The apps I use casually most frequently are Spotify (music stimulates my brain enough for me to just sit and do The Thing™), google docs (for school projects, since it is free), google sheets (for personal finance tracking or class content schedule), TikTok and Tumblr (for entertainment), YouTube (for white noise to fall asleep, and for my learning project), urcourses (for classes), and gmail (shifting things from my phone to laptop, or cause others need to chat with me) to name a few.
I kind of explained what I use each app for, but I use Spotify, google docs, google sheets, urcourses, and gmail for productive purposes. I kind of free-for all my productivity (I need to be assessed for auDHD <3).
I often get stuck scrolling TikTok or Tumblr and before I know what is happening, three hours have passed. I have a Focus Function which I turn on on my phone to minimize distractions (but the distraction is often coming from Inside The House–by this I mean that I will attach too much meaning to a character and the brain rot will not let me stop thinking about them //again, I need psychiatric help//). When my mind will not Be Quiet, I write down the loops repeating in my head and this seems to get them out enough to stop replaying.
//If you were wondering what characters I am currently hyperfixated on, they are Andrew Blur, Riley Sowell, and Sam Halse from Lee Mandelo’s Summer Sons. This link will send you to an article about Summer Sons written by Sharade.//
If I cannot be trusted to stay on task by myself, I will move to a common area—be that my living room, the Archer Library, or a public study area–so that the social pressure of needing to be productive forces me to be on task.
There are absolutely no strategies or boundaries I have established for myself to ensure a healthy relationship with technology, which is a problem, but one I don’t really see changing.
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I have a friend who has ADHD. She told me that when she got medicated for it, all the chaos in her mind finally quieted down. I hope that you can experience something like that too! Don’t be afraid to ask for help, and hopefully once your mind is quiet, you can implement healthy boundaries with technology too. 🙂
Bernice
Hi Ashley, I also find that I need white noise when trying to fall asleep. I have found a podcast called “I Can’t Sleep” on Spotify, that has been amazing for putting me to sleep. The creator finds articles on Wikipedia that most people would find quite boring, and reads them aloud to help listeners drift off to sleep. I typically set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes, and am usually fast asleep before I even notice the timer turn off.
~Stephanie
That sounds so awesome (genuinely). I may have to check that out!
I feel you Ashley! I to find I am most productive when I put myself in situations where I do not have at-home distractions. What I do is designate one day a week for homework and other house chores. For me, it is Monday. To satisfy my social media addiction I put on a dull video or podcast that interests me. Another thing I do is actually go down to the Owl for some food and a drink after class and I will often spend an hour or so working on homework there. It is good to see other people struggle with what I struggle with and potentially share solutions that work for us
I find that telling another person ‘I don’t wanna do it’ or that I’m ‘not gonna do it’ helps to switch my brain’s track into wanting to do The Thing™!
Your brain fascinates me. I’ve never heard anyone speak about an attachment to characters like you have; it’s so interesting! I’ve definitely gotten caught up in a good book and perhaps lost some sleep over one or two, but I can’t say I’ve experienced anything like repeating loops. Thanks for your vulnerability in sharing this!
//They are in a rotation in my brain with other characters (mostly from books but some shows as well) and nearly anything reminds me of at least one of my blorbos–a term coined on Tumblr, which just refers to ‘personally beloved characters’. Depending on the day, a different little fellow will dominate my thoughts, sometimes to the point where I physically cannot rip my thoughts from them//
It is hard to shut off those distractions! However, it seems like you have a solid grip on things and actually use a good amount of productive apps when using your “screen-time”. I personally am trying to move away from things like social media (still a sucker for YouTube and Instagram, I need my memes and football highlights), but if you get your stuff done then your social media usage can’t be too big of an issue! However it seems that your strategy of moving to a public work space is a good strategy that you have in place, in case things ever do become a distraction. Thanks for this blog post, it was cool to see how our strategies differ from one another!
I can definitely relate to the feeling of catching yourself on social media completely consumed. I like the ideas you have about working in a common area, my issue with this is that I will just get distracted by what is going on around me. Personally, I listen to some Lo-Fi hip-hop and it puts me in the zone to do work.