train your attention span SO GOOD it feels weird to scroll

Okay, you've watched enough videos on how to stop scrolling, how to lock in, and you're finally ready to get your life together. You've maybe decided to take your studies seriously, or pick up a hobby like crocheting, coding, boxing, pickleball, calisthenics, anything, just to get you to stop scrolling. But during the first few days, you're actually finding it hard. You sit down to do the work, but 5 minutes into it, you're already itching to just scroll again. For some reason, you can't finish that damn painting you started, or even worse, you haven't even started at all, you've just been researching. If this sounds like you, then you might have a very, very concerningly short attention span. You might even think you have ADHD, unless you're actually diagnosed with it. But if you watch until the end of this video, in full screen, no looking at the comments, no 2x speed, no looking at other tabs, close everything right now, without doing anything else, like no folding your clothes, no brushing your teeth, just stop everything, just focus on my face, listen to my voice, don't fall in love though. But if you do this, and watch until the end of the video, you'll have improved your focus by at least 1%. No BS. Now that you've seen the hook of the video, and you're probably thinking it's gonna be easy, then you're mistaken. You wanna improve your focus, and de-stimulate yourself. This is how it's going to feel like. From now on, I'm not gonna put any subtitles, no b-rolls, no edits, or maybe a few trims but for the rest of this video, completely opposite from what you've seen earlier, I'm gonna try to make it as simple and de-stimulating as possible. So good luck. I'm not gonna BS you, this is gonna feel uncomfortable, agonizing, terrible even, but I dare you to finish this video. So why are people suddenly talking about attention span these days? It has become a popular topic, because I found this study that said 20 years ago, people had an attention span of 12 seconds, specifically the millennials. Today, Gen Z's now have 8 seconds of attention span. It has decreased to 3 seconds. You might already know the reason. I have like 5 year old cousins that I live with, who spend 5 hours a day on YouTube Shorts, and I guarantee you, by the time they're like 15 or something, they're probably gonna have an attention span of 5 seconds. I don't know. It's scary. It's concerning, for sure. But that's how this whole decrease your attention span, do dopamine detox thing is going. Here's the thing though, this is not our fault. We did not ask to be born in this age of technology and social media and unlimited, endless content and information. Assuming you're also a Gen Z, then we knew that we grew up with literal content machines that are built to keep us scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. So just to put it out there, don't worry, this isn't entirely your fault. So you can stop thinking that you have ADHD again, unless you are actually diagnosed with it. But it is, whether we like it or not, our responsibility to fix this. So right now, our baseline is probably like, our baseline for being entertained or being stimulated, our baseline is probably like all the way up there. It's just a ray of heaven. It's at an all time high, again, because of the short form content or just the algorithm itself. Notifications, the Spotify playlist you play while you're brushing your teeth or literally just showering. And the obvious unsexy answer is to just do the complete opposite, to be able to pull down that baseline and actually be able to focus because you're not going to be needing to constantly depend on quick hits of dopamine throughout your day. Let's just do the complete opposite. Instead of being stimulated, which is so obvious, just be bored. Just learn to embrace boredom. Back then, and I mean like one year ago, I literally could not stand a minute without checking my phone or at least just having my phone in my hand. I could not stand longer periods of time without that. But nowadays I've trained my attention span so good to the point that I can confidently and comfortably leave my headphones at home when I go outside, or I can even just go for a walk for like 15 minutes without my phone. And I achieved this, I believe, or I remember from doing these two simple things. One, throw my phone in the ocean. Just kidding. Make my phone boring and to do boring ---- or build boring habits or like just those two, they're the same thing. So we're taking this all back to the basics. I assume you know this already, but if you don't, here are the basic of the most basic steps to take right now. One, turn off your notifications. Literally just go to your settings, turn off every single notification for every single app that you have. If you're worried that you're going to get an emergency or you're not going to get called, sure you can like keep the notifications on for messages, you know, like the basic message app or your phone app where people can call you and stuff. Usually that would still, in like my phone, that would still be, I would still be notified for things like that, but it's very rarely because very rarely will I have emergencies. Second one, I don't see most people talk about this, but I guess instead of deleting your social media apps, you can download a minimalist launcher app. So for example, for Android, I use Olauncher app. I'm just going to link it in the description. For iPhone, I'm sure there's this one thing called, one app called minimalist phone. Yeah, there's a lot in play store or app store. Just start using that. Honestly, it's like have changed my entire life when I started using minimalist launcher. So basically what it does is hide icons from your phone, like the app icons itself. So my phone right now is just, when I open it, this is the only thing it shows. That's my home screen. That's it. That's my home screen. These emojis are like the apps. So that's like the calendar, Google, notes app. And then to find like the other apps, I just, there they are. I don't know if you can see, they're just words, the apps, the app icons are basically just words. But yeah, this just makes it so that your phone just looks more unattractive. Also, another thing I guess is to like get a boring phone case as well. Take off like the, you know, like the little booboos that they put on top. I never have one of those. Take it off. Also like the, a strap, lace, something that you attach on like the side so that all those stuff just makes your phone look more appealing to yourself. You're just putting yourself in a trap and your phone looks nice. You just pick it up every single time just because you want to pick it up. So yeah, make it physically look unattractive. And the third one, this doesn't actually make your phone physically boring, but it's something I used to do and still do now because it just reduces my screen time and my tendency to pick up my phone the most. Every night before you go to sleep, take your phone, go outside, go out your room and find a room in your house that's far away from your bedroom and hide your phone there. Just hide your phone anywhere in that room. Just make sure your phone is not going to be near you in the morning when you wake up. Because when you wake up, I want you to try not to check your phone for at least minimum, at least one hour after waking up. This automatically reduces your screen time or again, your tendency to scroll because you're not going to start with your day with immediately scrolling. OK, so how are you feeling right now? I hope you're not dying. Someone's knocking on the door. Oh my God. So have you done the basic things? If you have, congrats, you've gotten rid of the main distraction. You've gained hours of your time back just in a day. Now what the heck do you actually spend it with? Now obviously the first thing is the studies or the hobbies that you wanted to focus on in the first place. You can do this first thing in the morning literally to replace the time that you spend with scrolling first thing when you wake up. Plus, if it's going to be your priority or whatever your priority is, then it's best to do it first thing in the morning just because it's a priority. Aside from this, you can also build boring habits. Well, maybe boring to you right now because of, again, your baseline, but habits that actually become fun after a few weeks of doing it. It might not sound possible to you right now, but trust me, just be consistent with it. This might be stuff like exercising, different types of exercising, maybe like running, any sports, calisthenics. It could also be meditating. That's something I also did back then, but I'm gonna be honest right now, I'm not doing it as much. There's also journaling, my personal favorite. It's something that I did the most back then. I was able to spend hours just writing and writing whatever thought comes to mind. And if you really just can't not consume right now, then I guess you could either read books or watch long form, almost unedited content like this. Obviously, it has to be something of your interest so you actually like what you're watching and you're learning from it. And here's the catch. I want you to watch it from start to finish. Again, with no other distraction and just focus on the thing that you're watching. And I don't care how boring or uninteresting it gets, you should at least try to finish watching it till the end. It also helps you so that you're not constantly clicking away and finding other content to consume. And it makes it so that you get used to being uncomfortable, which is again, the complete opposite of always being entertained, stimulated. And finally, another, I guess, unpopular habit that I tried was to, when I had nothing else to do, I just did nothing, literally just stare off into the distance or zone out. For example, when you're waiting in line or like commuting or walking to school, resist. I just resisted trying to reach for my phone. What you do instead is entertain yourself with what's already in your surroundings. You can literally just observe everything from the people having conversations, don't be a weirdo though, to the buildings passing by or heck, even an ant on the floor. The point is to just try to be present in the moment and again, embrace the boredom. Because if you didn't know, you're allowed to feel bored. You're allowed to not do anything. And most especially, allow your thoughts to come into surface. Because I know most of the time you're trying to not be bored or trying to not do anything because you're trying to avoid thoughts. You're trying to avoid your own thoughts and the reality of everything, maybe stress, something just unpleasant. Facing your thoughts is uncomfortable, which is exactly the habit that we should try to get used to if you want to enhance your focus and your attention. Because after a while of doing this, you'll find that it's really not that bad. And again, this worked for me because that was basically rewiring my brain to not have to depend on quick hits of dopamine throughout the day, where I can just sit with my thoughts, watch people pass by, look at the sky and think. So it's basically like the way of the monks. So congrats, you've made it to the end of the video. You've got a taste of what it feels like to be bored, probably bored of my voice, bored of my face. If you actually watch to the end without any distractions, I know it feels uncomfortable, agonizing, terrible. That's what dopamine detox basically is. You gotta use willpower for the most part. It's not fun, but I guarantee you will get more things done. Once you stop depending on these quick hits of dopamine, then you will actually feel almost free and liberated. It will be hard in the start, but like any other thing, it will be worth it in the end. You will literally be fine without your phone anymore, which you probably think is a crazy thing to say right now, but trust me, you can stop being a slave to your phone because this whole thing, the brain rot is honestly so concerning. I, again, I see it in my five-year-old cousins, scrolling YouTube shorts and crying whenever their parents or whenever I take their phone away from them, just throwing tantrums whenever they don't get to watch YouTube. It's crazy. I securely hope things turn out for the better and hope attention span of people in the future won't go to five seconds. Yeah, that's really it. That's all. That's the video. Goodbye. This is the first time I've actually got some light in my room so I'm taking advantage of it. Also, my voice doesn't sound right right now because I have some cold. I have a cold.