If you use Forest app (or similiar Pomodoro-style app) to stay focused, I have bad news for you:
Needing this app means you have issues concentrating. Forest is a (literally) temporary solution. A quick fix. A band-aid. You need to fix your underlying issues for real deep work.
I’m writing this, because I’ve been there. I used to wake up and scroll Reddit for 30 minutes. I would check Twitter and Facebook maybe hundred of times a day. Anytime I was bored, I had to do something with myself, with my mind.
Now I wake up and I don’t know where my phone is. I can sit down and read a book for an hour. I can keep Twitter on my phone and not use it. I am perfectly focused when I work. My phone is in a different room and I don’t care.
I do have my Screen Time limits set up, but they are not the primary driver of my behavior. They are there just for the case. To make sure I don’t slip when I get tired.
I inverted my relationship with the Internet. Being online used to be the default mode. I would be online during breakfast, during lunch break, and right before I went to sleep. Hour to kill? Browsing through Netflix for 15 minutes looking for the right dopamine hit.
I changed my default mode to “pacing through my apartment being bored”. Taking out the trash. Cleaning out the sink. Just thinking, maybe scribbling some notes. Laying on the couch and staring at the ceiling for 10 minutes. Journaling, or writing an article for my blog.
Before, being offline and focused was the temporary mode. Forest app is a way to manage this temporary state. You set a timer for 30 minutes, and you stay offline during that time. Oh, but how painful it is sometimes, isn’t it?
These days, going on the Internet is my new temporary mode. First, I think about my intention — I’m trying to pick some furniture from Ikea, fine. I go online and keep in mind I have a goal. No mindless browsing. Get to the cart quickly. Then turn it off again.
You will never focus if you keep going online as your default mode. You’re struggling, because you try to get those good, focused 30 minutes. But you won’t succeed until you have good, focused 24 hours. You need to tip the scales. Your focused offline time needs to be much greater than your unfocused, distracted online time.
I’m writing this, because I feel like everybody is talking about external constraints (Screen Time), but the real issue is on the inside. Get to a place where focus is easy. If you have to struggle, you’re doing something wrong. You’re not free of this addiction.
