Chasing Dopamine and Accomplishment Porn
Chasing Dopamine and Accomplishment Porn
Distractions happen, progress falters, and lessons were learned.
I have numerous journaling prompts, maybe they’re just check in bullets, that I have in my morning journaling template on Notion.
Each morning I review: my current state, my yesterday recap, my today plans and what I’m grateful for in my life.
I have these in Notion, so I can review them later… but I never do. Until today.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I accomplished last week. Those handy little prompts did something great, they clarified my memory.
I couldn’t recall any accomplishments because I didn’t have any.
I know, I know. Be optimistic. Make lemonade. Look harder.
The unfortunate truth is, I know that I didn’t, and I know why.
Distractions, Focus and Chasing Dopamine
Honestly, I had a couple of great newsletter posts last week. I’m proud of them and glad for the expanded reach I made. I made less progress on Medium. No, the problem isn’t in what I created, it’s in how I got around to it.
Simply put, I like to play video games. I also have some impulse control issues occasionally, and then I’ll pile on some time blindness.
No, I got some things done, but not the things I wanted to do and not to the scale I had intended, and it’s all because I got distracted by accomplishment porn.
My biggest goals for July are at least 1 good audience profile for what I’m writing, but 2 is ideal. My other goal is to have one clearly defined offering, something that of value that I’ve created and that I can offer to those who choose to spend their time with me. Again, 2 would be ideal, 1 is more than I have so far.
Right now I have loose frameworks for each, but they’re behind schedule.
Lessons Learned
No matter how motivated I’ve been when I start my day, if I let myself start playing any kinds of games, I lose track of time, and then I lose all of that precious creative energy.
The lesson learned last week is to lock my mornings down, as early as possible. The other is to get out of the house in the afternoon and spend time ‘off site’ so I’m again more focused on getting things done.
Gratitude
When I looked at my last week review, I saw that I struggled with some gratitude that was meaningful. Filling out those prompts in the afternoon was me, but more mentally lazy. Gratitude is a dish best served warm.
I’m grateful for those prompts which made it easy enough for me to poorly document my life and for the ability to pull them all up at a glance, easily. It was helpful to see 7 (or less) entries right next to each other.
What’s Coming Up
I’m moving my Medium writing style into something longer form with more research. I’m also using that as a platform to write sections for my e-book. That e-book is focused on some ‘entry level’ ADHD knowledge. Learning why we do the things we do, the areas that are commonly affected, and ways to ‘get started.’
I’m also wanting to get my ‘Business’ section set up for this newsletter so it’s easy to see how things are going or where they’ve been.
Finally, I mentioned above: Reader Personas and Offerings. One of the offerings is a Notion template for task and project management with a bias towards ADHD struggles. That’ll be covered over in my Channeling Chaos newsletter.
Thanks for Reading
As always, whether you’re reading emails or in the app, I appreciate everyone that takes the time to read and comment.
Namaste n stuff