You're stuck in these loops through little fault of your own. Our environments are engineered to be very addicting; tech products train our brains to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom.
Trying to fight against this with just willpower alone is an uphill battle. Willpower fluctuates throughout the day, and (supposedly) it is a finite resource per unit of time. You may win a few battles, but the strong cues in your environment remain, and will likely snare you next time around.
It's hard to resist the temptations because they are pleasurable and salient rewards in the here and now, in a way that longer-term, more abstract goals (read a book, stop wasting time on junk info-snacking, etc) can never be.
Ulysses contracts bridge this gap by pulling the longer-term, more abstract goals into the here and now, endowing them with an immediate saliency of their own. Now your new habits can fight on the same ground as your old habits.
Examples: the person who, in trying to quit smoking, gave a friend a check for $5k and promised that if she smoked again, she'd have to report herself to her friend, who would then donate that money to the KKK.
Examples of my own:
- I jettisoned caffeine by promising my spouse that for every caffeinated drink I took, I had to give up in proportion something I love dearly (e.g. skip a day of meditation)
- I cut down on online boardgaming by promising a friend that I would only play with him -- and should I play with an online stranger, my friend would receive $5k and proceed to squander it at the poker table. (Making the resulting outcome of your contract breach, something that stings, that is visceral and has an emotional valence to it, it key to making the contracts successful).
It also helps to engineer your environment. Remove the cues and temptations. I've had more mixed success with this. But quitting FB, Linkedin, definitely removed strong loops. (My brain fought like hell against their absence, then after the three week mark, never a peep again. Goes to show the arbitrariness of our cravings)
You're stuck in these loops through little fault of your own. Our environments are engineered to be very addicting; tech products train our brains to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom.
Trying to fight against this with just willpower alone is an uphill battle. Willpower fluctuates throughout the day, and (supposedly) it is a finite resource per unit of time. You may win a few battles, but the strong cues in your environment remain, and will likely snare you next time around.
It's hard to resist the temptations because they are pleasurable and salient rewards in the here and now, in a way that longer-term, more abstract goals (read a book, stop wasting time on junk info-snacking, etc) can never be.
Ulysses contracts bridge this gap by pulling the longer-term, more abstract goals into the here and now, endowing them with an immediate saliency of their own. Now your new habits can fight on the same ground as your old habits.
Examples: the person who, in trying to quit smoking, gave a friend a check for $5k and promised that if she smoked again, she'd have to report herself to her friend, who would then donate that money to the KKK.
Examples of my own: - I jettisoned caffeine by promising my spouse that for every caffeinated drink I took, I had to give up in proportion something I love dearly (e.g. skip a day of meditation) - I cut down on online boardgaming by promising a friend that I would only play with him -- and should I play with an online stranger, my friend would receive $5k and proceed to squander it at the poker table. (Making the resulting outcome of your contract breach, something that stings, that is visceral and has an emotional valence to it, it key to making the contracts successful).
It also helps to engineer your environment. Remove the cues and temptations. I've had more mixed success with this. But quitting FB, Linkedin, definitely removed strong loops. (My brain fought like hell against their absence, then after the three week mark, never a peep again. Goes to show the arbitrariness of our cravings)