and strict routines. Embrace the chaos and build your own kind of discipline!

Can work burnout lead to depression and a constant need for a dopamine rush ?

I’ll keep it short started a job 2 years ago. Last year got bought out by private equity. Leadership gets laid off or quits every 6 months. Have had about 4 switches of leadership since I started. Nothing is working properly no room for growth since everyone is in survival mode and initiatives get changed every 6 months. So we are just left fixing/blamed for the last leaderships initiative.

Before this I never really struggled with work ethic or happiness outside of work. I would use my phone a normal amount at work. You know a break every 2 hours or so for a quick 5 minute Reddit session.

I would go to the gym 6 days a week. I would play video games a healthy amount 2-5 hours a week more maybe if I really got hooked on something. Would read a book or watch a tv show.

But ever since this work thing started around 6 months ago. I have lost all motivation at work and in my personal life. I spend almost all day at work listening to YouTube videos or browsing Reddit while working. I’m addicted to my phone now but it doesn’t bring joy. Now with video games I have this unhealthy addiction I try to play at least 1 hour a day but I don’t enjoy it I hop from game to game trying to find happiness.

If I’m at home cleaning or doing a chore that takes 5 minutes I need to spend 10-30 minutes finding a YouTube video to listen to. It’s like I’m trying to maximize my joy but I never actually feel joy anymore. I stopped going to the gym because I feel I need to spend more time playing video games or doing another hobby. I never really enjoyed the gym but I did used to push myself to go and always felt better after.

My life has not changed much all my hobbies are the same except I try to do them any chance I can to the extreme and I don’t feel joy. And the big change of no gym is this a deeper addiction or depression? Or all tied to work I’ve never felt like this and I hate it

As the caption says I have ADHD (combination type) and I've really been focusing on trying to work on my discipline. My biggest issue is that for some reason a routine makes me depressed😭 anytime i have the same 2-3 days the following day I'm absolutely depressed. I can't do it. How do I combat this? I've been known for no routine is my routine and I can't do anything the same twice. Its like a curse lol.

I started reading Atomic habits and I feel the book just gives me a motivational boost and then i'm back to square one. Yesterday I woke up early and started a list of things to do and did some halfway. But then I suddenly had an insane creative surge and then I spent the rest of the day focusing on all my different creative projects. I literally made a basketball highlight video for my brother like who told me to do that 💀

I think I need to have some sort of reward system like a dog lol but idk what would be most effective. I know I'm more of a visual person so I bought huge calendars to combat missing deadlines. I think motivational quotes help trigger getting stuff done but I always fall off. I tried medication(s) but I hate the crash. Also most of the times I'm just hyperfocused on the wrong thing anyways. It's not something I want to go back to bc I do think its possible for me to have a disciplined life without meds and with just a game plan. I was extremely disciplined as a kid, but I'm 100% certain it was due to anxiety. Now that Im older I have no anxiety and I just accept whatever my consequence is like ok life moves on😭 I'm also confident on fixing whatever problem arises from my lack of urgency to things. Which I think enables me.

So did any ADHDer here find ways to help build discipline that works well with the neurodivergent brain? I feel sooo hopeless sometimes about this and I just have too many creative projects I want to start and complete. Funnily enough it's why I wanna be disciplined and not that I'm behind on things that should have more of a priority.. 🙄😒

after work and everything else is done, it makes sense to want some time where you can just sit down and do whatever you feel like.

scrolling is easy when you're tired. you don't need to plan anything or have the energy for a hobby. you can just get comfortable and watch a few things.

the difficult part is stopping while you still have enough time to get ready for bed and sleep when you intended. there's always something else to finish watching, and another ten minutes doesn't seem like a big deal until you've done that several times.

i'm interested in people who managed to keep some evening scrolling instead of cutting it out completely. deleting every app or having a really strict evening routine sounds difficult to maintain when you still want that time to relax.

did choosing a stopping time actually work for you? did you need something that prevented you from extending it, or did having something else to do make putting the phone down easier?

i'm especially curious about what happened after the first week. it's one thing to stick to a new rule when you're motivated, but what helped you keep following it when you were tired or had a frustrating day?

what helped you keep the downtime without it turning into another late night?

I'm inherently immature, I'm childish, I'm lazy, and my priorities revolve entirely around what other people think about me and my insecurities.

I can only act if people are looking, or if I'm in hot water.
The only reason I've gotten away with being the way I am for so long is because of the support systems I was born into.

I am so disgusted with myself, and I'm still not ready to do the work to change. I feel entirely trapped in my patterns, and I say that as if I don't constantly make the choices that set them in motion.

I know what I need to do: build distress tolerance and open myself up to negative judgement. I've been trying to put myself out there, just taking hits and turning the other cheek as of late, but I need to do a lot better. I need to go all out and accept the misery of doing stressful things.

I pride myself stupidly on my self-awareness, but it's really just this shame-spiral excuse where I'm like "it's not my intention to be the way I am because I'm aware of it and I also agree that I'm full of garbage, so vindicate me." Ironically, this is exactly what this post is doing.

Looking for brutally honest advice.